Mediaboss Marketing

LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) -

We've all seen the headlines, an athletes goes on a profanity-laced Twitter rant, or posts a regrettable picture on Instagram.

Up until now, schools have been teaching student athletes what not to do, but a new program at UW-L is teaching those athletes how to use social media to their advantage.

Most college students use social media purely for entertainment, Kevin King thinks they are missing a huge opportunity. "We want focus on what they should do and what they can do to brand themselves," said King, who teaches in the UW-L Sports Management Program.

King teaches a new seminar showing student athletes how to use social media to their advantage.

It teaches them to create and carefully control their own brand, something he thinks is important at this time in their lives. "Right now as college students but getting ready to enter the job force, so they want to start to focus on their brand and how to market themselves and social media has so many platforms in which they can take advantage of," said King.

There are a lot of courses that teach students to think twice before clicking send, but King wants this course to be different. "A lot of people tell you what not to do, but it's not really educating someone," said King, "I think you educate them and you coach them up, you make them a part of the solution and we do it together."

"I loved it," said Junior Mikayla Beuch, a swimmer at UW-L.

Beuch almost immediately took what she learned in the course and used it to her advantage. "I didn't even think of social media as a way of benefiting myself for the future, for instance he gave us examples of powerful websites like LinkedIn, I would have never thought of that," said Beauch, "I actually went home and made a LinkedIn account so now I'm on there and I'm making myself better as a professional, as a student-athlete for the future."

UW-L football player Chris Stackhouse felt the same way after taking the course. "Kevin taught us a lot of things about social media that you wouldn't normally think about when you open up your Twitter or your Facebook or your LinkedIn account," said Stackhouse.

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UW-L student athletes learn to use social media to their advantage