Kevin Pietersen has become the latest cricketer to be caught out on Twitter and could find himself in hot water with the ECB because of it.

We have highlighted the cases of several athletes around the world who have come a cropper recently and Peterson has shown that when the red mist descends then Twitter can be too easy to use.

With so many journalists using Twitter to gain latest scoops must have thought Christmas had come early when they saw this come up in Peterson’s stream.  At the moment there are no rules as to when and where players can use social media, plus I imagine no training by the ECB, clubs or agents for their prized assets on the do’s and don’ts.

You will probably have seen/read that Pietersen found out he was to be dropped from the England team for the first time since his debut back in 2004.  To say he wasn’t happy about it is an understatement as his tweet reveals although he has come out to say it should have been a direct message (DM) and not gone out into the public domain.  It still doesnt excuse the language used.

It is generally understood that players are not allowed to comment about team squads until after the official announcement is made.  This tweet came out several hours before and was soon picked up by blogs, new sites and TV across the globe.

Even though it was hastily removed it had already been seen, copied and pasted.  These things are impossible to undo no matter if you hit the delete button or not.

After Azeem Rafiq’s ban and fine for abusing the England U19 team development manager  on Twitter (plus being caught out late whilst on duty).  There is no doubt that the ECB will have to take a tough stance with at least a fine.

Talk is about a new rule being brought in banning centrally contracted players from using social media on the Ashes tour this winter.  The ECB claim to have reminded players before now about using social media responsibly, but how much training/education did they actually give?

This would be a massive over reaction but one you can see happening when you have technophobes such as Geoff Miller as an England National Selector.  His reaction was unfortunately obvious;

“I don’t like that kind of language and I don’t use that language at all.  I don’t follow Twitter and I’m not a great believer in that kind of thing. I don’t think it is necessary. I’m still the national selector and what I do is select sides with my co-selectors that we think is right for England. My priority is the England side and it is not about individuals.”

It doesn’t hold out much hope for the advocates of social media within the England team or ECB does it!

This shows a very archaic view compared to our cricketing compatriots in Australia who show a much deeper understanding of the benefits of its use. 

Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s operations manager, said there would be no social networking bans placed on the players. “At this stage it’s really important that we are about growing the game and embracing the future, and young people are a critical part of it,” he said. “We want young people to be associated with the game.” The coach Tim Nielsen has signed up to Twitter and even the team manager Steve Bernard is using it.

And captain Ricky Ponting is equally enthusiastic about the benefits, “You won’t see us banning our players from doing that sort of stuff,” he said at the team’s camp in Queensland. “It is your job as international players to promote the game and be the best you can for the game. If we can use social networks, if that brings people closer to the game, brings people through the gates to play, then that’s what it is all about.”

Ponting has 11,000 likes on his Facebook page and vice-captain Michael Clarke has 42,000 following his every tweet.  Showing that they practice what they preach and see that for every slip and PR shocker there they are far outweighed by the use of social media for a better future.

“The biggest thing we face as international players is … everyone knows us with the helmet on but very few in Australia, or around the world, actually understand what we are like with the helmet off,” Ponting said. “If there are ways to express yourself then feel free to do that. I am totally all for that, as long as it is done the right way and within reason.”

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For many months now we have been evangelising on the benefits to sports stars of utilising social media.  It has helped bring us, the fans, closer to our favourite sports personalities such as Shaq O’Neill, Lance Armstrong, Rafael Nadal, Christiano Ronaldo and many more.

In this time of openness and transparency we are also seeing a clampdown by certain sports as they try to find a balance between giving their athletes freedom to speak to their fans but keeping what and when the say it in check for the good of the team/sport.

Twitter has brought this to a new level as it is so easy to send out a message on your phone at any time or place, sometimes not to the liking of their employers.  To give you a few examples of this on both sides of the pond I have highlighted a couple of these unfortunate souls;

Concinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was fined $25,000 for using an electronic device to post messages on Twitter during a pre-season game.  Why is this such a bad thing?  Well, the NFL has banned players from possessing electronic devices during games and from using social media 90 mins before kickoff until the end of post-game media obligations.

