It comes down to what you want to use it for." "But having a captive audience is certainly valuable. "It's not like Justin Bieber, who's got (51 million)," he said. Those who reach about 50,000 followers tend to have real, sustainable influence, Bajarin said. But such gains are quickly ferreted out and deleted. That's a really significant number."īen Bajarin, a technology industry and market research analyst in Silicon Valley, said Twitter users trying to boost visibility can reach 25,000-30,000 followers by purchasing giant packages of empty accounts. "There are people who have been in social media for a decade who don't even come close to (90,000 followers). "To market FGCU, FGCU sports or anything else he wanted, he can reach people all day long, if his content is good and it engages them," Thomas said. Potential beneficiaries include FGCU, if Pruett so chooses. Rick Thomas, a social media consultant in Fort Myers, said Pruett's online following, which also includes some 79,000 followers on photo-driven social media site Instagram and another 5,300 followers on Facebook, provides significant promotional value. "If I have the athletic ability, I want to make sure I get the most out of that. "Right now (I'm) just focused on getting better, being with the team, working out, all that stuff," Pruett said.
Pruett, who is majoring in communications and minoring in business, said baseball is his passion and professional baseball a real goal.īut his modeling background and business interests also provide real avenues once he's free of NCAA prohibitions on college athletes doing promotional work, he said.
"I think he's going to be a good player for us," said Tollett, whose team took a 24-14 record into this weekend's three-game home series with North Florida. Still, the FGCU coach said the 6-foot, 175-pound shortstop, who is an ineligible redshirt this year because of his transfer, will be a real asset next season, contributing speed, defense and some batting pop. "I think people are following him because he's an all-American kid," Tollett said. We all give him crap about it," Tillery said.įGCU coach Dave Tollett - whose two teenage cousins turned into giggly, giddy messes while getting their pictures taken next to Pruett's locker and with his jersey on a recent visit from Alabama - recognizes Pruett's appeal is not for being an all-American ballplayer. Pruett - who is dating FGCU volleyball player Gigi Meyer, the daughter of Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer - is endlessly tabbed a "Man Crush Monday" by Twitter users, and he's even the face of several unseemly "teenage girl- (and) hormone-driven" Twitter accounts, one website wrote. 'Hey Brian, let us get a couple of those followers.' He puts your name in a tweet, you automatically get two or three followers right there. "We're all kind of on the same page about it. His Twitter audience, which social media experts said consists of real users and not short-lived shell accounts that can be purchased to try to boost numbers, dwarfs anything else on FGCU's campus, from the main school account to the FGCU athletics account. Pruett, a Sarasota-Riverview High School graduate who transferred to FGCU last summer after two seasons at Coastal Carolina, has amassed his vast following through a combination of faith, baseball and good looks, starting with shirtless modeling photos widely circulated online. "It's just something I've got to deal with and use it to my advantage, really. I could delete it today and be the same person," Pruett said. Rick Scott of Naples, former South Fort Myers High School football star Sammy Watkins and Billboard top-100 singer Casey Weston of Naples. That's more than almost any entity based primarily in Southwest Florida, including area businesses Hertz and Chico's, Gov. "It comes with it, I guess," Pruett said with a laugh of his high-profile public persona, most notably through a Twitter account that has approached a staggering 90,000 followers. Teammates have teased him about his massive online following of teenage girls, or gasp, feared that he might cut into some of their, ahem, playing time.Īt times, because of his combination of good looks and avowed religious faith, the FGCU junior middle infielder and sometimes model has heard the inevitable: "The Tim Tebow of baseball." His coach has joked that the team would have "Brian Pruett Nights," raffling off a dinner with Pruett or offering pictures with the hunky baseball player for a little cash to the program.