Hijacking in social media was enough to send me all a-Twitter

THE world of Twitter can become a dangerous place for AFL players to be or even not to be as I learnt first-hand last week.

THE world of Twitter can become a dangerous place for AFL players to be or even not to be as I learnt first-hand last week.

I wrote recently about how profitable social media can be from a marketing viewpoint and a more than useful tool when building an individual brand.

Carlton midfielder Brock McLean saw the downside of Twitter this week when he was fined $5000 for what can only be labelled a brain explosion in which he posted an inappropriate comment in response to an anonymous slur against him.

He also accepted a suspended one-match suspension and compulsory counselling, as ordered by his club, after Carlton had flatly rejected an AFL push to actually make him sit out a match.

At face value it seems a harsh penalty, but it underlines how seriously the AFL and the clubs take anything which has the potential to impact negatively on their brand, and the risks facing players who choose to live in the social media world.

McLean should have known better after teammates Marc Murphy, Jeremy Laidler and Jarrad Waite were each fined $2500 after a Twitter controversy two weeks earlier involving the umpires.

But you don't have to even be on Twitter to find yourself in trouble.

I'm not into Twitter. Call me old school if you like, but it's not my way of communicating.

But some unscrupulous person has assumed my identity, including a photo, and started tweeting as if he was me using some foul language and contacting people I know.

I knew nothing of it until Thursday night when I received four text messages from friends, including one from the other side of the world, asking what was going on because they knew it wasn't something I'd usually do and certainly not the type of things I'd say.

But again it shows how there is a negative side to a powerful communication tool.

Knowing only a little about social media, I'll certainly be seeking some assistance in this situation.

It's something all players  and indeed everyone  need to be conscious of.

Again, at this stage Twitter isn't something for me personally but I understand many will be drawn in by the desire to control what they say and how it's reported, and the opportunity to interact closely with friends, family, fans and, from a commercial point of view, sponsors.

I've no problems with sportsmen operating in this space, but they must understand that a 140-character tweet is no different to a comment made in any mainstream media.