For the first time, most young athletes who are either beginning their careers or early in their careers had social media in their early teens. Think about that, players in their early to mid twenties have had an online presence for so long, there is tangible documentation of how they thought and acted throughout their adolescent years.

Since social media has become an inevitable factor in our daily lives, the importance of checking your social media content annually is more important than ever before. We are (hopefully) not the same person we are today as we were in our early teens. We most likely don't have the same mindsets, same goals, or even the same personalities. If all of this is true, then why would you want your social media to reflect thoughts and opinions you do not hold anymore?

The biggest question you should be asking yourself is: does my social media reflect who I am presently? If the answer is no, than you should immediately be taking steps to clean out old posts, pictures, likes and comments which do not reflect who your presently and the values you define yourself with. For athletes especially, this is an important task for ensuring fans and those who look up to you know who you are presently. In order to successfully do this, we suggest recapping your social media at least once a year and cleaning out any content which does not reflect who you are presently.

Another important aspect of social media etiquette is to not spew negative thoughts, comments, shares or opinions on your social media. Most of us speak negatively when we are upset or angry, often in a heat of the moment situation. Think before you post. While posting has become a sort of journal for many, a medium in which we can share every thought which pops into our heads, it is important to think about the impact a post may have the next day, week, or year. While it can be so easy to jump online when something upsets you, take a moment to think about if that thought falls into one of the values you align yourself with. Doing this will not only keep your brand consistent, but it will prevent you from having to jump on the defensive when those posts may be brought to light. 

Lastly, keeping your content consistent means changing your social as you change. We are always growing, evolving our thoughts; as this occurs, so should your social media platforms. Since athletes are typically seen as influencers, if one of your values or opinions changes, it is important to make sure your social media reflects this change too. Whether we want to believe it or not, people will search through your social media including years past. It is hard to display and preach a consistent message if you have conflicting content. 

Overall, whether you are an athlete or not, it is important to reflect on who you are and what values define you as a person. Change your social media as you and your values shift. Cleaning out your social media at least once a year will help you present theses values and show a consistent message. Don't spew negativity online. Think about the impact of your posts before you post them. It is never a good idea to post when you are feeling something in the moment. Make sure your posts reflect who you are presently and what you value. Most people don't know who you are outside of social media, which is why maintaining a present and true representation of yourself on social media is essential for representing your brand.

Reflecting on your social media analytics is important for improving your content and determining what is working and what isn't working for your brand. While doing this with your social analytics is important for improvement, personally reflecting on the content you put out is important for remaining consistent and ensuring your are practicing what you preach.

A personal reflection on the type of content you are putting out to define your brand also allows you to reflect on if you are practicing what you are preaching. People follow authentic brands. Authenticity comes when brands practice what they preach. If an athlete posts on social media about maintaining sportsmanship throughout their career but on game day does not practice good sportsmanship, they will lose their credibility and authenticity. 

You can't just post and speak about things you want your brand to be, you have to live by those standards as well. Why would an audience practice what your brand is preaching if your brand is not even doing it? They won't. When a brand doesn't act on their messages, an audience won't believe that the advice or message actually works.

Everything is about outcomes. When a brand puts out advice or tips, the audience expects these posts to come from experiences a brand has had, not advice about something which should work in theory. People follow brands who post content which is creative and reliable. The only way to do this is by practicing the content you put out and making sure you provide your audience with follow up about those experiences. 

Follow up is key. You have to practice what your preach and also show your audience when you are actively doing this. Post on your social media behind the scenes insights into something you have posted about in the past. While a follow up post about the subject is important, so is posting real time content of practicing something your brand promotes. 

Overall, a brand is only as good as it is authentic and genuine. Practicing what you preach will not only add these characteristics to your brand, but it will make it easier for you to come up with content to put out. You will have more experiences to pull from and you will be able to show your audience through real measurable outcomes that your content is effective. 

Article: Chargers Wire
Written By: Gavino Borquez 
​Originally Posted: September 27, 2018
​
The Chargers defense has struggled as a whole unit through the first three weeks, and that’s primarily due to the inability to pressure opposing team’s quarterbacks. We learned that defensive end Joey Bosa will likely be out until after the bye week, which would mean he won’t see the field until November against the Seattle Seahawks.
​
Something has to change with Los Angeles’ defensive game plan moving forward if they want to return to the unit they were in 2017, and it all starts up front. Specifically, using the player more of the player that they drafted in the second-round of the 2018 NFL draft, linebacker Uchenna Nwosu.

