Sunday afternoon millions of basketball fans watched Kevin Ware’s gruesome injury happen right before their eyes. There was no getting around it; everyone in the arena and anyone watching on TV knew the injury was significant. As expected, there was an outpouring of condolences for Ware on social media. Yet, for some reason, Louisville was all crickets when it came to Ware.
On Facebook, Louisville celebrated the win, pushed merchandise sales and rallied around their team without one single mention or acknowledgement of Ware at all:
I am all about student-athlete privacy, but with an injury that, public you can give an acknowledgment without actually disclosing any personal information. It was not until Monday afternoon that they finally posted something on Facebook about Ware’s injury (it was a nice post, in their defense):
For me, their initial posts after Ware’s injury felt extremely planned and insincere; it seems like they knew what they wanted to post if they won and were not willing to deviate from the plan at all. Perhaps an internal policy prevented them from mentioning Ware or maybe the moment just caught them off-guard, but I think it’s an important lesson for us all:
In social media you have to plan for the unexpected. And, you have to be willing to deviate from your plan.
Teams, leagues, athletic departments, etc. need to go through every single scenario they might find themselves in and understand how they will handle it on all their platforms, not just social. It’s time to ask:
- What happens if a student-athlete, player has a significant injury?
- How will we handle a weather delay?
- What do we want to do if we win?
- How do we handle ourselves if we lose?
- How do we want to celebrate a milestone win (if a coach, player, etc. is nearing one)?
- And, so on…
Even if you go through these scenarios you have to be flexible, because let’s be honest, you can’t foresee how moments will unfold. If you have a basic understanding of what you are looking to do though, you will be able to make sound decisions even when emotions are high.
Why is this important?
In my opinion, PR in the social media world is all about guiding the conversation. If it’s your story to tell, you want to get in front of it before rumors start circling and someone else starts driving the conversation. Louisville should have been the main source for updates on Ware, and instead, they let everyone else do the talking.
It’s not that this was a PR nightmare for Louisville… but it would have been nice, among all the planned posts, for them to put something out that was heartfelt, genuine and timely about Ware. After all, he is their student-athlete. If anyone should have been driving the conversation, it’s Louisville.
