Kenny Florian On Twitter
(Boston Herald) While commissioners of many professional sports leagues cringe when athletes take to Twitter, UFC president Dana White encourages the use of the social networking medium.
White has nearly 1.5 million followers on Twitter and more than 8,000 tweets, many direct responses to questions asked by fans. With White such an avid user of Twitter, it’s no surprise he’s encouraging his fighters to get on board.
At the recent UFC Fighter Summit, the organization announced an incentive plan that will award $5,000 bonuses to fighters each quarter. Fighters will be rewarded based on the highest number of new Twitter followers, the largest percentage of new followers and the most creative tweets, as judged by White.
Kenny Florian figures to be a contender in the last category. The Dover native was on Twitter before it exploded in popularity, but only recently did he begin using it to display his offbeat sense of humor.
While he continues to pass along some straightforward news, many of Florian’s tweets are tongue-in-cheek “tips” or wisecracks.
“I don’t want to just give them the boring training routines or say, ‘Just had a protein shake.’ No one really cares about that stuff,” Florian said. “I try to have fun with it.”
Like many creative ideas, Florian’s inspiration stems from boredom. After suffering a knee injury in January, Florian was unable to train for a few weeks. With free time on his hands, Florian decided to entertain himself and his fans on Twitter.
“When I had that time off with the injury, I had that time to share that on Twitter a little bit,” said Florian, who has over 65,000 followers and more than 11,000 tweets. “I was bored and I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to joke around with the fans.’ It started with doing play-by-play for ‘Rocky IV’ and fans got a kick out of it. I just started going with the ‘Kenny the Clown’ angle.”
Florian’s motivation always has been just to have fun.
“Usually it’s something that I get a kick out of,” Florian said. “It’s something that will motivate me in some way or something about my training, some kind of funny observation, something funny about martial arts or something in general. It’s funny, it’s been catching on. A lot of people love it.” …
Posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 in Updates.
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