The Dangers of Social Media: Posers, Pranksters & PR Problems
Friday, June 12th, 2009
Soooo, if you haven’t already heard, I got duped. BIG TIME. On May 31st I announced that I would be conducting a live twitterview with Philadelphia Phillies Star 2nd baseman Chase Utley. After DMing “Chase” on Twitter for several days he told me he would have an hour or so after landing in San Diego for an upcoming game to discuss the trends, opportunities & pros & cons of athletes embracing social media. I also prepared to ask Chase a lot about branding and marketing.
Well, “Chase” went waaay out of his way to fool me; even going so far as to call me from the “airport” after he “landed” and was ready to get the twitterview started! Yeah… About 30 minutes into the twitterview, “Chase” tells me he had to unexpectedly leave for some team commitments but, we could finish the twitterview after the game that evening. That never happened.
I then started getting messages like these sent to me on Twitter:
I was waiting to see how things played out before posting anything definitive, however, I think it is now safe to say that I got played like a violin. One article after another started surfacing on the internet calling out this Chase Utley imposter, and “Part II” of our twitterview never came to fruition.
Here are a few of those articles written by reputable sources:
The Zo Zone: Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki
OutSports.com. Jock Talk Blog | “Sports Tweets of the Week, real and fake”
“Chase” sent me several follow up DM’s to not only confirm that he was who he claimed to be, but also went so far as to tell me he had contacted MLB.com beat writer, Todd Zolecki to have the article taken down immediately. Obviously, that has not happened and now @chase_utley ceases to exist. This demonstrates how posers and pranksters can actually cause mini PR disasters for athletes and celebrities.
In retrospect, perhaps, I had more of my questions answered than I realized.
Related Category: Baseball, branding, marketing, social media, twitterview
