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At St. John's University, athletic department officials use Twitter to offer live updates during games. The university has given microblogger Peter Robert Casey press credentials to attend games and post tidbits, such as quotes and photos on his Twitter page. It offers fans another way to feel more connected with their teams, Mark Fratto, St. John's Associate Athletic Director for Communications told ESPN.com.

"It's a different way to connect with basketball fans and St. John's fans and just gives them a different perspective on the game experience," he said. "[Twitter is] part of the landscape now. Why not embrace it instead of standing on the sidelines watching it go by?"

It's easy to see why Twitter appeals to those looking to disseminate promotional materials and live scoring updates. But have you considered using it as a way to keep a finger on the pulse of your profession?

While sports information personnel typically coordinate a department's Twitter offerings and update message posts, athletic directors should consider taking their own hands-on approach to the social media offering, using it as their own personal news and information gatherer. By entering a few keywords into the search window, you can set up what The New York Times calls a "perpetual, personalized news service" about topics of your choosing--which for administrators could cover anything from hirings and firings and breaking conference issues to articles containing tips for stretching budget dollars.

"Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap into the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts," writes The Times. "And once you get pulled in, you might just find you have something to say after all."

Twitter also provides a more modern forum for asking questions and seeking advice when you don't know whom to query. Though doing so means conjuring the courage to post those questions.

For example, according to The Times, Bertalan Meskó, a medical student at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, used Twitter to post a question about a patient who showed up at his hospital with mysterious symptoms. He wrote:

"Strange case today in internal medicine rotation. 16 years old boy with acute pancreatitis (for the 6th! time). Any ideas?"

Within hours, specialists worldwide had responded, suggesting gallstones, lupus, or growths on the pancreas. One of the suggestions helped the doctors with a diagnosis. "It would have been impossible to find that specialist through e-mail, because we had no idea who to contact," Mr. Meskó said.

While you probably won't be using it to solve health emergencies, Twitter can be useful for finding out what's causing a traffic snarl downtown or getting peer reviews of new gymnasium equipment. It's similar to Google--but with flesh-and-blood humans providing real-time responses.

Coaches are getting in on the action, too. Tim Beckman, Head Football Coach at the University of Toledo, has his own Web site, a Facebook fan page, and a Twitter account. He uses these pages as a way to keep potential recruits thinking about Toledo.

"We're not able to communicate with them as much as we'd all like to be able to communicate, so you've got to find ways to do it," he told ESPN.com. "And Twitter just happens to be a way that [Toldeo] came to me about, so each day I learn more and more about it. It's not that I know everything about it, but it's something I need to explore ... You have to find time for it. It's just like anything in recruiting. You better find time for it. If that means getting up 30 minutes early or an hour earlier then you better do it, because you have to stay on top of the recruiting stuff."

Fan pages on Facebook have allowed many NCAA Division I athletic departments to connect with fans and recruits, and work to drive traffic to their own Web sites. These pages are not just for the big boys--they can be equally helpful for programs at smaller institutions and at the high school level, too. And they're a cinch to set up.

This article from CoSIDA provides a quick-start primer for getting a fan page up and running. It includes tips for acquiring custom URLs, what to post, and how to maximize Internet search words to make your site popular with Google and other search engines.

These revolutionary applications are taking athletics by storm, and as is normal with technological advances, it's the younger generation that is showing us all how to take them to the next level. For example, at Cornell University, senior basketball player Jon Jaques has been blogging throughout the season on The New York Times Web site and keeps a Twitter page regularly updated. In a recent blog entry, he gave an in-depth description of his surroundings with details that made readers feel like they were at the game with him. He mentioned how the 2,100-person capacity was stretched to nearly 3,000 and how the fans wore white shirts during the first half and switched to black during the second half for a "Fade to Black" spectacle. He even wove a little social media reference into his blog:

"After our hard-fought 79-70 victory, I got a glimpse at one of their [a fan's] cheat sheets containing facts, figures and dirt on each Cornell player (apparently a few Harvard students are guilty of Facebook stalking)," he wrote. "I was a 'tall shooter' and a 'dirty player, plays hard.' While I consider myself more scrappy than dirty, I'm kind of proud of my hard-nosed moniker."

Resources
To read a recent Athletic Management article about one school that's figured out how to effectively use social media to its advantage, Click here.

Ivan Dashkov is a junior and Matt Magnani and Adam Rotter seniors at Ithaca College. All three are Sports Media majors.

FEEDBACK:
I'd love to retweet this article, but that isn't available on the page :) Just kidding, excellent article, I've forwarded it to my staff and retweeted through my google toolbar.

Dr. William Broussard ('00)
Associate Director of Athletics - External Relations
Northwestern State University - Natchitoches, Louisiana