Trinidad and To­ba­go's Olympic and Par­a­lympic ath­letes stand to ben­e­fit from train­ing in the ef­fec­tive and re­spon­si­ble use of on­line so­cial me­dia via work­shops spon­sored by en­er­gy com­pa­ny BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT). The train­ing ses­sions were con­duct­ed at Cara Suites Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Clax­ton Bay, and is part of bpTT's com­mit­ment to the ath­letes that have signed on to be bpTT ath­lete am­bas­sadors in line with the en­er­gy com­pa­ny be­ing the of­fi­cial oil and gas part­ner of the Na­tion­al Olympic and Par­a­lympic teams. In a re­lease, the com­pa­ny stat­ed that from train­ing rou­tines to cen­tre stage com­pe­ti­tion and the in­side sto­ries be­hind their achieve­ments, the ath­lete am­bas­sadors will be able to share their ex­pe­ri­ences with their fans and the gen­er­al pub­lic, as they rep­re­sent the na­tion at the 2012 Lon­don Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games. Star cy­clist Njisane Phillip, Par­a­lympic ath­letes Car­los Greene and Shan­ntol Ince are among the first bpTT ath­lete am­bas­sadors to re­ceive first-hand train­ing in the ef­fec­tive use of so­cial me­dia ap­pli­ca­tions in their sport­ing and per­son­al lives.

Danielle A Jones, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, bpTT, ex­plained that tech­nol­o­gy would en­able sports fans, and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, to share the ex­pe­ri­ences of these na­tion­al sport­ing he­roes. "Learn­ing to use so­cial me­dia cor­rect­ly is a valu­able les­son for any­one," said Jones. "Through so­cial me­dia, our ath­lete am­bas­sadors will be able to share their sport­ing jour­ney with not on­ly their friends and sup­port­ers, but po­ten­tial­ly every­one around the world so it is crit­i­cal they learn to avoid the po­ten­tial pit­falls that can ac­com­pa­ny these pop­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools. This is a chance for them to pro­mote them­selves, pro­mote their sport, and most im­por­tant­ly, pro­mote Trinidad and To­ba­go so we are even hap­pi­er to sup­port ed­u­cat­ing them in these new me­dia chan­nels," Jones said. Like Phillip and Ince, blind Par­a­lympic shot-put­ter Greene was ex­cit­ed at the op­por­tu­ni­ty of be­com­ing so­cial me­dia savvy. "I think that I have a sto­ry to tell that can in­spire young peo­ple to over­come any ob­sta­cle in life. So­cial me­dia is a valu­able tool that can help me get the mes­sage out and re­al­ly con­nect with the peo­ple who sup­port me. I rel­ish the op­por­tu­ni­ty that bpTT is giv­ing us to touch peo­ple's lives and make a dif­fer­ence," Greene said.

The train­ing is fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Caribbean Ideas, a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and on­line ser­vices provider. The work­shops cov­ered crit­i­cal ar­eas such as the guide­lines stip­u­lat­ed by the var­i­ous sport­ing bod­ies for the prop­er use of so­cial me­dia, as well as the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of be­ing a pub­lic fig­ure and the most ef­fec­tive way to use and in­te­grate the var­i­ous so­cial me­dia. The ath­letes were al­so giv­en in­sights of how to ful­ly utilise the Ap­ple iPads and dig­i­tal cam­eras that were pre­sent­ed to them by bpTT to en­able shar­ing of their ex­pe­ri­ences. Bre­vard Nel­son, chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer, Caribbean Ideas, out­lined the im­por­tance of this train­ing. "We are help­ing these ath­letes to cre­ate a roadmap to use these tools ef­fec­tive­ly as they cre­ate and man­age their dig­i­tal foot­prints. This is a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with their fans and sup­port­ers be­fore, dur­ing, and af­ter the Olympics and Par­a­lympics. But even be­yond that, we are show­ing them how to build and main­tain their im­age and rep­u­ta­tion as they de­vel­op their own per­son­al brand."

The train­ing ses­sions high­light­ed the fact that with just a click, the ath­letes can con­nect to mil­lions of peo­ple in mere sec­onds. They were en­cour­aged to give fre­quent up­dates and to com­mu­ni­cate with their fans as they com­pete against the world for pres­tige and glo­ry, Nel­son said. Com­ing off his high­ly suc­cess­ful show­ing at the East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Grand Prix, Olympic-bound cy­clist Njisane Phillip ex­plained what the so­cial me­dia train­ing meant to him. "This ini­tia­tive is re­al­ly im­por­tant be­cause as a role mod­el, I know that I have to set a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple in every facet of my life. I love my fans and sup­port­ers and with this so­cial me­dia train­ing I can tru­ly share my ex­pe­ri­ences, my 'ups and downs' with them. With the full sup­port of bpTT and the na­tion­al pub­lic, we will give our very best when we rep­re­sent the red, white and black in Lon­don," Phillip stat­ed.