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This is another of the guest blog posts from the students in my Marketing 360 class at Messiah College. I received a number of great submissions from my students (and they sure were a great class!), so I’ll be featuring some of them here on the blog over the next few weeks. Today’s post is from Zach Adams, who just completed his junior year as a Marketing major. Zach is from Lancaster, PA and is a pitcher on Messiah’s baseball team.
When I first heard of Twitter, like many others, I wrote it off as a passing social media fad that would be gone before you knew it. Well obviously I was wrong, Twitter is here and here to stay. After avoiding Twitter for as long as I could, I reluctantly opened an account with the push from a friend. Little did I realize how valuable Twitter would become in my life.
If you know anything about me you will know that I am huge Baltimore Orioles fan, I follow the team religiously. Soon I found out one of the values of Twitter would be up to the minute updates on Orioles news and notes all in one place. By following all of the beat writers for the team I can get update information on the team that includes anything from quotes from players, to injury updates.
A second feature that baseball fans will love is the inside perspective you can get on a players personality when you follow them on Twitter. This year five Orioles players joined Twitter for the first time. Being able to follow players gives fans a connection to them that they would not normally have.Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts uses Twitter mostly to promote the many charities he is running throughout the community. Rookie starting pitcher Zach Britton is using his to document his first year in the major leagues, and give fans an inside look into how his life is changing. Jeremy Guthrie, an Oriole starting pitcher, uses his to promote causes, and also interact with his fans. Guthrie shares information and comical stories of his obsession with Justin Bieber’s music. Finally, all-star center fielder Adam Jones recently gave away free batting practice passes to an Orioles home game to the first person to respond to his tweet. It’s features like these that should drive baseball fans to seriously consider joining Twitter. The benefits and convenience that fan’s will receive when they create an account may come as unexpected.
Do you have favorite sports, teams or athletes that you follow online? Who are some of your favorites? For a nice list of athletes on Twitter check out Tweeting Athletes.
[...] I’m not alone. On Twitter and Facebook I see my friends who are good (Phillies fans) and those on the dark side (Yankees, [...]