LeBron made his debut on Twitter today via @KingJames, and it brings up quite a few questions related to his own marketing team, his sponsors, and what role each has when it comes to an online strategy.

Word started to spread around 11AM today when Chris Paul posted that he talked LeBron into getting on Twitter. LeBron’s account quickly got up to close to 100K followers before he made an initial tweet four hours later:

What’s interesting is why did it take Chris Paul talking LeBron into getting on Twitter. You would think that  his own marketing team at LRMR, or one of his sponsors would have approached him about the benefits of being on Twitter & Facebook a long time ago. Yet it took convincing from CP3 to get LeBron on Twitter???

At the height of his free agent frenzy, I would have expected more of a plan to be set in place that includes his sponsor partners. From branding the background, to promo tweets from LeBron, to a Twitter based contest tied to his sponsor’s accounts it makes you wonder if any of his sponsors had approached LeBron about social media marketing.

You really see this all the time with athletes, they either don’t have an official site, or they don’t have any social media channels, or both. I always think if I was the sponsor paying them big bucks I would just control it myself to activate the endorsement. Either way someone on the sponsor’s side or someone on the athlete’s marketing side are sleeping at the wheel. You can’t get around the fact that digital is the only 24/7/365 marketing channel out there.

Just last week LeBron launched a splash page at LeBronJames.com, after not having an official site for the past season and half. Prior to that he had a sponsored site by Juice Batteries, and then another one by Microsoft. Neither site was a true fan destination hub with minimal updates. It will be interesting to see which if any of his sponsors will be involved in the new official site (no logos appear on the splash page). From the looks of the Twitter account it seems as if they’re seeing/hearing about it for the first time just like the rest of us, and LeBron is not following any of his sponsors yet either.  One other interesting point is the splash page does not include a callout or icon link or feed from the new Twitter account.

An athlete as big as LeBron in the corporate marketing world, and as popular as any athlete on the world stage should have a better planned online strategy . It shouldn’t be an afterthought, and it should work with all of his sponsors, not separate from their own invidual efforts.