Nwosu may not be the best pass-rusher on the team, but with his strength, effort, athleticism and speed off the edge, he has shown to be capable, especially in the preseason. Nwosu wins most of his battles with his first step or his ability to get underneath bigger offensive linemen and win with great pad level and leg drive.

Nwosu is not a technician and appears to be somewhat limited in his number of counters essentially leaving him as a speed-rusher, and does not use his hands as much as you would like to see, but when he does, he often uses a two-hand swipe.

A two-hand swipe is executed when blockers are going to try to get their hands in on a defender’s chest. To prevent this from happening, they swipe through with both hands at the blockers elbows. This way if he pulls his hands back, they’ll still be able to knock his hands down. Without his hands in position, it’ll be a lot harder for them to execute a good block.

With that being said, let’s break down in five plays how Nwosu shows the ability to get after the quarterback and why he needs to be on the field more.

Nwosu is lined up outside of the left tackle. He times the snap perfectly, which, when combined with his electric get-off and a two-hand swipe to clear hands, it allows him to beat the left tackle around the edge. As he works to recover, Nwosu reduces his blockable surface area by slightly dipping his inside shoulder, allowing Nwosu to absorb the contact without diverting his path to the quarterback.

​Nwosu is lined up outside of the right tackle on this play. He takes a very quick fake step outside then explodes inside with a strong rip to clear the RT hands and get into the backfield. Former Chargers LB Hayes Pullard is there as well to bring Rosen down.

​Nwosu is lined up outside of the right tackle on this rep. Nwosu bursts upfield, using perfect stride length and frequency to eat up his cushion with the tackle, and uses the long arm move to create separation and protect his chest. It may seem like the RT beats Nwosu at the end of this play, but he forces the quarterback to step up into the pocket, leaving DE Isaac Rochell to acquire the sack.

​Nwosu got his first career sack just two weeks ago against the Buffalo Bills. He wins this rep with a simple speed rush, uses inside hands to bully and push back left tackle Dion Dawkins, sacking Josh Allen as he steps up in pocket to avoid safety Derwin James’ pressure.

There’s not a whole lot we can do in terms of increasing Nwosu’s snaps, but it’s clear that he showed in the preseason that he can be a force with he comes off the line of scrimmage.

Back during training camp, the former USC product spent as much time around Bosa as possible, picking his brain for any tips to improve his game. There are some flaws, but the more refined Nwosu gets, the more fearful opposing offensive tackles will become.
​
Here’s to hoping that Nwosu gets to see the field more than just 20 snaps per game.

We talk about it all the time, football is a tough sport and injuries are inevitable. Situations like Earl Thomas' are a chance for fans to see a different perspective when it comes to injured players. 

Thomas chose not to attend OTA's, training camps, or play in preseason games because he wanted the Seahawks to fairly compensate him for his skills, or at least be traded to a team who would compensate him properly. After neither of those scenarios came through during preseason, Thomas ultimately decided to play the regular season for the Hawks on his last year under contract with the team. 

Thomas wanted to extend his contract with the Hawks, he wanted to play for this team, but more importantly, he wanted to play for a team who knew his talents, appreciated them and would compensate him fairly for them. Now, as he faces a potential season ending injury as he enters a free agency year, his future with the Hawks and the NFL is more uncertain than ever. 

As fans, we sometimes forget the sacrifice these players make to their bodies for their teams. It is important we look at players like Thomas and Bell and seek out their perspectives. Le'Veon Bell may have put it best in a recent tweet, "sometimes a simple "thank you" can go a long way...I feel like too many people take me for granted...". These players feel their skills aren't being appreciated when teams choose not to compensate them fairly.

​Thomas left the field clearly frustrated, and this frustration stems from the uncertainty he now faces. Regardless of how you may feel about the money involved in these scenarios, Thomas' future as a professional athlete may be over because of one play, and a franchise's inability to come up with a new and fair contract. 

Bleacher Report recently published an article on Antonio Brown's work on the field and off the field. The article, by Master Tesfatsion, touches on the accomplishments Brown has had on the field. The main message of the article, however, is about the legacy Brown now wants to focus on leaving once he can no longer play football. Legacy. A short word with an intricate connotation. 

In the article, Brown spoke about realizing he had lost touch with values in his life, which deserved the same amount of attention and effort to which he gives football.  Some of these things being family and mentorship. He wants to be more than just great at the game; he wants to be remembered for his impact on other players and how he carried himself off the field.