This rule is replicated in the NBA as we see sport in the US attempt to control how social media is used by athletes whilst encouraging them to do so in helping to increase the reach of their sport.

Back here in the UK the most recent example we have is England U-19 cricketer Azeem Rafiq reacting angrily to being dropped by writing that coach John Abraham’s was a “useless w****r”.  This has lead to a ban from cricket for 1 month and a £500 fine.

England cricketers are now potentially facing a ban on using social media on the upcoming tour of Australia if media reports are to be believed.  Apparently the England management see them as a potentially divisive influence which could lead to dressing room secrets being leaked.

I hope it doesn’t come down to that as most of the senior players have a valuable presence online, especially Graeme Swann, James Anderson and Steven Finn.  With the fact that the ECB have recently hired a Social Media Executive themselves they obviously see social media as a valuable asset for now and the future.

We have yet to see a majority of footballers in the UK using Twitter but it is becoming more common with Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Savage and many others doing a good job so far.  Once it becomes more popular and we see the first incident of a player being punished for tweeting during a game then I am sure we will see similar rules being applied as in the US.

With the Social Media & Sport Summit only a couple of days away and with all the football clubs attending, I thought now was the perfect time to revisit Ash’s article from back in January (when UKSN first came into being… our 2nd ever article I think!).  

Ash did some great research into which clubs from the English Premier League were currently active on the two main social media platforms with some interesting results.

The results from our two studies do vary, widly in some cases, which is for a couple of reasons.  One will be that a club has made a big push into social media in the last few months and its numbers have shot up.  Another will be that I have concentrated on what I can see are ‘official’ channels and not pages set up by fans, so others will change to zero in some cases from before.

If you know of any official sites I have missed then do leave a comment with a link and I’ll have a look and update. 

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With the World Cup in full swing and England about the face the old enemy Germany in the last 16 there is an alternative way in which to find out the last news and views.  iSport Global and Synappsis have launched the must-have World Cup app every England fan will be desperate to own.

‘Geoff Hurst’s England 2010’ features exclusive video, daily World Cup diaries, competitions and all the latest news, scores and group standings from South Africa.

Sir Geoff will add video analysis of all England’s opponents, his thoughts on other teams and the players to watch out for during the tournament. The former West Ham, Stoke and WBA striker will also tweet on anything that catches his eye throughout the African tournament.

Using iTouch unique flick gestures users can slide through his bio, honours and profile before moving on to his own personal picture gallery and exclusive videos.  The latest news comes from Sir Geoff’s daily diary, so you know what is happening, as it happens.  Users will also be able to enter unique competitions for signed Sir Geoff shirts every time England play throughout the World Cup.*

Once 50,000 downloads have occurred iSport Global will draw one lucky winner at random to win a meal with seven members of the 1966 World Cup winning squad at a Gary Rhodes restaurant (Terms and conditions apply).  When they reach 100,000 users, iSport Global will draw one lucky user at random for the ultimate fan experience – a private meal for two with Geoff at his favourite London restaurant.

The app is available to all iPhone, iPad and iTouch users.  So join England’s legend of ‘football’s coming home’ as you cheer the Three Lions on with ‘Geoff Hurst’s England 2010’ app.  Its available in the Apple store and iTunes right now.

Follow Geoff @ twitter.com/sirgeoffhurst and his Facebook page.

A different way to follow the World Cup with the legend that is!  If you know of any other unique/different apps, technologies or places of interest then let us know.

Since social media started to gain popularity in sports around 2008, we have seen the same question asked to leagues and teams “Do you have a social media policy for your players?”.  Do teams tell players what they can and can’t tweet?  Until now, we weren’t really sure.

There  has been players fined for criticising the catering of training camp, and last years NBA and NFL guidelines on when players can tweet, but never have we seen a policy on what to tweet.  Taken from this Mashable article, New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis tells us how the Jets handle it with their players:

There are certain things both the NFL and the Jets try and prep you on with how to use Twitter.  Some people still say whatever they want and that gets you in trouble sometimes … There’s also some people just don’t want to interact with fans and at first I wasn’t even on Twitter.  But I started seeing how it was progressing and people were showing it to me so I got into it.  I was missing out.

