Getting @SportsGeek clients the Twitter tick of approval

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Latest Update

Happy to get Collingwood and Scott Pendlebury verified.

Pendles might be on holidays in Bali but doesn't mean we can't get him verified.

Podcast transcription

Francis: Always good to catch up with our Sports Digital Media guru, Sports Geek’s Sean Callanan is on the line, right in front of me… Hello, Sean.

Sean: [Laughs] Yes, I’m on the line right in front of… Where’s this line that I’m on?

Francis: [Laughs]

Sean. I’m sitting in a chair. Someone rename these chairs? But yeah, good to be here.

Francis: That’s the line and that’s something else over, that chair. Now, what are we talking about today? I’ve seen all your clients – just when my feed’s coming through with all of your clients on Twitter – they’ve got this big blue tick, or a white tick in a blue circle. What’s going on?

Sean: So what we’ve been able to do is to get their accounts verified.

Francis: What do you mean ‘verified’?

Sean: Verified. That means Twitter have effectively said ‘Yes, they are the people who they say they are’…

Francis: Right, which is important on Twitter.

Sean: Which is important on Twitter, and a lot of people know that the West Cost Eagles are ‘WestCoastEagles’, The Melbourne Storm ‘MelbourneStorm’. And now they’ve got a new handle, they’re no longer ‘MelbStormRLC’ they’re now ‘@MelbourneStorm’, which makes a lot of sense.

Francis: Why weren’t they ‘@MelbourneStorm’ in the first place?

Sean: They didn’t have the handle. Someone went in and grabbed it.

Francis: Ahh…

Sean: And so we were able to talk to Twitter and say ‘Can we have that handle back?’ and they went ‘Yeah, no worries’. So now The Melbourne Storm is ‘@MelbourneStorm’

Francis: That’s much easier.

Sean: It’s much easier and it’s more conducive to say ‘I’m looking forward to seeing @MelbourneStorm.’ It flows a little bit better. So Twitter have contacted us about helping develop Australia as a market for Twitter. We’re mad for Twitter, we love our Tweeting, and I did say we have been using Twitter and there is a lot of activity. Australia pretty much takes over trends at about 8 O’ clock at night when all the US are asleep. So they do know that it is a good market for them and there’s a lot of people Tweeting, but they really want to take it mainstream and have more people doing it, making it a bit more commonplace. And one of the things that worked really well for them in the States, and we’ve spoken about it before, is the case study of Shaquille O'Neal. Like when Shaq went and got on Twitter and stopped… he had six or seven impersonators, he got on Twitter and said ‘It’s the real me @TheRealShaq’ and started Tweeting. Then the media started paying attention and a lot more athletes and celebrities jumped on Twitter, so it really helped their rise, we’re talking two or three years ago. They said well what if we can duplicate that in Australia, and I said well you’ve got a pretty good… All the teams are using it and doing a great job for the fan engagement and driving traffic back to the website, and then you’ve also got players that are using it quite effectively.
But there is that ‘Hang on, is that a real account or a fake account?’ So that’s where the verified tick will come in handy, people will be able to go ‘I know that account’s real because Twitter have signed it off’, they’ll still need me and the clubs and that to say ‘Yes, this is a fair dinkum account and not a fake’ but if we verify the right ones then it will be a bit easier for the people who are coming to Twitter for the first time. People like Shane Warne, he’s been verified, so being able to know that is a real account ,the person behind the account is the actual person, will help ease people going ‘I’m not sure if it’s real or not’. What Twitter want to do – or as we say in Australia, ‘Twi-tar’ when you’re talking to them you’ve got to put in the Australian accent – is give it a bit more of an Aussie feel. So if you’re new to Twitter and you sign up, rather than seeing Ellen DeGeneres or LeBron James as suggest people to follow, you’ll start getting an Australian flavour.

Francis: Sports Geek? Jas’ Richo?

Sean: Yes, Jas’ Richo and things like that and you’ll start seeing more of Australian celebrities and Australian atheletes and partners. So people get an Australian feel for their Twitter, because if you go following these American accounts, they’ll all be Tweeting when we’re asleep.

Francis: Are you telling me that Dennis Cometti – when he gets on Twitter – he’s going to have the rights to ‘@Dennis Cometti’ as opposed to the fake account that’s out there?

Sean: Potentially yeah, that’s exactly right. A lot of people will be thinking – it’s very funny and people might think that is – but as more accounts get verified people will see it’s not verified. And even if they read the bio they’ll see it’s not a real account, but a lot of people don’t. But if you start seeing the tick you go ‘That’s real’, so if we start having more accounts verified then people will be able to go ‘That’s not a real account, it’s a parody account’ and ‘that’s a real person’. Twitter for instance sent me a list of 500 VITs – Very Important Twitterers – and they did it pretty much algorithmically, so they looked at Wikipedia they looked at Twitter and they said here’s who we reckon are the Top 500 Australian accounts?

Francis: So how was yours there?

Sean: It didn’t quite scrape in…

Francis: What?

Sean: But there was a whole bunch of accounts that weren’t really Australia accounts that were fake accounts, so we’re helping them to go through and saying that if you’re going to start promoting certain accounts, we want to make sure that they’re real accounts. That they’re people that are Tweeting properly and doing a good job because they’re the ones that Twitter want to promote.

Francis: That’s good for their business too, isn’t it?

Sean: Yeah and that’s the thing, it grows. Twitter works so well with sports because sport is best live and Twitter is built for live.

Francis: There’s no better sport for Twitter than the Tour De France, sitting on the account late at night, live, it’s fantastic.

Sean: But that goes with any live sport. I heard a great phrase at the Asia Pacific World Sport Women’s Conference at the MCG in the last two days, ‘Commentweeting’. So that’s when you are commentating via Twitter on a sports event. And Bridie O’Donnell who’s a pro-cyclist I’m going to give her credit for that one, but that’s a great phrase because that’s effectively what a lot of people do and that’s what athletes can do. You can be ‘commentweeting’ while you’re watching the footy and you’ve got that footballer’s perspective.

Francis: That’s effectively what I do when I’m covering the Tour De France.

Sean: Exactly.

Francis: And I’ve got no expertise at all but yet I’m ‘commentweeting’. I like it. OK so look out for the verification tick from the Twitter account and make sure they are the legit ones and you’ll know exactly what’s coming at you from those organisations. Great to catch up, mate.

Sean: No worries mate.

Francis: Check out ‘@SportsGeek’ on all the social media platforms and you’ll find out what Sean’s doing in this world. He’s a star, he’s our man and we love him.