I give the same answer every time a sports business executive asks if they should start tweeting: Don’t do it!
Social media is great for reporters and PR pros who are experienced with communicating with the public. The list of entrepreneurs who have good social media profiles is long (two of my favorites are Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis).
But I’ve long thought that the risks far outweigh the benefits for VP-level executives who are not used to being in the public eye. There’s a reason why so few executives personally use social media platforms to further their business.
But a couple of tweeting executives recently caused me to change my mind. David Schwab (@david_schwab), senior vice president and managing director for Octagon First Call, and Mike Mulvihill (@mulvihill79), senior vice president of programming and research for Fox Sports, have figured out how to tweet smartly and engagingly while staying out of trouble (at least so far!).
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Octagon First Call’s David Schwab (left) is a Twitter veteran; Fox Sports’ Mike Mulvihill started tweeting about four months ago.
Photo by: OCTAGON; MARC BRYAN-BROWN
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Schwab and Mulvihill have effective social media presences because neither comes across as shills for their companies. They obviously are careful about not biting the hand that feeds them. But Mulvihill is just as likely to tweet about the performance of cable news networks as he is about cable sports networks.
“Share information that would be beneficial to your colleagues and even competitors,” Schwab said. “People aren’t buying your tweet. They are buying the person.”
Mulvihill has been tweeting for about four months, but he really caught my eye Feb. 11. That’s when he sent out 17 tweets over 35 minutes on “Nielsen’s redefinition of broadband-only homes [which is] an arcane issue, but significant to anyone who is interested in cord-cutting.”
| @andyserling — Caustic New York Racing Association handicapper offers an opinion on every race, every day. Must follow for horseplayers. |
| @ClayTravis — Unfiltered takes on sports and politics with the smarts to back them up. Fun when he engages his many overmatched haters. |
| @RichBTIG — Outspoken, forward-looking media analyst is reliably thought provoking even when you don't agree. |
| @richarddeitsch — Curates all of journalism for his followers. His feed is constantly pointing me toward worthwhile reading. |
| @SportsTVRatings — Consistently first with timely numbers and always has a smart, snark-free POV. |
| @mccannsportslaw — Legal proceedings and follows bring facts. |
| @warjesseagle — UA in-house. Social, sports and stories. |
| @darrenrovell — Quantity of sports biz news and numbers. |
| @JJWatt — Example of creating an authentic, approachable persona. |
| @HashtagSports — Excellent curator of sports and tech news. |
Mulvihill ended his Twitter spree with a tweet that read, “Point is that when you read that people are ‘increasingly’ cutting the cord, well, maybe they aren’t.”
It’s not every day that you see an executive like Mulvihill share opinions on social media. It was impressive to see him explain a dry topic in an engaging way that positioned himself as an expert.
Schwab is much more prolific, having been active on Twitter for more than seven years. His feed is a mixture of industry observations, links to interesting media and marketing-related stories, and conversations with others in the business.
Based in Octagon’s office outside of Washington, D.C., Schwab took to social media early on as a way to stay involved with happenings in other markets around the globe. “It took down the wall of my geographic location,” he said.
It took a while for Schwab to figure out how to navigate social media, especially after he sent out several tweets that he thought would be popular, but they generated little interest.
“I realized that the content that I thought may be unbelievable isn’t necessarily unbelievable to others,” Schwab said. “Don’t push messages that people don’t care about. It goes back to knowing your audience, knowing your community.”
Schwab also found it difficult to get over the notion of giving away his thoughts and ideas for free.
“We are paid by brands to consult for them,” he said. “It was hard for me to just give stuff away because my competitors could take it. It took a while to realize that’s the world we live in. You gain following, you gain legitimacy by sharing pieces that are thought provoking and insightful and things that people want to read.”
Schwab referenced a moment around four years ago that crystallized why other executives should think about increasing their social media profile. That was when his father texted him a note of congratulations for his appearance on CNBC. The text confused Schwab because he hadn’t appeared on the cable news channel. It took a few minutes before he figured out that CNBC had called up a tweet Schwab sent out two hours earlier.
“That was the moment when I realized, of course you should be sharing and interacting,” he said. “As you do and as you gain acceptance and as people like it, media or brands or nonprofits are going to engage and maybe even call you for a story or the next business opportunity.”
John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ourand_SBJ.