Thanks to @JSHU06 we found out one way the Jets try to implement a policy with their players.

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There is an increasingly common misconception about ‘social media’. It is a phenomenon that is still rather loosely interpreted and with sufficient uncertainty surrounding its true meaning to warrant the need by some firms to segregate it into a separate box within its annual marketing and PR plans.

This has led to an influx in recent years of specialist digital PR firms, experts and social media strategists, all of whom are – quite legitimately – finding new business with brands or companies who are not truly au fait with all that social media entails. But sometimes even the most expert of experts cannot fully capitalise on the various social media opportunities that arise hour by hour, day by day.

In Formula 1 circles, there has been a notable increase in the use of Twitter as a communications platform this year, which has been a huge step forward in bringing Formula 1 fans closer to the action on track and behind the scenes. This revolution has been sparked by the need for journalists to satiate the immense hunger of the F1 fanbase who are always after the next morsel by laying claim to the next big story or the most insightful backstage feature.

It has also been helped in no small part by the openness of the new teams and their drivers who have embraced social media unreservedly. While the new teams have adopted social media as their communications tool of choice, it is unlikely that they have a specific strategy on how it should or should not be used. And that is no bad thing. In my own experience of social media, the moment you start to stifle it is the moment you start to go wrong. With anything as open and engaging as, say, Twitter, there comes an unwritten invitation for the public to criticise, to deride and to attack the brand, but in equal measure there is the opportunity to praise, commend and – most importantly – recommend.  Ah, yes, the power of an endorsement.

An excellent example of an organic social media success story in recent weeks was with the tongue-in-cheek GrandPrixDiary.com and German race driver Timo Glock. Below is a brief background to the story and how Glock’s team Virgin Racing used an out-of-the-blue social media opportunity to bolster its own reputation online. GrandPrixDiary looks at the world of F1 from a very sarcastic viewpoint. Its founder has made no qualms about the site’s sincerity, but instead offers a light-hearted and comical look at Formula 1.

When Virgin Racing driver Timo Glock started to use Twitter, there was an overwhelming culinary feel to his content. From a quick coffee to lunch in the motorhome to dinner in a restaurant, Timo would always tweet a photo. GrandPrixDiary pounced on the subject and quickly developed a column called Ready, Steady, Glock! (for those not familiar with the TV show Ready, Steady, Cook! its premise was to challenge chefs to cook a meal from an unknown bag of ingredients in under 20 minutes).

The column reproduced Timo’s Twitter images and presented them as if from his own German recipe book. Cue meals such as ‘Pizza mit der ham und mushrooms und olives’ to ‘Double chocolate cake mit Ice Cream’. After the Turkish GP, GrandPrixDiary challenged Timo (via Twitter) to participate in F1’s first ever online cookery show, Ready Steady Glock, offering Twitter followers the chance to submit recipes for Timo and his girlfriend Isabella to cook during the weekend.

Succumbing to a barrage of online pressure, Timo agreed. In fact from here on in, it was Timo’s own enthusiasm for the challenge that really propelled it forwards. The winning recipe was selected and announced on Twitter through the @grandprixdiary page, as well as through @realtimoglock, with suitable fanfare, and thus the shopping trip was set.

The winning entry, submitted by Kathryn Bird, was Marinated Chicken with Virgin Olive Oil followed by Timo’s Truffle Chocolate Puddings. Timo promised to tweet photos of the shopping trip as well as images from the cooking challenge itself, which he duly did. Credit also to @VirginRacing who recognised the growing stature of this online competition and agreed to supply a prize to the competition winner. The team has agreed to cook the winning recipe in its hospitality area for team members and guests at the weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.

As Rob Sinfield of GrandPrixDiary.com explains: “Ready, Steady, Glock! would not have happened were it not for a combination of Virgin’s laid back style and Timo Glock’s now obvious sense of humour. We never set out to be cruel but we do like to prick the precious F1 bubble. So, referring to Glock as ‘the 5th best German in F1′ and then writing the cookery column in an ‘Allo ‘Allo style could have easily offended him but once he got into the idea it was he that drove it. The photo diary of the day is hilarious, he even decorated the fridge.

