How Athletes Can Build Their Personal Brand

by Lewis Howes | February 18th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

It’s no surprise professional athletes are using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and even Ustream everyday. Being an ex pro athlete myself (even on a smaller scale than the NFL) I loved connecting with my fans before and after games.

I had my regular group of fans that would come down by the field and say hi after every game. If I would have had Twitter back then, it would have given me a great opportunity to thank them online, and get them excited about the next game.

Although I didn’t know how important building a personal brand online was during my playing days, I definitely see the value of it now for helping me achieve a number of my professional goals.

Want to know why pro athletes should be building their personal brand online and how they should be doing it? Then make sure you check out this video where I interview Dan Schawbel of Personal Branding Blog to learn more.

What ways do you see pro athletes using social media the right way? How are some using it the wrong way? More importantly, how does it make you feel when you see a high profile athlete doing things “right” or “wrong” online?

###

Image by jm3

It’s a Numbers Game – Sports Vanity Toll Free Numbers

by Tim Evans | February 4th, 2010 | No Comments »

Travis Nicholson! We all know there are numerous ways to brand your sports business. From a professionally designed and well optimized website, to having consistent social networking usernames across a variety of social media platforms, you are well on your way to promoting your brand.

With a passion for domain names over the years, I have been able to appreciate what it means to have a unique vanity toll-free number. With domain names, you can have a maximum of 64-characters (numbers and letter combinations) to create a domain name, but with a toll free number, you only have seven digits to work with. Because of this length limitation, at least at the level of a true 800#, there are no numbers left in the 800# database left that have been unused.

So how do you find an 800# to market your business? I’ve been using TollFreeNumbers.com over the years because it allows you to search for that perfect number and it lets you know if it is available.

Athlete Branding & Owning a Domain Name

by Tim Evans | December 8th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Why an athlete should care about their domain name and personal brand.

As long as domain names have been around, professional athlete domain names have been valued property by domain speculators (domainers), cyber squatters, and sports fans. If you do a whois search for most professional athletes, no matter what the sport, chances are that the domain is registered. Even college athletes who have a shot at the professional level as well as high school recruits who haven’t committed to a school are having their domain names registered.

T.O. Blames Media for Reputation. Really?

by Gail Sideman | October 1st, 2009 | 7 Comments »

T.O. Buffalo Bills receiver, Terrell Owens, went into a postgame press conference after his team was defeated by the New Orleans Saints because it was mandated by the National Football League that he do so. (He also went catchless for zero yards and touchdowns for the first time in 185 games.)

{The following is the background and essentially a lesson in PR 101.}

Based on past performances, media expected Owens to provide enough provocative commentary to write their stories for them. They knew from experience what kind of questions that could set him off. So they poked; they prodded and reconfigured questions to get him to say something that would make for a sensational headline.

Why Can’t Anyone Remember Your Name?

by Bill Guertin | September 29th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Name tag You’ve done it before.

You’re at a networking event, a bar, a neighbor’s apartment, or wherever there are people you’ve not met before. Someone introduces you to someone else, and instantly their name goes in one ear and out the other. You struggle to try to get it back, but it’s gone forever.

DOH!

Why does that happen? Simple: our brain is processing something else at that moment, and we just didn’t prioritize remembering the name.

If it happens to you all the time, chances are YOUR name is forgotten by others just as quickly. If you could just figure out a way to help others instantly remember you better, your name recognition – and potentially your sales – would increase.

Life-Streaming 101: The Starbury TV Experiment

by Ryan Stephens | August 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Stephon Marbury

Stephon Marbury should’ve refrained from life-streaming. Starbury TV, as far as I’m concerned, was an epic failure. Why?

David Neiman of Athlete Interactive put it so poignantly that I’ll just share what he had to say and let you judge for yourself:

“We want athletes to awe us, and that’s precisely what they do when they’re doing what they do best: playing sports. Think of your favorite highlight — Michael Jordan hitting over Bryon Russell, John Elway going head over heels into the end zone, whatever comes to mind. That moment has an epic, emotional power; you might find yourself shaking your head in amazement right now just thinking about it. But more than just witnessing that moment, you felt part of it. A critical part of being a fan is sharing in the experience of athletes you like.”