\u201cOur young players come across several forms of social media training but the one I\u2019ve personally been involved in is part of a lifestyle programme for second year scholars, so those on the brink of first-team football. Alongside their usual education programmes, the scholars have various sessions outside of the classroom. This includes healthy eating\/cooking lessons in the kitchen with the club chef, visits to a local school or charitable cause and a session on the media. The social media education is part of the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do Birmingham City actually test that their players are listening to the training?<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe hold a mock (although they don\u2019t know that at the time) press conference with each scholar with tailor-made questions that are designed to purposely make life uncomfortable for them. We try to recreate an intense press conference environment – a photographer snapping away, plenty of onlookers scribbling into notepads, TV cameras aimed etc. While putting the questions together, research is done into each scholar\u2019s background in social media. It\u2019s rare that you don\u2019t find a tweet or post on Facebook from them that could be potentially twisted by the media into a negative story. Suitable questions are devised on this basis. Once each \u2018press conference\u2019 is held, we play back the videos to the whole group and talk them through good and bad points. It\u2019s amazing how the group are surprised to learn that what appears to be an innocent tweet in their eyes could easily be taken out of context by a journalist looking for a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you had one key lesson that you want players to learn from the experience what would it be?<\/h3>\n

\u201cFor them to take a second to stop and think before letting their emotions get the better of them and they publish a thought to the entire world. What may be good natured banter between them and their mates may have a very different meaning to others. I always use a good example of a experienced first-team player who was innocently caught out. He tweeted: \u2018I could smash my forearm into somebody\u2019s temple right now…\u2019 That one tweet escalated into a national newspaper thinking it was the result of a training ground bust up. It turned out that it was a line from a film that he was watching at that moment and one that his friends would recognise. Obviously the newspaper journalist didn\u2019t recognise it but thankfully we managed to clear the situation before it went to print. Otherwise it could have been very embarrassing for all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n