Once Virgin saw the fans response they too embraced it. The feedback I have had about Glock has been immense; he has scored a hit here. Now he has turned the tables, organising his own competition via Facebook where I have to cook a meal of HIS choosing with the winning recipe provider getting the cap he wears at the Canadian Grand Prix. A whole lot of fun has been had by all.

F1 must encourage this sort of participation with its fan base.” The outcome has been a hit for all concerned: – The GrandPrixDiary site has a heightened profile with endorsement from Timo Glock and Virgin Racing – Timo Glock has engaged directly with a website who were portraying him in a comical light and turned potentially negative comments into a massive positive – Virgin Racing has used an impromptu social media competition between one of its drivers and a Formula 1 fanbase to derive positives for its team – Formula 1 fans have been able to gain a closer connection to both team and driver via a social media portal and to have a bit of a laugh along the way.

So it doesn’t always need a carefully honed social media strategy to enhance a brand’s reputation online. Sometimes, it just takes a sense of humour and a willingness to engage socially.

Tuesday, ( 1^st June), was a massive day for the England national team, and for us the fans, as this was the day England’s final 23 man squad for the upcoming World Cup was announced.

A day which started out with great promise for the FA ended up being a very mixed one, and one that they probably learnt a lot about the social media world from, so without further ado – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

The Good.

The day started very well for the FA, with the launch of their new “Believe in England” Facebook app which allows fans to get their very own England squad number and display it on their Facebook profile.

The app seems to have exploded onto the scene, I discovered the app early on in the day and got the squad number 323, and in just over a day there are now 29,214England fans (as of 10am Wednesday) who have claimed their squad number.

The numbers 1-23 are taken up by the England players, with a number of shirts also given away to famous England fans such as Tim Lovejoy and Ray Winstone. Other special numbers include 66 representing  the Bobby Moore foundation, 2012 representing The London Olympics and representing the England 2018 World Cup bid.

This app is a great way for the FA to spread their “Believe in England” message and also drive greater connection and engagement with fans.

The Bad.

There was mass speculation around who will be the unlucky 7 dropped from the squad since England’s game against Japan, and this speculation naturally came to a boiling point on Tuesday with thousands upon thousands of England fans predicting who would be dropped and who would make it.

The FA had said that the official squad will be announced on TheFA.com at some point Tuesday, and of course there was always going to be speculation amongst fans and I’m sure the FA expected this – it’s when this speculation started to come from various journalists and respected news sources that it all started to gain a head of steam.

From what I understand Fabio Cappello wanted to speak to the 7 dropped players personally and let them know about his decision, and I think that is the best way he could have handled the situation – if you’re dropped from a World Cup squad the least you deserve is a personal message, and I think Cappello was spot on with this approach.

Where this approach fell down however was via social media – had the FA underestimated the power of Twitter? And the speed at which news can travel nowadays?

With the 7 players seemingly being told that they’d been dropped at different times throughout the afternoon, it was always going to be difficult to keep it under wraps. News of Darren Bent’s exclusion was first to break and was confirmed on Twitter by one of his friends, and the biggest story of the day – Theo Walcott’s absence from the squad – broke soon after, and I believe one national paper had even run a story about this on their website well before the official squad announcement.

By the time The FA Tweeted this message “Plenty of speculation about #EnglandSquad, but rest assured this and TheFA.com will be the first place you hear confirmation of final 23” at around 2 O’clock most of the fans already knew the major stories and could name at least 5 of the dropped players.

As I said earlier maybe the FA had underestimated the power of social media and what started out as a big win for the FA with the launch of their “Believe in England” app, turned into a bit of a shambles with the squad announcement, and as Chris Hughes said in his recent article: Did they really expect the rejected players to keep quiet in the many hours between the dreaded phone call and the FA announcement?

The Ugly.

From early on Tuesday morning the FA said that the official squad announcement would be put up on TheFA.com, which initially I thought made sense as it would be easily accessible (I thought).

