Just getting round to writing about two separate but interlinked events earlier in the year,  that is - sports stars using twitter.

Philip Hughes revleaved prematurely via Twitter that he’d been dropped with this tweet:

“Disappointed not to be on the field with the lads today. Will be supporting the guys, it’s a BIG test match 4 us. Thanks 4 all the support.”

As the Guardian reported it at the time:

Hughes’s agent, Neil D’Costa, has since tried to take the blame for the mistake, claiming that he is responsible for posting the player’s tweets, but Cricket Australia’s Philip Pope suggested Hughes would still be held accountable.

Meanwhile,  Darren Bent was getting into trouble. The Times reported that

…Darren Bent was at the centre of an internet controversy last night after a foul-mouthed message to Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, was posted on Twitter, the social networking site… After Bent was dramatically pulled out of Tottenham’s pre-season tour to China on Monday, details appeared on a Twitter account regarding his proposed move to Wearside. It prompted a local newspaper to urge Sunderland supporters to sign up to Twitter to persuade the striker to join Steve Bruce’s team.

The same account — credited to db10thetruth — which features photographs of Bent working as a DJ and of recent Spurs friendly matches, edged in a different direction yesterday, purporting to illustrate the extent of the 25-year-old’s increasing anger at the slow pace of discussions.

“Seriously getting p***** off now,” was the message posted at lunchtime, followed by “Why can’t anything be simple. It’s so frustrating hanging round doing jack s***.”

After later stating that “Sunderland are not the problem in the slightest,” there then followed more stringent criticism of Levy. “Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go stoke NO do I wanna go sunderland YES so stop f****** around levy [sic].”

The Times contacted officials at both Sunderland and Tottenham last night as well as Bent’s representative. While all of them confirmed that Bent is a regular and enthusiastic tweeter, none had established whether the player himself was responsible for the posts.

Some interesting questions here. The primary challenge though is something that organisations face every day: how to use these tools - and derive the massive benefit they can bring - without exposing yourself to reputational risk?

In sport, the use of microblogs by sportsmen and women- from Andy Murray at Wimbledon, to a Major League Football star from the subs bench - has been enthusiastically embraced by agents and league owners. After all, Twitter, more than any other platform, brings stars immediately closer to their fans, and can offer unique insights into the life / mind of an elite sportsperson that just couldn’t be conceived of before social networks came along.

Yet, the moment a minor indiscretion - or any visceral content - appears, those same stakeholders can’t wait to condemn the offending individuals (and indeed the wider platforms.)

So on one count, certainly there is a desire here to have their cake and eat it.  We see the same in the corporate world - enterprises benefit enormously from employee advocates,  thought leadership and knowledge syndication in social networks. But woe betide anyone who moves from the deemed acceptable to the deemed unacceptable.

What take-aways are there here?

Well firstly, to acknowledge that everyone is still trying to get a grip on the impact of social networking.  Darren Bent would have invariably told his mates about his frustration, but it was unlikely to enter the mainstream.  Of course employers don’t ‘own’ their employees 24/7  (and everything they say & do outside the workplace )  but what is the balance between private / social and business / social?  As always the law is catching up - are the guidelines about bringing an organisation into disrepute fit for purpose in toady’s web 2.0 world?

Acting authentically is of course vital for organisations through their employee-advocates, just as it is for sports stars. Who would really want to follow the twitter stream of a sports star when it’s not actually the star doing the tweeting?  (In the Hughes case, I am certain the agent-tweeted-this defence  was a pretty lame distraction exercise.) If organisations - and leagues and agents -  insist on authenticity, then the question of responsibility is a straightforward one. This - coupled with a defined social frameworks (covering suitable subjects, tone of voice, what happens if something escalates etc) and the holy trinity of time-tools-trust can help minimise the risks (though not eliminate them) whilst unlocking the benefits of corporate social networking.