The Southeastern Conference  college athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama is not a fan of social media.  As a matter of fact, the SEC is looking to have all of their athletes banned from using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, TwitPic, etc.

One of the reasons why the SEC possibly wants to have social media banned is because of a contract they have in place with CBS.  The problem is that it is hard to make a conference-wide ban on social media because it is a part of our everyday lives.

The Big 10 Conference on the other hand is fully embracing social media.  On The Big 10 website there are links to the Big Ten Conference’s Twitter account along with the personal Twitter accounts of their executives.  The Big 10 website also has a gallery of TwitPics that were taken in relation to the Big 10.

On top of the Twitter links, the Big 10 encourages users to join their Facebook groups and watch some of the best Big 10 games on Hulu.

I agree with Bret Feddern of BleacherReport when he writes “The SEC should follow the lead of the Big Ten rather than basing its decision making on the fear of what it doesn’t understand.”