There are a few times in life when your personal passions meet your professional calling – an obsessive Patriots fan (that is me) gets to share with my colleagues and peers that the Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee is using the Awareness Social Marketing Hub to deliver “Hoosier Hospitality for the 21^st century,” managing social media channels to engage with fans before, during and after the big game.  I could not be more excited and proud…and also slightly bummed that I won’t be there in person (I will be at the wedding of one of my best friends and friends take precedence even over the biggest game of the season).

If you are as big of a Pats fan as I am or if you want to witness the marvel of the game even unfolding as millions of fans gear up for Sunday, then just simply click over to Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee Social Media Command Center. You can choose your social channel of choice from there to stay connected and watch updates in real time – Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr.

The Social Marketing Hub is the backbone of the operation, where a staff of 50 monitors and responds to comments and fan safety issues, while providing fan-powered tips on what’s happening via four social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. Planning for the Command Center began more than a year ago, with the Committee making a final selection of the Awareness Social Marketing Hub in July 2011. Here’s what Taulbee Jackson, president and CEO of Indianapolis-based digital media agency Raidious, which is managing the Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee Social Media Command Center operation, had to say: “After reviewing over 60 different social media management solutions, we found the Awareness Social Marketing Hub to be the best fit.  We needed a tool that would help us deliver Hoosier hospitality for the 21^st century by centralizing activities and allowing us to monitor and respond to fans in real time while having strict publishing authorization processes in place. We selected Awareness because of its ease of use and deep functionality.”

The Indianapolis Social Media Command Center is a 2,800 sq.-ft. facility perched strategically above the Super Bowl village in the heart of downtown Indianapolis.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN and Raidious

A staff of 50, including student interns from nearby universities, will utilize the Awareness Social Marketing Hub to monitor more than 300 keywords on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. CNN reported this week the team “will tweet directions to fans in search of parking, direct visitors to Indianapolis’s best attractions, and stand by to provide information in case of a disaster.” Here’s a quick glance at the Twitter feed, which monitors for over 300 keywords, in addition to the game mentions and hashtags:

The Huffington Post got the importance of the Social Media Command Center right – “the world has finally realized the power of real-time social media and how it can make or break a brand, an event, or a message. Social TV has truly arrived — and it is entirely controlled by the conversation taking place on Twitter, Facebook — not by the brand. The NFL announcement of its Social Media Command Center for Super Bowl 46 is promising to be a winning play.”

My enthusiasm and exhilaration aside, social media is no longer an afterthought – it is an integral part of how you plan, design and execute your fan engagement. The Committee is using the Awareness Social Marketing Hub to support a very large-scale, complex operation with a lot of moving parts – in essence blending social customer service with a robust Social CRM approach. You can get more facts about Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee Social Media Command Center and download photos here – http://bit.ly/yffVOt

Go Pats!

@BostonMike

We all wish we had a crystal ball we can consult whenever we need to peek into the future.  Short of offering our peers that magic crystal, we connected with some of the best and brightest to ask them to predict what 2012 has in store for us.  We compiled the collective wisdom of 34 renowned experts in the field of strategy, marketing and technology in our free eBook: 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions.  We asked about the top social marketing developments, new technologies, biggest challenges, and top news resources.  Here’s a peek into the biggest social marketing developments you need to prepare for this year.  Your magic keyword cloud reads: integration, mobile, new influence, relevancy marketing, social business revolution, real-time analytics, convergence, and trust as a social currency.

The Year of Integration – Paul Gillin, the author of Social Media Marketing for the Business Customer, sees 2012 as the year when social marketers would stop delegating social to junior managers.  He predicts a new generation of integrated marketing programs that will be “much more sophisticated that anything we’ve seen in the past”.  Jay Baer, Laura Fitton, Steve Rubel, and Robert Collins agree. Robert Collins of Social Media Breakfast goes on to say that “social movements and programs will become more integrated within existing business processes and become the driving agent behind purpose-driven product innovation, lead generation, sales, R&D, customer service, market research, communications, brand development, company culture, and, yes, marketing”.

Convergence: Pamela Johnston from the Lahey Clinic and Andrew Patterson from Major League baseball see the biggest development in 2012 in the convergence between the worlds of marketing and IT.  Especially in healthcare, according to Pamela, “these two distinct teams are learning from and about each other in ways that will make us smarter, faster and more patient-centric in the years to come”. Andrew sees Facebook and the open graph providing the context to make “our digital marketing efforts stick.”

