Your reputation as a professional and as a professional athlete is just as important as you winning the game or making money. If an athlete’s reputation is down or he does something to hurt his reputation multiple things will happen. For one, people and fans wont like you and secondly, other teams and players and coaches might begin to dislike you and that could lead to not playing sports anymore.
- What is reputation management?
In chapter 25 in The Social Media Bible, it talks about reputation management and how it is important to oneself. If someone says something negative about you, don’t you want to know about it? Unlike conventional media, it’s okay to engage. Most of the time the author of the negative press is only looking for engagement.
- What’s the Rule?
Rule number one: always take the high road. Never condescend, get angry, and respond inappropriately with bad language or attacking the author. They have the right to say what they want, even if it is idiotic or hurtful.
Carmelo Anthony learned that the hard way. Anthony is a professional basketball player with his own brand and he tweeted last season:
• “Happy New Years Eve! Start the year off right with a pair of pre-release M10s.” He wanted people to buy his newly released shoe.
• A fan or Anthony’s tweeted back at him: “@carmeloanthony how about you win a ring you ___ kill me man rooting for you all the ___ time you always disappoint me.”
• Anthony responded with:”@__Kingsleyy5 I didn’t ask for your glazed donut face ass to root for me anyway!!!!”
This goes to show that eve athletes, who get criticized everyday of their lives, cannot even prevent themselves from responding to the negativity about them sometimes.
Professionals and businesses should retweet good tweets and disarm bad ones. They need to use the opportunity to drive customers away from having bad conversations on Twitter and drive them instead to a blog or positive page.
The last tip that the Social Media Bible gives is to never delete a bad comment on your blog. If it used inappropriately, then delete it but if it hurts your feelings, address it.
Life Under the Scope 