Leaving a legacy is something almost every individual wants to do. We want to be remembered for doing great things and being a great person once we are gone. For athletes, the window for leaving a lasting legacy can be short. With no certainty on how long they will be able to be a professional athlete, focusing on their legacy and their impact off the field should be just as important to an athlete as their physical training. 

For many athletes, there is a small window of opportunity in which they are able to capitalize on their name and recognition. Once an athlete retires, their recognition decreases. Once this happens, an athlete has already missed the prime time to reach the largest audience and share what defines them off the field. The best time to start building your legacy, is when people care the most about who you. For an athlete, this means they should start at the beginning of their career, and continue to capitalize on it for the duration of their time on the field. This will set them up for long term success and sustainability.

Brown is a prime example for any athlete trying to hone in on this task. Brown took time to think about what he wants to remembered for, and is now focusing on those values just as much as he is football. For Brown, mentorship for other receivers in the league and aspiring players in high school is his passion. Coming from humble beginnings, Brown has worked everyday to get where he is today. This message of focus and hard work is something he wants to plant in every kid's mind no matter their goal. 

Just as Brown has, the first step to leaving a lasting legacy begins by defining your values and passions. Living each day with these values and passions in mind and focusing on implementing them into everything you do, will lead others to recognize what your legacy is. Next, you have to capitalize on these values and passions. Not only live by them, but live with them. Do work and service which aligns with these values and passions. We are only as strong as the words we practice more than we preach.

At the end of the day, leaving a legacy off the field is what most athletes want to do. They want people to remember their name once they can no longer set records; they want to be more than a person who was good at football. The only way to leave a legacy is by starting day one and living that legacy each and everyday. 

Creating content for your brand to post on social media involves developing the content before posting it. Developing involves various steps, such as choosing which medium(s) to post on, choosing the picture, or graphic to post, or choosing not to post a picture or graphic, all which involves careful thought and strategy. Often, the toughest part to posting on social media is forming a caption which carries a consistent voice, as well as speaks to the audience targeted on the specific medium. An effective way to write with a consistent voice, is to humanize your writing for content. 

Carrying a consistent voice on any medium is important, because it provides your followers with a sense of comfort. Consistency in the way you write on each medium allows readers to relate to the brand and resonate with a brand's values, which provides an overall felling of comfort towards the brand. One of the best ways to maintain a consistent voice and sense of comfort, is by humanizing your brand as much as possible.

Humanizing your brand means creating a voice and tone in your content which portrays an actual person speaking to the readers; not a computer generated response, or a response which seems to be too 'by the book'. When creating a caption for a social media posting, it is important to be transparent and genuine, and focus  on humanizing the content. 

This is especially important for interactive content. If part of your social media strategy is to interact with your followers, maintaining this human voice is important for creating content which will encourage your following to engage back. If an audience feels they are having a genuine interaction, or speaking to someone behind the screen, they are more likely to respond and further engage with your brand. 

Brands like Wendy's and Burger King, do a good job at humanizing their brand to attract a younger audience on social media platforms like Twitter. They consistently have a colloquial tone, and frequently use trending memes or language to relate to their target. They have also taken shots at their competitors using this tone on Twitter, which has played well for their target audiences. Not only do do they hold followers who enjoy their products, but they gained followers who enjoy the funny and real content these companies put out. 

Overall, humanizing your brand and maintaining this in the voice of your content is important for gaining a following and creating brand loyalty. Followers are more likely to engage if they feel connected to the brand on a personal level. 

Building and maintaining a brand is not an easy task. One of the key ways to maintain a brand, is analyzing your content; figuring out what has worked and what hasn't worked for your brand. It is arguably the hardest step for maintaining a brand, and often a step most people do not know how to successfully accomplish. While there are many tools to help you understand your analytics on social sites, another way to find out what works for your brand and what doesn't, is to look at your competitors.

It may seem like an odd concept, to seek out ways to improve your brand through your competitors. However, it is an extremely efficient way to see how various tactics work for your target audience. If you look at your direct competitors, the companies who do exactly what you do, it is safe to assume that you share a great portion of your target audience. It is also safe to assume that your company has the potential to attract the same audience that competitor already has attracted who may not be aware of your company yet. Therefore, it is important to analyze the work they do. 

Chances are you will find very similar tactics between your company and your competitors. The key to finding success through your competitors is by doing what they do, but doing it better. If you find that your competitor is using a social site to a greater advantage than you are, then you need to focus on learning from them and then using it even better. 

We often spend a lot of our time investigating what platforms or content will better resonate with our target audience. Analyzing what has worked for your competitors makes this investigation a little easier. Not only can you compare what is working with your own company, but you can also see what's working for your competitors. Once you know what works, you can spend more time focusing on innovating your content.

