Athletes and Twitter: Consumers Beware

When I first started using Twitter, I couldn’t find many of my friends on it. Aside from the ones that are especially tech savvy or entering the communications field, many of my friends still don’t tweet. This left me one option: I decided to follow professional athletes. As a former college athlete and sports enthusiast, I found it interesting that I was able to track the everyday updates of athletes like Lance Armstrong, Dara Torres, Katie Hoff and Terrell Owens. Even their most mundane posts somewhat interest me. I hate to admit it, but following celebrities and professional athletes is kind of a rush. It’s definitely easy to see how athletes can leverage themselves through social media. They are truly able to interact with their fan base and build relationships.
An article on the Chief Marketer Web Site titled “Finding Ways for Athletes to Leverage your Social Media,” expanded my notion of how athletes might attempt to leverage their relationships with fans and consumers in the future. Previously, before the age of social media and web 2.0, the star power of professional athletes was limited to advertisements that involved a lot of input and control from a sponsor. For example, when Michael Phelps is in a commercial for Speedo, it’s likely that Speedo heavily influences what he says and how he says it. After all, they have an image to maintain and products to sell. Any level-minded consumer is well aware of this. Consumers understand Speedo pays Phelps, Phelps regurgitates what Speedo says, and then Speedo sells more products. But, what if it was less obvious than that? What if athletes could shamelessly plug brand names as seamlessly as they carry out day to day tasks like making dinner or practicing their sport? Enter Twitter: The micro-blog money maker.
In this article, the author talks about sponsors and brands letting go of some of their control and releasing it into the hands of athletes. This way, athletes can “integrate products into their lifestyle.” Athletes don’t have to only tweet about their trip to the supermarket. They can tweet about what they might have bought there or what product they absolutely can’t live without.
Too obvious? Some might think such verbal product placement would be too blatant for consumers to fall for. I thought so too until I found myself searching for a yoga DVD that a swimmer was saying she had just used.
Basically, social media opens up many new possibilities for athletes to really make the most out of endorsement deals and their brand power. Consumers beware, the casual twitter update make actually be a shameless, but smart, way companies are able to get their message across.