The Social Business Revolution – Brian Solis, the author of The End of Business as Usual, joins Matthew Grant of MarketingProfs in saying that in 2012 companies of all sizes will need to “transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics.” Matthew goes on to predict that corporate sites will be better and more deeply integrated with social media properties “bringing with it a more seamless experience as you move from the social media spokes to the proprietary hub.”

Real-time – Globally recognized marketing strategist David Meerman Scott predicts that our ability to harness real-time in all aspects of marketing will be the true sign of the new nimble marketing organization in 2012. Marketers’ need to react instantly to breaking news, changes on their websites and negative customer feedback, will give rise to a “new mentality, infrastructure and workflows to meaningfully participate in real time.”

Relevancy marketing –Jason Falls, the author of No Bullshit Social Media, Stacy Debroff, Stephen Murphy see 2012 as the year of relevancy marketing.  Jason Falls predicts that adding customer relationship management and tying social CRM functionality to marketing efforts will improve “our ability as marketers to hit relevant audiences with relevant messages at relevant times and in relevant places.”

Mobile as a game-changer – Debi Kleiman, David Berkowitz, and Mark Lazen converge on mobile as the true game-changer in 2012.  Debi Kleiman defined mobile’s role as follows: “Social marketing use cases and the kind of data that can be gleaned when people are using social on their phones will require brands to completely rethink how they connect and communicate with consumers.”

Influence and Metrics: If we had to pick one area that is going to experience the most change, it would have to be that of metrics and influence.  Dave Peck, Ekaterina Walter, Marc Meyer, Michael Pace, Jonas Klit Nielsen, Tim Hayden expect that brands will be asking their agencies, vendors and internal stakeholders the real ROI questions and will be demanding the tools to measure the value. Ekaterina Walter predicts that “brands will need a way to feed these (ROI) metrics into one solution, which will aggregate, analyze and identify the right metrics that will help teams make the right decisions

Social maturity: Jim Storer, Doug Haslam, and Lora Kratchounova see 2012 more companies entering the social maturity stage in 2012. Jim predicts that companies will have “a more innate understanding of what they need to do in social media”, and will be more specific about where they allocate budgets within social media.  Jim and Lora see a shortage of experienced and talented community as more and more organizations seek to leverage social strategies.

Trust as a social currency – Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics and the newly printed Digital Leader, predicts 2012 will be the year “where digital leadership transcends privacy”. He sees the winning social network providers as those that “both individuals and companies trust.”

As you contemplate your plans for 2012, we encourage you to learn from the best and use their insights to inform your thinking, strategies and approach – download the free 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions and let us know what you think.  Best of luck in 2012.

Mike Lewis

@BostonMike

Facebook, as we know it, has completely revolutionized the way we communicate. The tool itself has transformed how people interact, perceive others, and “develop” ourselves via cyberspace.

Nowadays, however, your behavior on the popular site can actually be categorized based on how you interpret and respond to the various medias.

A friend of mine posted this as her status the other day, and I couldn’t help but share…

17 Types of People on Facebook:

1) The “Lurker” -Never posts anything or comments on your post, but reads everything, and might make reference to your status if they see you in public.
2) The “Hyena” -Doesn’t ever really say anything, just LOLs and LMAOs at everything.
3) “Mr/Ms Popular” -Has 4…367 friends for NO reason.
4) The “Gamer” -Plays Words With Friends, Mafia Wars, Bakes virtual cakes and stuff, etc., ALL DAY, EVERYDAY.
5) The “Prophet” -Every post makes reference to God or Jesus.
6) The “Thief” -Steals status updates and posts them as their own.
7) The “Cynic” -Hates their life, and everything in it, as evidenced by the somber tone in ALL of their status updates.
The “Collector” -Never posts anything either, but joins every group, and becomes fans of the most random stuff.
9) The “Promoter” -Always sends event invitations to things that you ultimately delete or ignore.
10) The “Liker” -Never actually says anything, but always clicks the “like” button.
“Liking” all of your photos, check-ins, statuses, and new friends.
11) The “Hater” -Every post revolves around someone hating on them, and they swear people are trying to ruin their life.
12) The “Anti-Proofreader” -This person would benefit greatly from spell check, and sometimes you feel bad for them because you don’t know if they were typing fast, or really can’t spell.
13) “Drama Queen/King” -This person always posts stuff like “I can’t believe this!”, or “They gonna make me snap today!”, in the hopes that you will ask what happened, or what’s wrong but then they never finish telling the story.
14) “Womp Womp” -This person consistently tries to be funny…but never is.
15) The “News” -Always updates you on what they are doing and who they are doing it with, no matter how arbitrary.
16) The “Rooster” -Feels that it is their job to tell Facebook “Good Morning” every day.
17) The “Attention Seeker”- this is the person usually female(you know the ones) that feel it necessary to post pictures of themselves on Facebook two to three times a day in the hopes that someone will tell them they’re pretty or like the pic.. I mean come on is it really that important to get approval?