If we know that Facebook is working for your competitor to attract your target audience, you no longer have to focus on different social sites; you can immediately shift your focus to improving your content on Facebook. If we know that your target audience responds well to promotional content from your competitor, you can focus on innovating your promotional content so it is better than your competitor's content.

Analyzing the response from your company's content and overall brand image is the only way to ensure you are resonating with your target audience. You should always aim to add value to your brand and make it unique and recognizable. This becomes an easier task when you have multiple sets of data to analyze. 

Maintaining consistency in a brand is vital for growing a following organically. Sustaining this idea in various areas of the brand is how a brand portrays itself overall to its audience. A consistent message and production of content are the most important factors for growing a following for a brand. 

People stay loyal to brands who constantly put out content because content keeps an audience entertained, and offers insight and a chance for a thorough understanding of what a brand represents. Audiences can't relate to a brand if they don't know what a brand stands for, or what values a brand embodies. The easiest way for a brand to share their message is through content. The more content, the greater chance an audience will understand what a brands message is.

For athletes especially, posting content consistently allows fans a chance to understand them and relate to them as an individual outside of their sport. As fans, we can often forget that an athletes athletic career is not the only thing which defines them. Athletes often define their personal brand around other factors as well, such as family, faith, or philanthropy. The only way for an athlete to show the world those other factors of their life is to post about it consistently. 

Once athletes allow themselves to be seen under these different values other than sports, they open themselves up to the opportunity to gain a following from people who identify with those values as well. The only way audiences will see these different identities is by posting consistently to various social media outlets. An athlete who posts about their family a couple times a week, will find a greater following from family oriented individuals than an athlete who posts about their family once a month, because these values are more apparent to family oriented individuals when they see family oriented content consistently. 

When we think about athletes like Tim Tebow, who have consistently produced content about his faith, we can easily remember him as not only an athlete, but an individual who is strong in their faith. By defining himself through his faith and athletic career, he opened his following up to both fans and individuals who are also strong in their faith. 

Overall, producing consistent content not only allows a brand to be more clearly defined and recognizable, but it allows audiences a chance to relate to the brand more, and in turn form a sense of loyalty to the brand. Posting consistently and pushing your message as a brand is the easiest way to gain a following organically. 

Recently, we've discussed how to define your brand and how to own your brand. All necessary factors for creating a lasting and consistent brand. Once you've created your brand, how do you sell that brand? How do you get people to not just maintain  loyalty to the brand, but buy into it?

At then end of the day, giving your brand added value intrinsically or monetarily is the goal. We build brands with the hope that the loyalty our audience feels for the brand turns into some type of purchase. So, how do you do that? You have to add value to your brand. You have to give your audience something of value for themselves when they buy into your brand. 

Adding value to your brand can happen in various ways. Most of the time our clients are trying to sell their personal brand. In order to add value to your personal brand, you have to think how the qualities of your brand can translate into added value for whom you are trying to sell to. You have to be able to show the seller why buying into your brand will ultimately benefit them in various ways as well. 

These benefits can come as an exclusive interview, a mutual promotion, or a chance to break a story about your brand. The common factor in all of these benefits is that they are mutually beneficial. While your brand is gaining exposure, someone else is also gaining content for their brand or business. If you can add mutually beneficial outcomes to your brand, not only will you succeed in the short-term, but you may create a long-term relationship with your buyer. This long-term relationship may lead to future work together, and a chance for more exposure.  

Creating long-term relationships leads to long-term benefits. Long-term benefits lead to added value for your brand. Adding value to your brand and to your audience leads to lasting brand awareness and continuous growth for your brand. Ultimately, this is the goal; continuously adding value to your brand in order to grow your exposure and awareness. 

Article: The Charger's Wire
Written By: Kyle Posey
​
After a controversial call during yesterday’s game, Uchenna Nwosu showed a classy gesture by issuing an apology to Taiwan Jones after hitting him once Jones helmet came off during the game. This is the vicious hit:

He tweeted out a picture of his head. This is not for the faint of heart.

No matter how you feel about the call on the field, Nwosu did the right thing by issuing an apology. He sent it to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, who tweeted it out. Here’s the apology:
“I want to take another opportunity to apologize to Taiwan Jones for yesterday’s hit. The game is rough but my intention is never to hurt anyone. The ref hadn’t blown the whistle to call the play dead and I didn’t realize his helmet had come off. My apologies man.”
Class act by a guy that really didn’t have to say anything.