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[Cat--Smasher]

Dana White Details The UFC’s Stance On Social Media

There is something vastly different from the way the UFC runs its social media campaigns compared to that of the NBA, NFL, NHL or MLB. You wouldn’t see Kobe Bryant, Sidney Crosby or Derek Jeter spend hours answering fan questions on Twitter the way you would see almost any UFC fighter do. The organization is run in a vastly different way, and UFC president Dana White wouldn’t have it any other way.

“A lot of these other sports, I don’t ever tell these other sports organizations what they should or shouldn’t be doing, I mean they’re doing just fine without my advice…but right now, this is where the kids live, kids live in the social media world.” White said on a recent Google+ chat. “Twitter, Facebook, the list goes on and on. That’s not going to change it’s only going to grow, we embrace it.”

There is little White instructs athletes under contract to his organization not to do when it comes to social media. The UFC boss feels social media is the wave of the future and there is nothing like a fan being able to communicate and take a deeper look inside the lives of their fighters they enjoy watching compete. The athlete-fan relationship UFC encourages is something White believes other major sports are lacking.

“A lot of these guys put restrictions on the guys, no tweeting before, no tweeting after, no this, no that.” White explained when asked how the UFC’s social media policy differs from other major sports organizations. “You know what our policy is? You can tweet in between rounds if you can pull that off. There’s no reason to not engage in social media, it’s where everything is going. Fans want more access, behind the scenes, they want to be able to talk to you.”

“I think these other leagues like the NBA, the NFL – I say this all the time, I was watching the playoff with the Lakers, the Lakers were in the playoffs, they actually won this game, they won the game. And they’re showing them as they’re walking out of the tunnel, and all these little kids are hanging their hands over the side, not one player high-fived one of those kids, not one player. And I think that’s how disconnected these other sports are from their fans.”

White pushes his athletes to interact with fans through social media. Be it answering questions to their Twitter followers, doing live chats on a variety or websites, filming video blogs to be posted on YouTube or providing constant updates through Facebook pages.

In most sporting organization, the use of social media goes as far as sending out a message on Twitter here and there, but the UFC essentially tells their fighters it’s a free-for-all when it comes to social media. While other major leagues have social media policies written out that, if broken, could result in a fine or suspension, the UFC has no such type of formal policy. When it comes to the guidelines of using social media, the UFC president has one simple request to his athletes: use your head.

“My policy is: use common sense.” White said. “Now here’s the thing, if you’re tweeting racist comments or anything that’s going to get you in really big trouble, you’re going to get in trouble one way or another, whether you’re tweeting or not, cause if that’s really who you are, and that’s really what you believe, it’s going to come out in Twitter or something else. It’s bound to happen. If that’s the way you feel, it’s going to come out eventually anyways.

“We have 475 guys under contract, they’re all on Twitter. Our guys have been tweeting for years now…We’ve had three incidents that were stupid, really stupid, but explainable. That’s the other thing too. What starts to happen on Twitter is guys try to be a comedian. You’re not funny. And what you think is funny other people don’t think is funny, keep your stuff to you and your little clique at home.”

Three instances is a bit of an understatement as there have been a number of instances where UFC fighters have produced unpalatable content over the years. In fact, the UFC president has even run into a few issues with the use of social media, most notably a video the UFC released on YouTube in 2009 where White verbally attacked a female reporter, calling her a number of derogatory terms.

On top of White’s verbal triad, fighters Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Michael Bisping and UFC color-commentator Joe Rogan have had their slip-ups in recent years. If you want to look into Twitter directly, two UFC fighters in Forrest Griffin and Miguel Torres received a lot of heat in 2011 for tweeting rape-related jokes on their personal Twitter accounts. No official fines were handed out to either man for their comments, however in the case of Torres he was released from the organization (only to be brought back a few months later after taking a number of rape sensitivity courses).

Regardless of the incidents that have happened in the past, White has chose not to introduce an official social media policy to UFC fighters. His “common sense” stance continues.

Over the last couple of years, the UFC has begun to run fighter summits in Las Vegas. The fighter summit is an event where every fighter currently under contract to the organization meets in Las Vegas for seminars on how to use social media, sensitivity training and a number of other topics. White feels the fighter summits have gone a long way in preventing his fighters saying the wrong things on social media, an aspect that is very significant as the UFC brand continues to grow on a worldwide platform.

“That’s the only real media training we have. When you really look at our business and our sport and our athletes, these are all really good guys.” White said. “We really don’t have that many problems.”

Unlike any other sports organization out there, the UFC actually gives incentives to their fighters for using social media. Twice a year they will announce winners for a number of categories for Twitter, paying the winners $5,000 each.

“The way that it works is, we give away bonuses for whoever has got the most followers over a certain period of time, the most creative tweet,” he said. “There’s a bunch of different categories that we pay for.”

Ultimately, White feels social media causes more positive than negatives for his company. The UFC’s use of social media goes beyond just fighters interacting with fans. The entire company embraces social media. For example, the UFC YouTube channel has more than 333 million channel views, and the average video views are more than the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA combined.

