CHARLOTTE – With one tweet, a basketball legend ended his career on the court and legitimized his brand off the court.

Shaquille O'Neal took to Twitter Wednesday afternoon to tell his fans in the most direct way as possible that he is ending his 19-year career in the NBA. The news shook the nation but hit close to home for Kathleen Hessert, a social media branding expert based in Charlotte.

Hessert was already working with Shaq on public speaking and other branding initiatives in 2008 when a Twitter account claiming to be him was taking off on the social media site. Shaq questioned whether he should go to lawyers but Hessert offered other advice.

So @The_Real_Shaq was born and within a few weeks he already had more than 23,000 followers.

“He was genuine from day one,” said Hessert. “He took Twitter out of the hands of nerds and made it mainstream.”

Hessert credits Shaq for changing the momentum of the medium that really has taken off with about 13 percent of adults in the United States tweeting each day. But it was only with her guidance that Shaq really made a difference.

“I never told him what to tweet,” she said. But she did ask questions. “I'd tell him to give more details and clarify his tweets.”

Hessert gave the example of when Shaq tweeted how he was working toward completing a Master's degree. When she saw what he had said she thought if he gave more information, the tweet would be much more powerful, so she asked him to elaborate. He then tweeted how he was studying human resources because in order to help people, he wanted to understand them. That message, Hessert said, shows more of the humanity of Shaq.

“It makes him a global brand beyond sports,” she said.

Her favorite tweet of his was one he sent at 5:20 a.m. when he was up with his son after having a bad dream. He tweeted that his son asked him, “when do you sleep?” and he answered, “I don't sleep, I dream.”

“It made him like any other dad who has a little boy or girl,” said Hessert. “But at the same time he is encouraging people to go beyond, to dream big.”

To say Hessert was proud that Shaq broke the news of his retirement on Twitter is an understatement. She said she called his manager, who was initially a naysayer when it came to Twitter, to share in her excitement. “It was a monumental day,” Hessert told him.

She continues to work hard to gain more clients and spread her message but for now, she's more than okay with being “the woman who got Shaq to tweet.”