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On Monday, the SEC was the stern old fogey who banned Twitter in the stands at ballgames.
On Tuesday, the conference issued a relaxed new social media policy. But it didn't issue a press release. It tweeted the news.
Who led the conference of Ole Miss and Bear Bryant into the social media world? The same Charlottean who turned Shaquille O'Neal into a Twitter superstar, Kathleen Hessert.
Earlier this month, the SEC issued a policy banning social media at all athletic events. The aim was to protect a $3 billion contract with CBS, which could be threatened, the conference believed, by YouTube posts.
Fans protested on Twitter and elsewhere. Gamecocks want to tweet.
“Ninety-five percent of the feedback we got was online,” said Charles Bloom, an SEC spokesman. The Observer was the only traditional media to cover the story early this week, he said.
With a flurry of fan dissatisfaction online, Bloom turned to Hessert, who runs the consulting firm Sports Media Challenge from her six-person office at N.C. 51 and Carmel Road. She advised the SEC to listen to the fans, and answer them.
“Issuing the new policy on social media was absolutely intentional,” said Hessert, who has also advised Penn State, the University of Virginia and ESPN on social media problems. “If the conversation is fan-generated, you've got to be where they are.”
The new policy only bans broadcasting or recording what could be “a substitute for radio, television or video coverage.” And if a fan does record a game, “nothing will happen in the stadium,” said Bloom. The conference's tech advisers will work with YouTube or another site to pull the pirated material down.
It was another sticky legal situation that led Hessert to teach Shaq how to tweet. An impostor was tweeting under his name, and his team, the Phoenix Suns, wanted to bring in legal counsel. Hessert said no, and just put Twitter in the big hands of THE_REAL_SHAQ, his Twitter handle. They sat together, and she showed him how to send out his messages to the world. Today O'Neal is a giant of Twitter, with nearly 2 million followers.
“Everyone is grappling with what to do with this stuff, but it's not the tech that gets in the way,” said Hessert. It's often a matter of embracing the dialogue, she believes. “It's a cultural thing.”