White uses social media as well, interacting with fans on Twitter and giving away free tickets to events. In fact, the UFC president has more Twitter followers than any other commissioner of a major organization and every fighter currently on his roster besides middleweight champion Anderson Silva at nearly 2.2 million followers.

“The night of the fight what happens is I get there about three-hours before the prelims even start, we do rehearsals inside the arena, we check the levels and make sure that everything is cool. Then me and the girl who heads up all of our social media go into my room in the back and we starting check all the – not just Twitter, but Facebook, chat sites and we start engaging and talking to people and putting out information and telling people.” White explained of his personal use of social media. “Some of these countries where we haven’t secured television deals yet, we tell them how they can watch it,

“One time, for the Anderson Silva fight (at UFC 148) we set up a war room, and for each country they would light up a screen and it would light up which countries were talking about the fight that night, then we had other people there that night and we can go through and answer questions that people have, fix problems that people have, and it’s not just about knowing that the fight’s on. People that are planning to come to the fight or watch the fight, there’s always problems in your business – cables out in (expletive) Indiana, we need to see what’s going on. This guy’s having trouble. It’s just so amazing, all the ways it can help your business. Things that I wouldn’t have known about until they happen on Monday…we can actually fix it right there that night as it happens because of social media.

UFC President Dana White Details The UFC's Stance On Social Media - Fight Cove - Analysis, Interviews and Event Coverage: Your Home for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and All Things UFC

[CtGreat]

His stance on it is the one that makes the most sense. I have no idea why other sports leaves have the restrictions they have.

[Fe1]

I follow a lot of fighters on Twitter. It's a great way to interact with them and stay up to date with what they're up to. It's the second place I go to for MMA news, after this site of course. Not to mention that it's a great way to promote fights. Facebook is good too. If it wasn't for the fights on facebook, we might still have un-aired fights.

Btw, @bdanleaman <---- that's me

[Apex Predator]

I'm going to sound outdated for saying this, but anyone know of a good tutorial site for twitter or social media in general? I know how Facebook works, but I don't quite understand twitter or how exactly tumblr is any diff than another blogs.

Rather ask you guys who have been using twitter for years following fighters than pretending that I know how to use it....

[Fe1]

Originally Posted by Apex Predator

I'm going to sound outdated for saying this, but anyone know of a good tutorial site for twitter or social media in general? I know how Facebook works, but I don't quite understand twitter or how exactly tumblr is any diff than another blogs.

Rather ask you guys who have been using twitter for years following fighters than pretending that I know how to use it....

Twitter is pretty straight forward. I figured it out on my own just a few months ago. It's sort of like Facebook only its just status updates. Basically, follow people who you think have something interesting to say, and say whatever you want. You can respond to other people's tweets too. I had a little chit chat with Pat Barry a little while back. That was pretty cool haha.

[macewen]

yeah, no clue on how to use twitter, havent tried, sounds like i should probably jump on board though

[Pasha K]

Twitter may be very good for promotion. But quite often it just shows how immature are some fighters (and presidents).

BTW Facebook is 1000x better than Twitter IMO

[CtGreat]

I'm ready for both Twitter and Facebook to die, and for some new social media upstart to take over. I'm quite bored with these social media networks at the moment.

[Spoon]

Originally Posted by Apex Predator

I'm going to sound outdated for saying this, but anyone know of a good tutorial site for twitter or social media in general? I know how Facebook works, but I don't quite understand twitter or how exactly tumblr is any diff than another blogs.

Rather ask you guys who have been using twitter for years following fighters than pretending that I know how to use it....

Create an account like Facebook. Search for people you want to read posts from, on the top right of the screen, and click "Follow" next to their name. When you're logged in to Twitter.com, the Twitter url will automatically bring you to your page. On the page, every time someone that you're following posts something, it will be on that page, in order of time it was posted. If you follow enough people, or certain people, you'll do a lot of scrolling, because you'll be shocked at how much people post (especially hot chics who can't help but post 30 times a day; with cleavage shots & bikini pics ). From there the basics are the "@" symbol is followed by the person's user name (UFC's twitter is @ufc as an example), and "#" means a specific topic (could be something as stupid as #dranktoomuchshittonight). So if you wanted to contact someone, you'd post something like "@danawhite Why are you so bald?", similar to simply posting a message on Dana White's Facebook page (if he has one). Or with the hash tag, it'd be something like "I feel like shit this morning #neverdrinkingagain".

As for Tumblr, it's basically a blog with an image for each post. Also, in the basic sense, it is just a blog site, that's free to use, and houses millions of blogs on one site.

“You know what our policy is? You can tweet in between rounds if you can pull that off.

Wonder who's going to be the first fighter in the UFC to do this. I'd have to be a serious fan favorite, or everyone would be pissed and call it disrespect for their opponent. It'd be freaking awesome.

[Qball1974]

Originally Posted by macewen

yeah, no clue on how to use twitter, havent tried, sounds like i should probably jump on board though

Same but pass, my kids are mad as shit I won't let them have facebook or e-mails. Better safe then sorry tho.