Athletes are busy people – training, fulfilling sponsor requests, interviews, game time, etc., so it’s not surprising they don’t have to time to tweet all day and all night. It’s ok if the main personality doesn’t do all the posts, but don’t try and fool your audience when other people also post.

A good strategy to use is the athlete can post when possible and designate their posts with a mark. For example, if David Beckham were posting, he would include “-DB” or “DB” at the end of each post. At only 2-3 characters it’s not giving up too much writing opportunity. The reverse strategy can be used as well, if the athlete can’t remember to post with marks – then always have your team member do it when they post. For example, using “-OS” or “OS” in relation to Official Site. This way fans aren’t confused or fooled (a la the NY Times article outing people like Britney and 50 Cent, etc., for not making actual posts on their official accounts).

Posting Strategy:
If an athlete has an official website, then all social media applications should work in conjunction with the athlete’s main brand hub – their official site. Whenever an appearance, video, photo, featured article, sponsor promo, etc. – significant update of any kind is made to the official site it should posted on Twitter with a link back. These types of posts should be handled by the team member – leave the general posting items to the athlete.

Working in combination you’ll be providing fans and followers depth and quality of posts, and also driving traffic back to the official website.