However, from around lunch time if you wanted to check the FA’s official website you were going to struggle, the site was taking an age to load – I’m guessing due to the high volume of traffic seeking out the final England 23 – and eventually I just gave up with checking the site and found all the information I needed via social media. I wasn’t alone in doing this either, I noticed many other Tweets from people complaining about troubles with TheFA.com.

In the end I didn’t look at the official site to see the final squad, I already knew most of it from Tweets and speculation flying around, once the squad was confirmed (and even before) the news was up on hundreds of other sources (which all loaded).

In hindsight, maybe TheFA.com wasn’t the best place to announce the final squad?

Conclusion.

I’ve not written this article to get on the back of The FA, and I hope it doesn’t come across this way. It’s great that they are getting involved in social media and as I stated at the top of this article their new Facebook page and App is brilliant and a great way to further engage fans prior to the World Cup, I just feel that their approach to social media with regards to the squad announcement and also their website could have done with a bit more planning.

How do you feel the FA could have handled this situation better?

Tuesday was judgement day for England Manager Fabio Capello as he named the 23 men who will board the jumbo to South Africa for this month’s World Cup.

A rather dismal 2-1 win over Japan on Sunday (with Japanese players scoring all three goals) was apparently enough for Capello to make up his mind, but he kept tight-lipped until yesterday’s much anticipated announcement. Ironic then that after all the secrecy England football fans found out from Twitter, albeit unofficially, which seven players would be dropped from Capello’s initial short list of 30.

The moment that Theo Walcott’s name was mentioned as one of the casualties, the Twittersphere erupted. The young teenage sensation who was unexpectedly called up to the 2006 squad having never kicked a ball in Premier league competition was now equally unexpectedly omitted from the 2010 line-up. 

But rather than nip the leak in the bud and bring forward the official announcement from its allotted 3pm time slot, the FA instead delayed it to the tune of one hour. Did the FA or Mr. Capello not expect names to leak, for speculation to be rife at what is the biggest single piece of news in English football this year? Were there not contingencies in place to counter Twitter rumour? Or for that matter did they really expect the rejected players to keep quiet in the many hours between the dreaded phone call and the FA announcement?

One person played a stroke of PR genius and that was Walcott himself who immediately issued a statement saying:  “I am very disappointed not to be included in the squad going out to South Africa, but completely respect Mr Capello’s decision. I would like to wish the team the best of luck and hope they have a really successful tournament.”

A brilliant move. Not only did he manage to steal a march on the FA and Fabio Capello but he showed grace and maturity in wishing the team well in South Africa. He might not have won a place in the final 23 but his PR tactics are world class.

The Daily Telegraph summed up the feelings succinctly when Claudine Beaumont signed off with: “Fingers crossed the England team has a better grasp of formations, tactics and training methods than it does social media…”

And there is the crux of the problem; there continues to be lack of appreciation for the impact that social media platforms are having in sport. Traditional press releases and web announcements still have their place but sometimes the weight of expectation requires more urgency and a better understanding of a fan’s resourcefulness.

Mr. Capello and the FA would be wise to learn from this experience because the path to World Cup glory is not paved with generous Japanese defenders…

I set out a challenge for myself for this weekends UEFA Champions League Final. I wanted to see if I could let only the internet and social media keep me up to date with the game. The TV was in the next room, but I wasn’t going to let myself off that easy, I spent the next two hours on the computer to see if I could emmerse myself in the moment

Here are the best bits.

Twitter

I logged into Twitter, and it told me straight away what was on the tip of the tongue of the sporting world. Promotion battles from the Championship in English soccer where fairytale story side Blackpool were promoted, and also the lead up to the Champions League Final.

Twitter.com Trending Topics 

Trending Topics

Next part of call was to find out the trending topics from around the world. First worldwide, then from soccer crazy Mexico, and equally crazy London.

How do trending topics differ? 

When Diego Milito finally scored the first goal of the match, it took only 5 minutes and 15 seconds to appear as a trending topic in Sao Paulo, Brazil which was the first place in the world for it to become trending.

Goooooooalllllllllllll! 

