If y’all have listened to the LOHD podcasts or read some of my other pieces on here, you will know I am an advocate of the social media known as twitter. If you aren’t on twitter yet, this is for you. If you started an account but never kept up with it, keep reading.
The value that twitter brings is that it is completely personalized. At first I was quite leery of twitter. My initial impression was celebrities and teeny boppers talking about lunch and friends and what not. Then I found out that people who write about college football also used the medium and my attitude changed completely.
The fact is news breaks on twitter. News is on twitter before it is on your favorite national news website. News is on twitter before you find it on the ESPN crawl. Way before you find it on the hometown newspapers website. Heck, twitter even has where players are drafted before the decision is announced on ESPN or the NFL Network. Certainly there is some less than solid sources that need to be sifted through, but the cats that know what is going on, break it on twitter.
One of the useful tools is the hashtag (#). By tagging one of your tweets with a hashtag, other people can search for that tag. You can use this to find other people twitter or for gathering information. An example is #gamecockfollow. Gamecock fans use this to tag their tweets and identify and network with other Carolina fans. It won’t take long to get the hang of it.
Here is a brief list of folks that I follow that I have found provide good, solid information as well as engaging with fans:
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@BarrettSallee Barrett is the lead SEC writer for Bleacher Report and provides excellent daily content. Barrett has an active feed (he tweets a lot) and responds to folks who follow him and has a weekly SEC Q&A. Of the guys on the SEC football beat, Barrett does the best job.
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@Andy_Staples Andy is one of SI’s college football writers that came up through the ranks. He was a one walk-on at UF under Spurrier and also had an affinity for mustard based BBQ. He is a must follow.
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@Movethesticks Daniel Jeremiah played QB at App State before going to work for three NFL teams as an NFL scout. This past year he took a gig with the NFL Network as an analyst and does an outstanding job breaking down the draft. Very active feed with lots of information during the CFB season. Very high on Marcus Lattimore, FWIW.
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@CharlesBloomSC Charles came to USC via the SEC and he brought his twitter feed with him. Excellent updates from a “behind the scenes” guy at South Carolina.
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@TravHaneyESPN Haney shouldn’t be a stranger to Carolina fans as he wrote the book that chronicled South Carolina’s Omaha dominance. He know is a national guy for ESPN (note a lot of his links are behind a pay wall, but still worth a follow).
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@ChaddScott Scott has a lot of opinions that you will surely agree with and even more that you will disagree with. A radio vet that has worked for ESPN as well as at local stops in CFB hotbeds Atlanta and Jacksonville, Chadd has a unique take on college football that is a little bit different than what you get with most folks.
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@ClayTravisBGID Clay has been homering for the SEC since before it was cool. Travis has been ahead of the curve as far as sports and online media/fan social media is concerned. Definitely worth a follow.
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@MattRHinton If www.sundaymorningqb.com isn’t part of your everyday rotation during the season, it needs to be. Hinton also contributes to CBS sports.
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@BFeldmanCBS Bruce Feldman wrote “Meat Market” about recruiting with Ed Orgeron and helped Mike Leach co-write his book “Swing your Sword”, the latter of which got him in hot water with ESPN and ultimately led to him landing at CBS. #Freebruce
As always, you can find LOHD’s content from the staff here: @BillyKoehler, @MooseLOHD, @LOHDgamecocks, and @bdroberts816. Give us a follow.
