coaching social media strategy

From the Canadian Centre for Sport and Law – email Newsletter Winter 2010 by Kevin Lawrie

Coaches – not just organizations – should have a social media strategy

… a coach must plan in the same way that an organization does. Individuals do not have hardcopy strategic plans, obviously, but coaches have goals to achieve (e.g., player development, performance, team communication, etc) and they have developed best practices for reaching their goals. Thinking about and evaluating these best practices can help coaches determine if/how using social media fits into their personal strategies.

Consider a coach who emails team reminders to players. The goal here is that players should be informed about team activities. Are the emails accomplishing that goal? Would the goal be better achieved if the coach text-messaged the players?

Consider a coach who talks with players about their school activities and future plans. The goal here is to get to know the players and better understand how to coach them. Would the goal be better achieved if the coach added the players to Facebook and viewed their profiles? What are some consequences or benefits of this tradeoff – face-to-face chats vs. unobtrusive online observation? …

This is a BIG issue in 2011.

The solution, I think, is to use Facebook. That’s where the athletes are. That’s the easiest place to reach them with YOUR BRILLIANT PLAN.

But to avoid Facebook problems, you probably need to set up a Facebook persona specific to you as a coach. “Coach Rick”, for example.

That’s not technically allowed on Facebook, though. Mark Zuckerberg only wants to have one Facebook page / person on Earth. (For some reason.) It’s common practice, though, to have two or more. As I do.