And Milito became a worldwide trending topic, 29 minutes after the goal. Without having a global superstar playing such as Ronaldo, Messi or Rooney, it hurt the ‘trendability’ of the game as those players would have easily become a trending topic. This showed in the lack of a prominent player in Twitter’s trending topic. As you can see below, Arjen Robben from Bayern Munich without even scoring a goal, was a more popular topic worldwide than the goal scorer.

Diego Milito enters the world psyche 

There is no doubt the game also suffered in it’s lack of team star power that Manchester United, Barcelona or Real Madrid would have brought. They would have brought fans from all over the world, in particular Asia, and sent the teams trending higher. By the end of the game, region specific players began trending, like Argentine Cambiasso from Inter Milan.

Argentina is near Sao Paulo… 

Even England managed to find the only thing relevant to them in the game…referee Howard Webb.

Boo Webb 

Company Promotion

Nike were more than happy to promote their stars, Nike sponsor the Inter side on the whole, but also a few individual players.

#Hashtags for all 

Search

Finally just by a quick Twitter search, you find out what’s hot. At the end of the game, after his second goal, Milito was piping hot in Twitter searches.

20 new searches every 15 seconds after the final whistle. 

Other Social Media

Both on Facebook and SocialMention I was monitoring the action.

Tweeting about Maicon, Nike took you to Facebook. 

SocialMention.com tries to find all the mentions of your search keyword across all social media platforms as well as blogs. Here were the search results for Milito

Too much info? 

Gowalla

Yep, Gowalla rose to the occasion too, getting on board with the graphic artwork for the stadium.

Go Walla-being awesome! 

Great artwork as always by Gowalla 

Web

That old Dinosaur. I used Soccernet at ESPN to keep up to date with play by play coverage, and then took that info back to social media to get the feeling of the average punter.

Two teams, one cup. 

Shouldn’t he be in Paris? 

Two Screen Theory

There is a thought in both the TV and digital industries that viewing has now becoming a multiple-screen experience. The two screens could be a TV and a laptop, a TV and an iPhone, a TV and an iPad, a TV and a kindle, whatever it may be there are two screens in your vacinity at the same time. Formerly when you watched a live sporting event you could only have a discussion with those in your room or on the phone, with social media you are now having that discussion with the world. You are watching the game, whilst doing a tweet, blog, email, MMS, whatever takes your fancy but you are interacting with two devices at the same time.

Not a glowing reviewThis is making watching live sport without a TV much easier and a more interesting experience for the end user.

Social media does give the immediacy I was looking for, with-in seconds of his goal I had tweets and Facebook statuses telling me about it, and 5 minutes after Diego Milito scored the goal he was a trending topic in some parts of the world, which was almost immediate enough for me, I almost felt like I was there…

Obviously I could have streamed the video or audio of the game, but I wanted to remove that from the game and see if I could still get involved. I was following general banter on Twitter as well, sadly most of it was negative.

So I’m almost glad I didn’t see the game, but all in all the experience was a great experiment.

When you think of local footy you think Saturday afternoon, catching up with mates, reasonably priced hot dogs and some very cold weather. Technology doesn’t come into it, but that is starting to change. The Caufield Bears from the Southern Football League are one of the few local football clubs that have put an emphasis on digital technology.

Why social media can be so beneficial for grass-root sport is that it’s free and to succeed all you need is somebody with a little technical know how and plenty of motivation. There is no reason why local footy clubs can’t have an online presence just like professional teams do, and Caufield has proved this. Not only is the team fantastic with social media, but the league’s President is on Twitter too.

When looking at Caufield’s approach to the internet and social media, what do they believe are key areas to succeed?

Website

Steve Hewla has recently taken over management of Caufield’s website with a goal of offering new content on the website every other day. Apart from the news you expect to hear such as the weekly selected teams every Friday and then match reports every Monday after the game, he also includes player profiles, sponsor information, special offers as well as general news stories.

Twitter

Steve recently set up the Bear’s Twitter account. What is so great about Twitter for local footy clubs is that they can push out the latest news as it’s happening. If there’s a team announcement on the Friday they can give a link directly to the club’s site, if there’s a team change it can be announced via Twitter on the Saturday before the game. The immediacy that Twitter offers the Bears’ fans and members is something that local footy has never had before.

It’s all happening at Caufield!

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