Chris Syme, principal at the strategic communications social media company CKSyme Media Group, has produced a series of articles on student-athletes and social media and student-athlete social media training.
Syme is a former athletic communications professional, featured presenter at numerous CoSIDA convention and continuing education sessions year-round, and a frequent contributor to CoSIDA.com. She is co-sponsored the current CoSIDA "Social Media Best Practices in College Athletics" survey, now available to the membership. Those who participate will receive a FREE video on training student-athletes and coaches.
Follow Chris on Twitter: or on her blog/website: ckyme.com
Author's note: This piece is part of my continuing series on the essential elements of crisis prevention strategies. Even though this piece is aimed at crisis in college athletics, the principles apply across the board to all organizations.
In a recent series on student-athlete training, Syme addressed and expanded on these essential elements:
The essentials of social media training for students.
What student-athletes need to know about social media best practices.
What students need to know about social media privacy.
What students need to know about personal branding with social media.
What student-athletes need to know about cyber harassment.
See also: This SlideShare presentation was composed for high school student-athletes, but is an excellent source of examples and information for college-aged student-athletes and coaches as well: Social Media Training for Student-Athletes: Tips for Responsible Use (by Kaydee Gray) LINK
The basic reputation of a college athletic brand is directly connected to its student-athletes: how they compete, how they do in the classroom, how they lead and serve those around them, and how they present themselves on and off the field. With the overwhelming majority of 18 to 22-year olds active on social media, our athletes are playing out their lives in the public eye. Despite that fact, in latest research from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) revealed that over half of the responding schools did not provide social media training for their student-athletes. Many departments are sitting on a ticking time bomb.
In a crisis study of organizations, Altimeter found that as many as 76 percent of crises experienced by organizations could be averted by a social media readiness plan that includes training. So my question is, what are we waiting for? Whether you bring in an outside provider or facilitate the training with internal staff, the results are the same. With some attention to these basic principles of training, 100 percent of athletic departments can provide effective social media training for athletes, and lower the risk of a reputation-killing event.
Treat training as an empowerment strategy, not a list of rules.
Social media is a powerful tool. It has the ability to build and the ability to tear down. I know we may be weary of hearing the term best practices, but there is a huge difference between making rules and laying out best practices. One has to do with external pressures being applied (rules) and the other has to do with internal choices being made (best practices).
That’s not to say we shouldn’t lay down some rules. There are lines that should not be crossed. Wherever those lines are for your department, they need to be universally communicated so that when people cross those lines, they know they are consciously making a choice to step over that line.
Let’s take messaging apps as an example. Many people perceive a mistaken level of privacy when using them. But rather than prohibit their use, I find that students respond better when I give them adequate information to make a good decision about if and how they should use them. They see that as a sign of trust. As a trainer, I don’t tell students not to use Snapchat, WhatsApp, YikYak, Whisper, or any other messaging app. I found that when I did that years ago,
the message fell on deaf ears. Instead, I started to give them better information about how to use them responsibly if they chose to go that route, and outlined the dangers in using them irresponsibly. I want to teach them how to think, not what to think.
What I do now is give them all the necessary information to make good choices: privacy information, reputati
on of applications, pitfalls and traps, cyber harassment risks, and alternatives. I specifically outline the dangers of irresponsible social media use as it pertains to their future careers and their reputation.
I might not care for the apps, but I know that it is not about the application itself, it’s how you use the application. I talk to them about the dangers of using social media irresponsibly everywhere. They can get into trouble on any application.
Make sure you include the essential elements.
Effective training can go a long way to protecting the athletic department brand and building effective social media habits in your student-athletes and coaches
. Providing the training in-house will take some work and many athletic departments don’t know where to start or have the time to develop their own training. But, with a basic curriculum guide, any department can develop its own training regime that reflects the culture and mission of the department. There are four key areas that should be present in your training:
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Privacy training. Include an overview of how (and why) to control personal privacy plus specific information about platforms that are particularly tricky or troublesome.
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Social media best practices. Here is where you include your rules or policy, and screenshot examples–preferably taken from your own student body.
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How to use social media for personal branding. This is where the power of social media to build reputation/brand comes in.
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Cyber harassment. What is it? How to lower your risk. Reporting procedures.