Posting on social media for a big corporation is a tightrope act these days.
You want to create an engaging post, but you don’t want something low hanging that will cause internet trolls to come out of the woods and take pot shots at.
It’s even crazier for a high-level college football team, because fans of every other team are just looking for a reason to roast you into oblivion.
As a former social media manager, I don’t envy the position these people are in.
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With all that said, the social media team for Texas A&M’s football program posted what is perhaps the greatest opportunity for any internet troll with access to Photoshop that has existed in quite some time.
To the uninitiated, this may just look like a team hyping up their new end zones for Saturday, but to “students of the game,” this is basically a blank canvas for trolling opportunities.
Don’t believe me? Observe.
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You know, if the Aggies were 4-0 right now, this probably wouldn’t be going as poorly in the comments section.
But the fact that A&M is 2-2 and reeling after back to back losses to Kentucky and LSU made this almost too easy to see coming.
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You just don’t get opportunities like this anymore as digital graffiti artists, mainly because social media managers have been around the block a few times before, so I have no idea how anyone on the Aggies’ social media team let this one slip through the cracks.
They even left the generic blank Photoshop fill on the end zones, almost as if they wanted this to happen.
Was this a false flag operation by Texas A&M to generate engagement?
I doubt it.
Like I said, this was a top-ten preseason team with College Football Playoff aspirations that is now sitting at 2-2 and on the brink of missing the big dance entirely.
I’m sure their posts are being engaged with plenty, though most of that engagement is coming from angry Aggie fans demanding to know why Marcel Reed is still allowed to touch a football.
I think this was just a rookie mistake committed by whoever is in charge of the phones in College Station.
Let this be a lesson to anyone hiring a social media manager for a big-time sports team or Fortune 500 company.
Be careful who you give access to the “nuclear codes.”
