Narcissism aside, any chance to get behind the veneer of media training and prepared statements to hear what sports stars have to say in their own words (well their own 140 characters…) should be regarded as a god send. Twitter is a perfect platform for athletes to interact with fans and some of their best work comes when their guards are down. Authenticity like that can’t be faked it gives fans a much better sense what these stars are like than any glossy network produced profile might.

While most of the major sports have come down on Twitter use, it is a fantastic relationship building tool for their leagues and I suspect the marketers (not so much Corporate Communications) are secretly thrilled about it. Sure they would like to have greater control over the content but any forum for speaking to the fans that is initiated by the stars is pure gold. The lesson here for marketers is that your social media strategy needs to trust users to take the message and spread it throughout their community. Marketers need to learn to cede control and instead build relationships that move prospects from being merely interested to enthusiastic and ultimately advocates.

Maybe this is why the radio guys don’t like Twitter. It isn’t the narcissism but the ceding control to citizen (or in this case, athlete) journalists. Instead of placing professionals such as radio commentators at the top, social media eliminate the hierarchy, giving a more-or-less equal voice to all users. Or maybe they aren’t as interested in Alex Ovechkin’s pre-skate rituals as the fans are.

In the meantime let’s see if the major sports leagues can give up enough control to let us fans continue to get unfiltered access, both the good and the bad.

Here are a few of the most infamous athlete tweets:

Charlie Villanueva – tweets at half time of a tied game against the Celtics about having to step it up and play tougher. He puts his money where is mouth is and scores 11 of his 19 points in the second half to help Milwaukee get past Boston.

Kevin Love – tweets Coach Kevin McHale would not be back as coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves next season before the team officially announces it

Brian Ching – tweets that referees cheated his MLS club team out of a win while watching the game on TV. Ching was not playing because of U.S. national team duty for a Gold Cup match.

What really caught me was his describing Twitter as a change agent. Here is the quote, “Twitter has been criticized as a time-waster – a way for people to inform their friends about the minutiae of their lives, 140 characters at a time. But in the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent. Even the government of Iran has been forced to utilize the very tool they attempted to squelch to try to hold on to power.”

I am intrigued by this because to some degree Twitter didn’t make a difference at all. The elections in Iran were won by the incumbent and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded Iranians accept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President. We don’t really know, and many seriously doubt, if the election results are legitimate. Not to mention the ruling party still rules. It would be impossible to deny however that Twitter did not as Pfeifle say become, “…a window for the world to view hope, heroism, and horror.” Twitter may not have ensured a fair election but it did provide a tool which empowered people who had not before felt empowered to stand up for democracy. They did so hoping the world was watching and hoping the outcome would be different.

This is a good lesson for agents of change everywhere. Change is hard and oft times the results are not exactly as hoped. For instance many marketers change campaigns and tactics with the hope of seeing more prospects converted or growth of existing customers. In many cases the silver bullet of change does not instantly drive financial results. Instead what they find is engagement levels are increased but the corresponding sales metrics are not. Does this mean the change exercise was a failure? I would say no. Instead it needs to be viewed in context of longer term objectives. How can increased engagement be used to drive the desired results? What can be learned from the change effort which can improve campaigns or tactics in future?

While the stakes are considerably higher for Twitterers in Iran than the average marketer, it is worth remembering – success for change can be measured many ways.

When thinking of fad products, the Hula Hoop is top of mind. In 1958, after only four months on the market, Wham-O sold 25 million Hula Hoops in the United States and over 100 million globally. As interest waned, Wham-O eventually stopped manufacturing the toy – that is until 1965 when they inserted ball bearings in the cylinder to make the whoosh sound. That helped revive interest in the Hula Hoop, which still makes money for Emeryville-based Wham-O. The privately held company declines to reveal Hula Hoops sales numbers but I think it is safe to say the Hula Hoop is undeserving of it’s reputation as the ultimate fad item.

Comparatively Twitter is a little less popular. Unique monthly visitors hit roughly 6 million in February 2009 and March 2009 saw 19.1 million visitors for Twitter.com. It is worth noting though Twitter is doing it’s best to catch up – visitors to the site represent a 3,000% gain as compared to a year ago.  To quote directly from a Com Score blog post by Andrew Lipsman on May 12, 2009 – “In fact, the past two months have seen such a flood of traffic to Twitter.com that it has more than quadrupled its audience during that brief period of time, literally unprecedented growth for a site whose audience already numbers in the millions.”

So it seems there may be a little ways for Twitter to go but at this rate, in 50 years it may be the next Hula Hoop.