How Tweet: More #Blackhawks connecting with fans

The Blackhawks’ free agent class of 2011-12 provides depth, grit, leadership and some much-needed sandpaper.

It also provides a whole slew of Tweeters or Twitterers or whatever you want to call them.

That’s right, newcomers Jamal Mayers, Daniel Carcillo, Sami Lepisto, along with Steve Montador, who was acquired in a trade from Buffalo, not only bring their talents on the ice to Chicago, but a little social media savvy as well.

There’s Carcillo (CarBombBoom13) talking about soaking in all the sights in the city, there’s Mayers (jamalmayers) raving about his daughter’s stellar play in a recent soccer game, and Sami Lepisto (SamiLepisto) is on board asking for help finding a good restaurant.

Ah, the magic of Twitter.

Most of the time, at least.

“It’s a double-edged sword; obviously you’re giving an inside look to your life to fans, and that’s the way sports, and life in general, are trending,” said Mayers, who leads all the new Hawks with more than 14,000 followers. “But with that openness, you put yourself under scrutiny and so you have to be careful with what you tweet about and how it will be perceived.”

Lepisto, who trails Mayers in followers by only a few hundred, learned that lesson well last year while playing for the Phoenix Coyotes.

“At first it was exciting and I was worried that I would say something off the wall,” said Lepisto, who has been on the 140-characters-or-less circuit for more than a year. “It’s not that new to me now, but I actually did get a couple calls from Phoenix saying, ‘yeah, you can’t say that.’ So I learned my lesson.”

The new Hawks join Viktor Stalberg and Patrick Kane as the only Blackhawks currently on Twitter. Kane (88PKane)only recently signed up and already has nearly 30,000 followers.

“It’s something I’ve talked about doing for a while; I was just waiting for the right time to do it,” he said. “I’m going to try it out and see how it goes.”

Asked if he had any fears about joining the Twitter club, Kane said, “I guess with any social media there are some fears, but I think I can do pretty good at it — connect with the fans and different people. I’m excited about it, it should be fun.”

It wasn’t for Patrick Sharp, who lasted only a month or so. And it’s still not for captain Jonathan Toews, whom Kane has been pushing to join up — to no avail thus far.

“Some guys don’t like it, don’t like to share their personal stuff,” Lepisto said. “It’s all about your personality.”

Lepisto has a couple of personal rules when it comes to tweeting.

First and foremost:

“You never should tweet if you’re feeling emotional or something like that. Read through the tweet before you tweet it or don’t tweet if you’re in a bad mood,” he said.

And ...

“You want to say something entertaining,” he said. “You don’t want to be the guy where people say, ‘Why did he tweet that?’”

Mayers has only been involved in the Twitterverse for six months, but already he has gotten a lot out of it.

“I actually have found out more information on there about people that I follow in the hockey world,” he said. “I found out that (Hawks goalie) Ray Emery had signed before it was (common knowledge).

“I think it’s hurting the media in the sense that they’re not the first to report it.”

And that’s good why?

“Because,” he said with a smile. “I’ll never get misquoted.”