Since Twitter started gaining mainstream publicity, from CNN reading out tweets live on air, to Perez Hilton asking his 1.5 million followers to call the police one Sunday night, the corporate world has been wary of this new communication tool.

It is understood that about 50% of Fortune 500 companies currently ban Twitter in the workplace, with many small businesses following suit.

Twitter seems to be mentioned in almost every entertainment news show these days, and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of them letting up. More recently, the professional sports world is now seeing some negative effects of Twitter usage among professional athletes.

A few days ago, Jozy Altidore of the US Men’s National Soccer Team, and Hull City Football Club (England), sent out a tweet that read: “Apologize to all of you. I showed up late. Made a big mistake I’m very very sorry.” Hours later, Jozy’s name wasn’t listed in the Hull City squad for that day’s game, as it normally is.

Jozy arrived late for work that day, and the manager, Phil Brown disciplined him by dropping him from the squad. In addition to that, the club also decided to fine the player for tweeting about what happened. Hull City FC clearly don’t want their internal affairs being posted to the world on Twitter.

“That for me is information that stays in house. The reason he wasn’t on the bench was our business.” said Brown. This isn’t the first time a professional soccer player in England has come under fire as a result of an active social media presence.

Darren Bent, formerly with Tottenham Hotspurs, sent out a twitter rant about the club chairman during the negotiation process as Bent was being transferred to Sunderland FC. Bent was forced to apologize for his angry tweets, but eventually the deal was done.

In August 2009, during the run up to the US Open, the Tennis Integrity Unit posted a notice inside the locker rooms with the heading “Important. Player Notice. Twitter Warning.”. The notice continued to state; “Many of you will have Twitter accounts in order for your fans to follow you and to become more engaged in you and the sport — and this is great,” the notices read. “However popular it is, it is important to warn you of some of the dangers posted by Twittering as it relates to the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program Rules.”

Andy Roddick responded with a tweet calling the notices “lame”.

The NFL has also had it problems with footballers using Twitter, and most teams publicly state that they do everything they can to discourage it’s use. Ocho Cinco of the Bengals is definitely not listening to this discouragement; he is talking, and talking a lot, in a lot of different ways. Ocho Cinco is fast turning into a human social media platform.

Perhaps he knows more about what to say, and what not to say on Twitter unlike some other social media active sports professionals.

Further reading related to this story:

Funny Business – The Social Media Super Bowl: The NFL vs. Twitter, Facebook et al

ITBusinessEdge – NHL Follows Lead of NBA, NFL in Banning Twitter

Article Author:

Brian Yerkes ( @brianyerkes )

Owner and Creative Director of Brian Joseph Studios, Southwest Florida’s leading web development, branding and social media firm.