The most revealing part of that entire list is that each one of us more than likely fit into one of those categories or we will create another category as Facebook continues to evolve.

When the New England Patriots and New York Giants kick off Super Bowl XLVI in the early evening hours (locally) of Feb. 5 in Indianapolis, you can bet it is going to be one social event.

Officials in Indianapolis are taking to social media for this year’s big event, using the stage to host the game’s first-ever social media command center.

Reports indicate a group of social media strategists, analysts and tech lovers will oversee the digital fan chatter through Facebook, Twitter and various other social media tools while residing in a nearly 3,000-square-foot venue downtown. More than 20 individuals will reportedly oversee operations at the command center for 15 hours per day, searching a variety of keyword hash-tags to assist fans better enjoy their Super Bowl experience.

Among the tasks the team will be given includes tweeting directions to the thousands and thousands of fans in search of parking, guiding visitors to the city’s top attractions, and being on hand to provide any necessary emergency information. As an example, if someone tweets they cannot find parking in this lot or that lot, members in the command center can tweet out where the nearest available parking may be.

As a spokesperson for the digital marketing agency overseeing the social media efforts noted online, “Social media is just how people interact now. We felt it was critical to have some horsepower behind that aspect of the Super Bowl here, versus what you might have seen from other Super Bowls.” The agency has also teamed up with Ball State University, Butler University and IUPUI to provide more input and personnel into the project.

Local officials estimate that some 150,000 people will be in town to celebrate all the goings-on during the week leading up to the game.

As some social media experts have said, not providing a response to Twitter in 2012 is like letting the phone ring continuously in decades past.

And we all know how bad that is for business….

 Photo credit: inflexwetrust.com

Did you know that there is an invisible, silent force that determines your Facebook success, and that mastering this force can give you an advantage over your competitors?

That force is called EdgeRank, and we sat down with Taulbee Jackson, President and CEO of Raidious, one of the leading interactive marketing companies, to discuss how marketers can harness its power. We’ll be devoting an entire hour to the subject during our webinar with him next week: EdgeRank Ninjutsu: How to Optimize Content for EdgeRank Success.

Why should marketers understand EdgeRank?

Lots of brands have invested heavily in developing audiences on Facebook – using not just technology and tools but also allocating human resources to the task. Although brands are producing content in an effort to engage with their Facebook fans, it is ultimately the EdgeRank algorithm that determines whether this content gets displayed to fans. Many companies end up spending time and money to develop their audience, but in reality only reaching a small percentage of them. Understanding EdgeRank can equip marketers with the critical insights to help them get more fans and keep them engaged over time. The long-term implications of EdgeRank are also important, particularly if a brand is integrating Facebook functionality into their site. We think EdgeRank can have more profound long-term ramifications than the Google algorithm for many marketers.

What was the most surprising fact about EdgeRank you discovered when researching for this webinar? 

The brilliance of EdgeRank and its targeting sophistication compared to that of other algorithms such as Google’s was surprising. Facebook uses a lot more and richer data than Google, analyzing and understanding relationships between key data points, which enables it to expose what’s really valuable for and relevant to its users. I was surprised to see how much Facebook cares about content quality and user engagement. They have gone to great lengths to make sure their users are not just seeing the content they know they want, but also offering content they may be interested, but didn’t know they wanted. This says a lot about Facebook’s commitment to its users. It also points to Facebook’s enormous potential to monetize their growing membership.

Google is more forward with the public when they make changes to their algorithm, while Facebook hardly every talks about EdgeRank. Why do you think that is?

