The Big Fat Mouth, the award winning social media agency, announced the formation of Social Media Coach for Athletes.  This new division will direct its social media training programs exclusively to professional, collegiate, aspiring amateur and high school athletes and will be run under the supervision of Peter Soumas in his role as Executive Vice-President.

Social Media Coach For Athletes (SMCA) offers a variety of programs dedicated to responsible and effective social media skill development for this highly followed and scrutinized segment of the social media population.  Just as each athlete’s goals for using social media are different at every level of their athletic career, the required skills and training are also significantly different.  Every athlete has a brand that they have created and reinforce every day by their actions on and off the field.   Their activity in social media is the single most important and often neglected tool in building and maintaining their personal brands.

In today’s sports world, athletes are coached in every aspect of their game, including position skills, speed,, strength, conditioning, agility, nutrition, sports psychology and more.  Beginning at the college level athletes are coached on how to answer questions from press and news media, but very few are coached on how to responsibly use social media, not to mention on how to use it to build their brand and future opportunities.  With SMCA’s programs and proper coaching, professional athletes can not only enhance their brand image, but significantly enhance their income and future earning potential.

Jonathan Ressler, founder of The Big Fat Mouth and The Social Media Badass, renowned for creating and executing social media marketing strategies and campaigns for some of the largest brands, celebrities and athletes in the world, identified  a real need in the world of sports.  “Social Media has revolutionized the sports world at every level by providing unparalleled access to athletes and information.  The problem is that nobody has trained these high profile social media users to understand the power of essentially having an open microphone in front of them at all times,” said Ressler.

At the high school level, SMCA focuses on showing the student-athlete how to use social media responsibly and how their activities can affect themselves, their team, their school and even their family.  Further, as social media has become the most important tool in the recruiting process, student-athletes need to know how to create and enhance their personal brand to garner exposure and ensure that they are projecting the best possible image to potential future coaches.  College athletic departments have people whose responsibilities include reviewing the social media behavior of a prospective student-athlete.   Improper or inappropriate social media behavior will most certainly have a damaging effect on a prospect’s chances according to collegiate coaches.  SMCA trains and mentors the student and their family to ensure they have the tools necessary to maximize exposure and opportunities in today’s sports world.

Ressler says “The high school student is using social media as their main communication tool with their friends day in and day out, and it is certainly the single largest shift in the way we communicate since the advent of television.  The problem is that the way a student-athlete uses social media with their friends is radically different than how they need to be using it for the recruiting process.  We provide each student with a comprehensive game plan and guidelines on how to maximize their efforts, increase visibility and truly build the value of their personal brand.”

SMCA provides live or Skype one-on-one training, live seminars, team and organization training and guidelines, with online training options becoming available before the end of May.  Each live training package is customized to the individual athlete where goals are identified and a specific strategy and game plan are created, exactly like every other aspect of an athletes training regimen.

Soumas believes this new division is the perfect compliment to the existing agency work for brands including Barnes & Noble, Boehringer Ingelheim, The Real Housewives of New York,  The Pittsburgh Steelers and many others.   “We have been working with many top companies, entertainment properties and sports organizations to guide them in creating  and reinforcing their brand image in the social media world.  Individual athletes are brands unto themselves and working with them individually encompasses many of the same principles and practices.  Our groundbreaking work with so many of these companies make us uniquely qualified to help athletes reach their maximum potential as quickily as possible by avoiding rookie mistakes and social media pitfalls.

The Big Fat Mouth and Social Media Coach For Athletes headquarters are located in Cary, North Carolina with satellite offices in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Indianapolis.