ESPN Rises to Social Occasion

Posted by on Aug 6, 2009 in Marketing Industry, Social Media, Technology | 3 comments

Keep smiling guys, its all good..

Keep smiling guys, it's all good..

Quite the fuss over ESPN in the social media world the last couple of days, huh? NBA analyst Rick Bucher spilled the beans on Tuesday night by tweeting that the network had sent out a company-wide memo about tweeting being prohibited unless it “serves ESPN,” and there was a large social media outcry yesterday about the idea being absurd. Instead of the MIA, don’t-want-to-get-ourselves-in-deeper-and-add-gas-to-the-flame-by-responding route, ESPN chose to man up.

Company publicist Nate Smeltz (@Nate_ESPN) replied to Mashable reporter Jennifer Van Grove (@JBruin) on Twitter with an official statement in two tweets (here and here) and promptly emailed the official ESPN social media policy to giant sports blog The Big Lead, disclosing the guidelines for all to see. Then the network followed that up by offering Van Grove the chance to interview ESPN editor-in-chief Rob King (@RFKing) about the policy and controversy around it, the result being this post. I dunno, but all this sounds pretty social to me.

You can read the policy in its entirety in the Mashable post, but I understand where ESPN is coming from; it wants to protect itself in a time when companies’ reputations can and are being damaged by one simple click of the send, update, post or upload button – especially given all the sports-related social media controversies lately (i.e.; Erin Andrews, Chad Ochocinco vs. Mark Schlereth, Kevin Love, Antonio Cromartie, JR Smith, etc.).

One of the most controversial points in the policy was the “personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted” point. ESPN is so successful because of the individual personalities that they’ve been lucky enough to have, and that have been lucky enough to have ESPN – the latter part being key. No employee is bigger than the company (sorry, Bill Simmons - I do love your blog), but I don’t think that all employees should feel like they’re on a corporate leash quite yet. I’m just saying let’s see what happens; I bet ESPN plays it by ear and becomes more lenient over time. When an anchor is fired over tweeting about their own personal blogging, then we can revisit the situation, but until then, ESPN brass were ultimately concerned about the company in a world where social media are growing larger everyday and some employees updating carelessly could put the company at jeopardy.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from King in the Mashable post:

“In certain ways a policy suggests a restriction, or a change – we really tried to phrase them as guidelines, we genuinely believe that this is an evolving process – subject to interpretation – but we wanted this to be about what you can do and not what you can’t.”

So they’re admitting that they’re learning; not claiming that they know everything and that this policy is set in stone for all of eternity. Stepping up the way they did was (insert “came through in crunchtime” analogy).

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  • http://www.fasthorseinc.com Mike Keliher

    Does ESPN have a policy to guide when an employee can vent to a trade magazine reporter? Call a local-market radio host? Holding up signs outside ESPN world headquarters?

    Any of those things could be just as beneficial or detrimental to ESPN as an employee going tweet-happy, but for some reason, this “social media stuff” is seen as requiring a separate code of conduct, an additional set of rules of the road.

  • http://warehousemediaservice.com Justin Ware @warehousemedia

    It’s understandable that entertainment organizations might be concerned about what can happen when their employees have direct, unfettered access to their fans. Irresponsible, knee-jerk comments from talent can do damage to a network like ESPN. More importantly (and likely), however, on-going conversations with that talent will also connect ESPN’s stars on an entirely new, far more intimate level to their fans …and that would happen far more often than anything negative.

    ESPN’s publicist is essentially apologizing for, while at the same time justifying a social media policy that proves the people who wrote that policy, don’t really understand social media.

  • George Fiddler

    Justin, you’re right, the fact that Kenny Mayne isn’t allowed to tweet with a sports fan like me about Ricky Rubio not liking the cold or something proves that ESPN has a thing or two to learn about social media. And for sure those types of innocent tweets would take place far more than the irresponsible ones, but ESPN may be thinking that it’s the regrettable ones that get all the attention and end up negating the friendly ones, so best not to risk it. I’m all for a more open policy, but the fact that ESPN was transparent with this whole issue, indicated that they are flexible and that they want to learn impressed me.

    And good point, Mike. I’d be surprised if guidelines for the other situations you brought up didn’t exist; it’s just that social media is the new, hot topic that needed to be addressed. But a corporate code of conduct like this should have a social media extension, I agree, not its own separate policy.