Google’s algorithm has been around a lot longer, and entire industries have sprung up around understanding and utilizing that algorithm.  Google is not more transparent with their algorithm, it’s just that there are lot more SEO people monitoring it closely and sharing their insights. And because there are a lot more people focused on manipulating Google search, they have caught Google’s attention and made it important for the company to help these people understand what Google is aiming to accomplish. Google is focused on providing the best search results possible, and by sharing information about their updates, they help website publishers navigate these changes.

What are some tactics you have implemented with clients to specifically improve EdgeRank?

We have tested timing of posts and formats. As a result we have shifting our content approach to be more oriented towards rich media formats, which has been very successful for our clients. Proactively engaging communities and empowering fans to create and share their own content have also proven to be effective. The most important “tactic” for Raidious has always been treating marketing as a science experiment – test and optimize, then test and optimize some more, regardless of whether it is Facebook, email, Twitter, or blogposts. If you’re not constantly trying new things, you won’t know if you can do better.

What do you see for the future of EdgeRank?

As marketers begin to see the profound potential of the Facebook data – and the data-driven impact Facebook can have for brands, marketers will start pulling more of the Facebook data insights into their owned media properties – such as websites, mobile apps, blogs, etc. Equipped with new access to rich, meaningful user data, marketers will be able to offer deeply personalized user experiences. Facebook profiles will start to replace your email inbox, as it becomes your “key to the Internet”. Facebook is getting closer to achieving the data-driven marketer’s dream – capturing deep user preference insights that will empower marketers to connect products with both the known and unrealized needs of their target audience. Our company is one of the first of many that will focus on EdgeRank optimization as a core user engagement function, and we anticipate a new EdgeRank industry springing up similarly to the way the SEO industry has evolved.

For more insights from Taulbee Jackson, be sure to attend our free Awareness webinar on Wednesday, January 25, at 2 pm EST: EdgeRank Ninjutsu: How to Optimize Content for EdgeRank Success.

You can also post your questions for Taulbee in the comment section of this blogpost, on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

For many of us in or just past the Baby Boomers generation, we grew up getting much of our breaking news via radio, television or the daily newspaper.

Today’s generation, however, simply needs to Internet access and they can stay update to date with the latest and breaking news worldwide.

As many of us first learned on Twitter Jan. 19, Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke  passed away Thursday in a Utah hospital, only nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Park City, Utah. The Ontario (Canada) was married and just 29 years of age.

As noted in the details of her death, tests showed Burke sustained “irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest.”

The four-time Winter X Games champ, who successfully lobbied to have her sport debut at the 2014 Olympic in Sochi, Russia, tore her vertebral artery, which led to severe bleeding on the brain. The accident caused her to go into cardiac arrest on the scene, and she was on life support up until Thursday morning. A publicist reported that Burke’s organs and tissues were donated per her wishes.

“I’ve been doing this for long time, 11 years,” Burke commented in a 2010 interview. “I’ve been very lucky with the injuries I’ve had. It’s part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I’d probably do the exact same thing again.”

While many Canadians and ski lovers worldwide are and will mourn Burke’s the death, the speed with which many of us learned about her passing is in large part due to Twitter.

Just like the fight for freedom in parts of the Middle East last year, along with the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi, much of the news we hear of worldwide is coming to us via social media venues such as Twitter.

While some argue that sites such as Twitter can at times provide nothing more than rumors, such as Colts’ QB Peyton Manning reportedly retiring before he actually does, social media venues like Twitter and Facebook have implanted themselves as part of our daily news intake.

Anytime news such as that like Burke’s death appears on sites like Twitter, it is important to make sure that it is factual to say the least.

That being said, many people like me, someone who has been in the field of journalism for some 23 years, are keeping one eye on Twitter and Facebook and another on the “real news outlets” during the day.

Then again, maybe some of these social media sites are becoming the “real news outlets” of this online information-driven age.

