In this new blog series on Patch, I will be talking about Social Media and Technology. More specifically, how businesses can utilize Social Media, how to come up with a Social Media Policy, how to track your Social Media efforts, new technology gadgets such as the iPad 3 and much more. I encourage you to comment on the posts and let me know your thoughts and any questions you may have. This first blog, I am going to discuss Twitter and the interaction that is available to our favorite athletes.

I manage a Twitter account and campaign for the company I work for and I also utilize Twitter for personal use to brand myself and interact with my counterparts in my industry. Personally, it has been a great tool as I have met many people in my industry before meeting them in person at a conference. It has allowed me the opportunity to bounce ideas off my counterparts and for them to do the same. In my opinion, conferences have benefited by utilizing a hashtag and attendees then continue the discussion online after the conference has concluded. We will talk more about this in a future post. 

Now on to Twitter and the NFL. Since I have been writing a Packers blog all fall, I felt this was a perfect transition to a Social Media blog. Being a huge Green Bay Packer fan and football fan, I follow all the Packers beat writers on Twitter as well as some NFL insiders. It is a great way to get more information about the team and the NFL. I feel I have become a more educated fan because of it. It is also a great way to interact with writers like Jason Wilde (@jasonjwilde), Lance Allan (@lanceallan), Rob Demovsky (@RobDemovsky), Aaron Nagler (@Aaron_Nagler), Tom Silverstein (@TomSilverstein) and many more. The NFL has a very strict Social Media policy in place for its players as they can not tweet 90 minutes before the game all the way until they have concluded with their media obligations after the game.

With the Pro Bowl game Sunday, the NFL loosened its policy and allowed players to interact with fans, teammates and opponents on Twitter before and during the Pro Bowl. Tweeting is 100% voluntary, as the NFL does not force the players to be on the social network, and only one player can be tweeting at a time on each sideline. The NFL had one computer on each sideline for the players to interact on Twitter. They did not allow mobile devices on the sidelines but players can use mobile devices to tweet during halftime.

This is a great way for fans and players to interact during a fun, relaxing, no-pressure game. Kudos to the NFL for allowing this experiment during the Pro Bowl and taking the technology to another level. One thing to remember is when tweeting a player, be respectful and kind. Do not be negative towards the player as that does noboby any good.

This year's Super Bowl with be the first-ever Super Bowl with a Social Media command center. There will be a team of Social Media strategists monitoring the converstations fans are having on all of the Social Media sites. The commercials have recently been on Youtube after the big game, but this year, you will more than likely see the commercials on Facebook as one of your Facebook friends will probably post one.

Utilizing Social Media during any event is a great way to interact with a captive audience and hear what people are saying while the event is happening. We will discuss this further as the Super Bowl nears and the ads are released on the social sites.

This first blog was a general blog about what the NFL is doing with Social Media. In future blogs will get more in-depth and discuss how things actually work and how businesses can utilize new sites such as Pinterst and I will showcase some examples. Do you have any thoughts on the NFL's policy on Social Media and the Pro Bowl?