Dear ESPN- You’re Doing it Wrong

That's crazy. @sportsguy33, @jadande, @ptishow, @aroundthehorn and so forth have some of the best tweets. Not all sports related, but great stuff that enhances their brand. Really, what is and isn't “ESPN related” with their writers and reporters? Because so much of their personalities' success is their personality. Furthermore, they admittedly say that they rely on followers for ideas and takes on different stories. If you lose out engagement your lose some of your most interesting leads.

I agree with you 100%, Chris. Unless your Twitter account is specifically intended to be an update feed (like @nprpolitics), the social interaction is absolutely necessary. I heard somewhere else that involvement on Twitter should follow a 90/10 principle, where at least 90% of your updates should be interacting and giving away free, helpful information while less than 10% should be shilling your product or talking specifically about your brand.

Another company that really does a great job of interacting and being social, while rarely actually shilling their products is @SEGA. They respond to a great deal of tweets directed at them, they give away cool prizes every Friday, they help promote other video game-related tweeters (like @OCRemix) and bring a lot of personality to their tweets (a lot of talk about being a ninja).

What concerns me even more about the way the request is worded in your post, however, is that it sounds as though ESPN might actually be trying to limit what their employees say in their own personal Twitter accounts. That's frightening.

Absolutely right, Chris.

Yesterday, Sports Illustrated's Peter King wrote about his internal struggle on whether he should Tweet about some breaking NFL news or report it to SI editors. He decided to Tweet it instead. Here's the story: http://bit.ly/otGAQ (The Twitter part is the bottom section). A reader wrote in to his Mailbag to thank him here: http://bit.ly/ybY0I (again, at the bottom of the page).

SI seems to get it and it's helping them. ESPN seems to put up a “hip, cool” facade, but in reality they want control. The times are a-changin', ESPN!

Tom O'Keefe
@tomokeefe1

Talk to me, not at me ESPN.

I wonder if it's an ESPN edict or a Disney edict (seeing as Disney owns ESPN). I can't say I'm surprised it happened. I used to work at ESPN, and while it was definitely one of the more fun and “cool” places to work, it's still a corporation.

Absolutely right Chris, I hope ESPN listen!

I'd be real interested to know if this rule actually applies to their sports personalities – or just to the 'little people'. Twitter is probably considered a massive time suck by the people in suits, as they see more productivity and time frittered away. And yeah, this is probably a Disney edict (because, God knows, Walt wasn't a master at social connectivity or anything). The mouse does, in fact, have ears.

Simple, but well said, Adam. Do you think ESPN could be taking this stance because they don't want their people — but instead, the sports stories/personalities they report on — to be the story.

Either way, I agree they'd be wise to re-evaluate their stance. It's hard for me to support you or be an advocate for you if I don't know anything about you. Furthermore, people usually promote their peers with a story about said person. The less personality someone is allowed to show, the harder time we have coming up with that story.

What's most disturbing about this news is that many people look to ESPN as a leader in whatever ventures its people pursue. So there is a good chance some folks will see ESPN employees use Twitter this way and copy that example. That alone is reason enough for us to RT this post and help spread the word about what kind of engagement we're looking for on Twitter.

Thanks for helping us start that conversation, Chris.

They have a new show called SportsNation that relies on Twitter. Throughout the show they incorporate tweets and use Twitter for fans to answer polls/questions. Kind of defeats purpose of new show, huh?

Thanks for the shout out. I use twitter to have natural convos with people but I do use @crocs for crocs related stuff exclusively. So I can see a bit of both sides – but I wrote this on my blog because this comment would be far too long:

http://nosenseoftime.org/2009/08/espn-is-doing-…

It's tough to explain in words that line for “a bit of fun” but it's there if you're active listener, engaged, and just plain good. And you're one of the best…

Of every big corp, this is the org I least expected this from.

FYI, the ESPN memo itself is posted here:
http://thebiglead.com/?p=16916
It reads to me as if ESPN thinks that their employees can somehow completely separate their personalities that most have worked incredibly hard to develop, from their professions?! Isn't social media, in part, about the interweaving our our lives and work? Unless of course you work for ESPN!

ESPN loves to capitalize on personalities and big names (Simmons, Gammons, Kiper, Herbstreit, Andrews, Berman, Vitale…the list is endless) and it has succeeded largely b/c of those personalities. So, when presented with various outlets for these folks to connect with fans on a personal level and further grow the personalities, why would ESPN choose to limit it?

Perhaps it is because any one of those big personalities could leave tomorrow and not skip a beat. Simmons could take his 500,000+ twitter followers and his 1-2 million average column readers to any site on the net (including one of his own making) and probably prosper even more than at ESPN (and when his contract expires in 2010, we're likely to see this put to the test). The same is true for all the rest.

ESPN has become a victim of its own making, but trying to clamp down and control it now isn't going to help. Like your high school girlfriend who you helped coax out of her shell only to discover that in college she’s now the hottest thing around, trying to exert control is only going to push her away faster. Instead, ESPN should embrace the power of each of these personalities and give them a chance to use the power given to them through social media to drive traffic to the site and eyes to the set.

I read this via BlackBerry on the treadmill last night and could not comment for fear it would have been way to cryptic. I work in mainstream, traditional media. Always have. I know the mindset. I am in a position now to change things to some extent and even lead a social media task force at my organization, which happened only after I talked about it at length with pretty much everyone I saw, whether they wanted to hear it or not. Here's what scares me about this. ESPN is a big name. Other media outlets follow them. Trust me, this info is being circulated around corporate offices today and action will be taken. it will be the wrong actions. I hope I ca keep it from happening in my company. This has serious implications. Stay tuned. Let's hope that what CNN is doing, by embracing social media and incorporating it into their newsgathering and presentation will prevail and they will be followed, as opposed to ESPN.
More to come.
Angela | @communitygirl

To be honest, I'm not sure that the kafuffle is about. Jennifer Van Grove reprinted the policy in her coverage for @Mashable and it seems fairly straightforward, if somewhat conservative. I didn't read it as an attempt to muzzle staffers or keep them off the social nets. In fact, I think it leaves plenty of room for the kind of engagement you describe.

The main problem is that it's not very well written. To say “don't tweet about what you say or write for ESPN,” and then follow with “if you wouldn't say it or write it for ESPN, don't tweet it” doesn't make a whole lot of sense without some parsing.