Photo credit: globalnews.ca

2011 was a year of increased adoption of social technologies within the enterprise, and that trend will continue into 2012. In their fifth annual survey of over 4,200 global executives, McKinsey concludes that when adopted at scale, “social technologies can boost a company’s financial performance and market share.”  To help stay ahead of this wave of change, we connected with 34 top business and marketing strategies to get their take on the key technologies that will impact marketing and sales in 2012 for our free eBook 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions. Here are some of their top predictions:

Integrated Analytics for Market-Driven Insights – 2012 will see marketing empowered by sophisticated analytics – with companies, their marketing analytics teams and their social technology vendors coming together to turn the deluge of social data into actionable, measurable insights. Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott point to this trend as shaping how businesses will communicate and engage with their constituents – with market-driven and not-marketing driven insights, as Brian Solis clarifies. These insights will be augmented by new technologies that will accurately measure influence and engagement, adds Paul Gillin. Ekaterina Walters at Intel also gives integrated analytics thumbs up, commenting that until brands have the tools to measure the right things at the right time an integrated way, “we won’t know what the impact is.”

Toolset/ CRM Integration: 2012 is also touted as the year where we will see further integration of the social technology toolset. Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer and No Bullshit Social Media predicts monitoring platforms will be adding publishing and management solutions, while social platforms will evolve to include e-mail, mobile and website management.  The social technology toolset will also see a tighter integration between social data and CRM and web analytics solutions.  This tighter social CRM (sCRM) integration will allow brands to address the ROI question and measure the impact on bottom-line results. Errol Apostolopoulos at Optaros, Inc. adds that marketers can expect to see numbers that reflect revenue per fan along “with proven ways to tap into the interest graph”, which will lead to “a lot more social success stories”. Marc Meyer of the Digital Response Marketing Group votes for the integrated dashboard – bundling marketing, monitoring and management “to address multiple accounts and reduce multiple logins and processes.”

The Year of Mobile: 2012 is (yet again) proclaimed as the year of mobile. Smart phones are becoming the primary channel for users to interact with social networks. David Berkowitz shares 2012 will be the year Facebook will have more than half of its users accessing it from mobile devices. Debi Kleiman of MITX predicts that this mobile shift “will require brands to completely rethink how they connect and communicate with consumers.” Jim Storer adds that mobile will become “an imperative, not just a nice-to-have.”

Jay Baer believes that we will see a more concerted efforts by companies to make their content mobile-friendly, while near-field communications (NFL) opportunities will drive relevancy, immediacy and tractions for the mobile-savvy brands. As Neil Glassman puts it, NFL will be about “real, real-time marketing.”  Mark Lazen of Social Media Today and The Customer Collective agrees that ultimately, mobile will open up marketing opportunities for relevancy.

Trends to Watch For: Other key social technology developments likely to impact the enterprise this year include – video, Google +, Facebook Edgerank, open APIs, inbound marketing tools and interactive voice response.  Access all 140+ predictions on what the experts agree would be the top social technology developments in 2012. Our free eBook 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions also includes predictions on top social marketing developments, biggest challenges, and top news resources.  To get the latest from the experts quoted in the 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions, you can follow them on Twitter.

We welcome your thoughts, reactions, and feedback. Other social tech developments likely to impact us this year?  Let’s continue the discussion in the comments below, on Twitter at hashtag #AwarenessSMM, Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices, LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Mavens Group.

Mike Lewis

@BostonMike

With new social media platforms emerging at such a rapid rate, it has become increasingly important for existing platforms adapt to the changing times and pull out all the stops to stay above the competition. In recent months, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have all redesigned their platforms in an effort to gain new users while maintaining their relationships with current users. While each design has its pros and cons, Twitter’s new interface not only makes it easier for new users to understand what it means to “tweet,” but it also creates a more seamless experience for seasoned users. Let’s dive into some of the specifics:

Simpler @mentioning: Twitter’s new design allows users to @mention others right from the top of users’ Twitter profiles. This feature makes it much easier to initiate conversation with a person or brand when directed to their profile from an outside site. Goes to show how a small change can make a big difference!

Improved multimedia functionality: The new Twitter makes it much easier for users to share photos and videos. Twitter now integrates these multimedia items into the main stream, making broadcasting, viewing, and interacting with multimedia on Twitter easier than ever before.

Embedded Tweets: Twitter now allows users to grab embed codes for their favorite tweets. This means that rather than taking screen shots of tweets and uploading images to our blogs and websites, we can embed tweets so that users can interact directly from our site. Test it out below!

