Jalen Rose, a former NBA star and current ESPN analyst, recently wrote a post for Mashable discussing 5 reasons why every sports fan should be on social media. His first point in his article: social media gives every fan a voice. But how exactly does a sport fan go about finding his/her own voice in social media?

Here are a few ways that sports fans can find their own voice on Twitter.

1. Affiliate with a team, or go independent, through use of hashtags.

First, you need to determine if you are going to tweet your favorite teams or go independent. While most sports fans naturally gravitate towards tweeting their favorite teams, there is nothing wrong with going independent (and you can accomplish different things if you do, which will be explained later on).

Make sure that you tag your tweets with the team the tweet applies to. Try not to overdo it on hashtags—two should be enough to make sure your tweets are read. It’s important to tag your tweets with team hashtags so they can be easily found in search. While hashtags don’t necessarily designate fanhood, it makes it clear what team your tweet is referring to.

If you go independent and tweet a variety of teams, that is fine as well.

2. Consider providing value.

There are plenty of sports fans on Twitter that produce tweets that don’t necessarily benefit anyone. Tweets such as “Yeahhhhhhhhhhh #(teamname) are alright, if you’re watching the game. But realize that many people on Twitter are probably not watching your game, and they may not know what you are referring to.

There’s nothing wrong with live tweeting games, but at least make it clear what you’re referring to and provide some context within your updates.

3. Provide a resource.

If you’re an independent sports fan on Twitter, the opportunity is there to provide a resource for your followers. Are you obsessed with stats? Tweet a bunch of interesting stats about a variety of sports. What about breaking sports news or commentary? Tweet a wide variety of this material.

There are plenty of sports fans out there on Twitter, but good sports resources are rare. If you are interested in a specific sport or specific interesting content, share it with your followers!

4. Consider setting up a separate Twitter account for sports tweets.

The last thing you want to do is alienate your followers who may not be as excited about sports as you are. So take some time and set up a separate Twitter account for your sports tweets, if you plan on updating sports-wise in high volume. You’ll save your personal profile from being unfollowed in the event you tweet too much sports—especially if you’re a sports fan and tweet on behalf of a few teams, you definitely want to consider this option.

Do you tweet sports? Let me know your comments and any other tips in the comments section.

(Photo Credit: Gregory Elementary School)