AT LAST, CLUBS HAVE CONTROL
BEAT SOCIAL MEDIA DEMONS
THE internet has proved a blessing in disguise for us all this century but can you honestly say the same thing about social media?
The fact that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have made their inventors millionaires many times over suggests that the medium which is used by so many is popular because it gives information to people.
Clubs and leagues can tell fans when matches are on, when players come and go and is an essential tool in today’s world. However, it is also a medium by which individuals can impart information – from what they had for breakfast to which matches they are going to – and, perhaps more worryingly, their views on various events.
At the Isthmian League, we said many years ago that if we were going to engage with the younger generation, we had to speak their language which meant that we had to engage in social media.
We first used Twitter for score updates so that supporters could tweet their scores and we would collate the scores and Tweet them out ourselves. The late lamented Peter Butcher masterminded that for us. We now have Live Scores through Football Web Pages and many supporters still rely on Twitter for score updates.
It is now no longer good enough just to have news stories on our website where someone can go to find the information, we have to actively deliver them to those who are interested via social media. The recipients can then “like” or not!
However, individual users are not always quite so careful with the language they use or with the way in which they engage with social media. We have seen many examples of historic postings coming back to embarrass people.
Researchers
The latest example of this was a player at Lewes, Ollie Tanner, who had attracted serious interest from Tottenham Hotspur. He is an Arsenal fan and had previously posted something adverse about Spurs. So, when negotiating with Tottenham, those posts came back to haunt him. In the end, he did not sign and those posts may not have helped him.
Society has changed over the years and postings which were thought appropriate when posted have now become inappropriate.
The Isthmian League is concerned about this and has entered into partnership with a company called Social Media Check (www.socialmediacheck.com) which enables anyone to check their own social media history, both public and private posts, to see if there are any skeletons in the closet.
The report produces what it thinks may be an embarrassment and allows the individual to edit or delete that post. It is undertaken by computer, not by individuals and on that basis, it is relatively cost-effective. If individuals were to employ researchers to go back through their own social media history, it would take many hours but computers can do this in seconds.
This is both good and bad. One of our directors lived in Denmark and used to post at that time. SMC not only checks text but also images and words on those images. Our director checked his social media and it revealed several times where the word “slag” had been used.
As it happens, this is a Danish word which means “type” but in English it does have another connotation. We believe that it is imperative that individuals can review past postings and have the chance to remove them.
I believe clubs may want to offer this when signing players in future to make sure that nothing can come out to embarrass either player or club.
I believe social media has been a blessing to all concerned but for those for which it is a curse, we believe that we may have found a way for our clubs and players to benefit.