#protip Now you can embed a Tweet right on your WordPress blog, Posterous Space, or any website. Read more: dev.twitter.com/blog/tweets-an…

— Twitter (@twitter) January 5, 2012

Brand Pages: Finally, Twitter has brand pages! These pages allow brands to add a customized banner to their Twitter profile page. This customization increases brand awareness and gives brands the ability to promote a particular phrase, image, or promotion/event. In addition, brands are able to pin tweets to the top of their pages, drawing attention to content that the brand feels is most relevant to its audience. Check out the Jet Blue brand page!

What do you think of the New Twitter? What are some pros and cons you’ve noticed?

There is no debate that LinkedIn is an incredible resource for networking, career transitions, and prospecting, great group forums and following your favorite company. But it has a very powerful feature that I find to be more valuable than any other – “Q&A”.

Under the “More” tab in the tool bar, the first category that appears is “Answers”, click on it. Here’s the Gold Mine. About three times a week, I come to this page to contribute. I browse the “categories” section on the right and pay it forward as best I can. Finding a question you can answer for someone else is usually easy to do. Combing the answers that others have provided is equally valuable and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from others commentary on a topic that I thought I knew well. Providing answers is helpful for others and helps establish your presence on LinkedIn and increases your visibility.

For social network geeks like me, clicking on the “Ask a Question” tab is where turbo power of LinkedIn begins. Have you ever had a question about new (or old) technology, travel tips, IT issues, best practices, leadership, sales, healthcare, apps, etc.? This is the place to ask it. You’ll get a response from people around the world or around the block. Chances are you will get more than one incredibly useful answer and will start building relationships, and your network, in the process.

Recent questions that I’ve tossed out to the LinkedIn answer gurus include topics on webinars, video conferencing, alternative names for social media, the effectiveness of QR codes, whiteboards business apps and so on. The responses are timely, incredibly useful, and always provide additional tips and tricks that coincide with their answer(s).

If knowledge is power and information is valuable, LinkedIn’s Q&A section is your Gold Mine. It’s a tremendous resource of experienced professionals willing to share best practices to anyone who asks on almost any topic you might have. And, it’s a great way for us to pay it forward on a topic or solution we know well and that can be useful to others.

So what question do you have for LinkedIn today? Post it and let the power of 120+ Million LinkedIn users help you solve your problem (oh, and it’s free).

The 2012 college football season has not even officially started and yet players at Ohio State were left wondering if social media would be in their playbooks come spring practice.

Reports earlier this week initially said new head coach Urban Meyer was banning players from using Twitter. Then, reports surfaced that Meyer’s plans were essentially flagged for illegal procedure.

Defensive players Bradley Roby and Reid Fragel told a Columbus radio station that reports of the Twitter ban were in fact not true.

Meantime, tight end Jake Stoneburner initially tweeted, “Twitter=Done. Me=back for senior year, leading this team, and shocking the world!! #gobucks #12-0.”

OSU athletics representative Jerry Emig, who was sat in on the football team’s Jan. 3 meeting, told a local publication that Meyer never informed him of a Twitter ban for the Buckeyes.

“All I know was I was not made aware of a ban,” Emig told The Lantern in a Wednesday email. “I have no idea where this all originated or how it originated.”

The Buckeyes, who fell to Florida 24-17 in the Jan. 2 Gator Bowl, are coming off of one of their toughest seasons in school history, finishing a mediocre 6-7.

Not only was Ohio State inept at times on the field, but it was and will in essence pay for the prior actions of a number of players and former head coach Jim Tressel through next fall.

The NCAA sacked Ohio State with a one-year bowl ban and added penalties recently for violations that began with eight players taking a total of $14,000 in cash and tattoos in exchange for jerseys, rings and other Buckeyes memorabilia.

So, could a head coach institute a broad band on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook for his or her players? Looking at it from a legal point of view, the answer is likely no.

Imposing a ban on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc. would essentially be like telling one’s team they are not allowed to talk outside of any football-related activities. While many coaches prohibit their players from talking to the media without permission, the thought that you could completely ban your team from hopping on the Internet seems a little out of bounds.

It is safe to say, however, that more and more eyes are tuned on how athletes are using social media venues these days, especially in light of some comments by both pros and amateurs that stoked controversy in recent years.

For the Ohio State Buckeyes and new head coach Urban Meyer, there is likely going to be a 15-yard penalty for pass interference, which is passing along bad information.

So, do you think college athletes should be banned from using sites like Twitter and Facebook?