Social Media Monitoring Report

To the Trinidad & Tobago Gymnastics Federation:

Following the conclusion of the 2016 Olympic Games — the event at the root of your organization’s recent troubles — I am providing you with a snapshot of the public’s perception of the TTGF after your handling of the selection of a gymnast to represent Trinidad & Tobago at this year’s Games. This is with a view to arming you with feedback that should be considered key in determining the TTGF’s modus operandi moving forward.

Your last-minute April 16 announcement to withdraw Thema Williams as the slated Trinidad & Tobago gymnast to compete in the final gymnastics Olympic qualifier — on April 17 — in Rio de Janeiro stirred up a salacious scene in the news and on social media. With her replacement Marisa Dick being of Trinidadian parentage but Canadian-born, an already-sensitive situation became the source of race-related arguments, accusations of nepotism, and even conspiracy theories.

The Two Hotspots

Twitter and Facebook were particular hotbeds, which is why those two channels are the focus of this report.

Infographic courtesy Venngage

The tweets and Facebook posts examined were from the period between the TTGF’s announcement date of April 16 and the start of the drafting of this report, August 27. While most of the conversation took place immediately following April 16, it made sense to have the examination period extend into August to try to capture any sentiments that might have been expressed with regard to Dick’s actual performance at the Olympics.

Unfortunately, the conversations on both forums — regardless of timing — reflect very poorly on the TTGF. Terms such as debacle, fiasco, and scandal were all closely associated with any TTGF social media search; common adjectives describing your organization included: unethical, dishonorable, and even sinister; and expletives were liberally sprinkled throughout, with many commentators also inserting profane puns wherever Dick’s surname lent itself to easy innuendo.

Sobering Stats

To put it in terms of statistics, of the 122 posts on the TTGF Facebook page in response to your April 16 announcement, 100 percent were critical of the TTGF — if not utterly defamatory. The post by Tenille Clark below, sums up this point well.

Additionally, supplementing the 122 inflammatory posts were 54 Facebook reaction icons signifying anger.

With Twitter, of 60 tweets generated through searches for ‘Trinidad & Tobago Gymnastics Federation,’ ‘TTGF Dick,’ TTGF Thema,’ just 12 were not negative. That isn’t to say, however, that those 12 were in support of the TTGF; they were merely tweets that were more neutral, sharing news reports, for instance, as in the example below.

 

Recommendations

Based on all of the overwhelmingly negative feedback, allow me to respectfully put forward some suggestions for your consideration.

1) Engage your social media audiences.

The fact that you have not posted anything on the TTGF Facebook page since the April 16 announcement is detrimental in more than one way: It gives the impression that you place no value on keeping the public abreast of TTGF developments — even though your organization has been at the center of a situation of national significance; you have also missed the opportunity to defend your actions and correct any inaccuracies — silence in this case is both consent and concession, with your consenting to the public bashing, and, by default, conceding to wrongdoing.

Likewise, because you don’t even have a presence on Twitter, you’re depriving yourself of the chance to give a voice to your own narrative in a forum where your reputation has been fodder for the very influential Twitter community.

2) Ensure your operations are transparent and void of conflict-of-interest scenarios.

The overriding sentiment behind the tainted perception of the TTGF is that your unilateral decision to withdraw Williams was an act of subterfuge — in favor of Dick who has close connections with two TTGF board members. The information reported to the public that the TTGF did not observe all elements of protocol before replacing Williams with Dick —which you did little to refute (refer to the previous point) — supports that theory. Had there been absolute transparency in the decision-making process and no conflict-of-interest situations, there would’ve been no grounds for accusations of misconduct. And that is why the last point is being proffered.

3) Consider a change in leadership.

The TTGF’s credibility has suffered tremendously as a result of this situation — and perhaps irreparably so because of the lack of damage control online and offline. Fresh faces at the helm might just be the very thing needed to signal a new beginning for the TTGF and fuel the public’s renewal in the hope for the country’s collective Olympic aspirations in the realm of gymnastics.

I hope you have found this information insightful, and I would be pleased to further discuss the aforementioned recommendations with you. Meanwhile, I invite you to leave comments on your initial impressions of my report.