Tuesday, July 24, 2012

@ESPN and how media outlets shouldn't do Twitter

I've used this space before to bash ESPN. I even think that they are ruining modern sportswriting. (I can't find that blog post for some reason, but it happened.)

But ESPN gets some things right. And, for most people, it is the first place to go for sports news.

So I was surprised at first when I saw the "Worldwide Leader" posting things like this on its Twitter account, @espn.


So apparently ESPN set up some sort of goofy Fan Hall of Fame. (I'm not going to link to it here out of principle.) That's cool and all. And as a media outlet on Twitter, you should use the medium to publicize it. I get it. But this?




@espn sent seven tweets in a row with that exact same wording to the Twitter accounts of seven different NASCAR drivers in a span of 37 minutes Monday. Earlier in the day, the account sent a spurt of the same message to other NASCAR drivers. Last week I saw the same message sent to college team and Major League Soccer team twitter accounts.

That's not something a "Worldwide Leader" media Twitter account should be doing. That's the kind of crap you see from a bad middle-aged realtor who heard that Twitter would boost sales and has no freakin' clue how to use it. Who runs this account?

It annoyed me so much that I unfollowed. I know I'm a drop in the bucket, but I really, really hope they read this @ message:
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