Social Media & Recruiting
The goal of any student-athlete, who is working towards an athletic scholarship, is to be recruited. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tik Tok, Youtube, and personal website pages have all become tools in the recruiting process. What better way to reach a broader audience of coaches and college recruiters than to use social media! It is for this reason that coaches and recruiters have become more media savvy and will ask for your social media accounts. But it is not just skill that is being observed and evaluated. So is your character and personality. As a result, it is critical that you make sure your social media accounts are appropriate and reflect positively on you! Here are six do’s and dont’s to help you out during the college recruiting process:
- Do post and engage. Be visible.
Don’t let the fact that college coaches may see your profile discourage you from using social media altogether; go ahead and post about the things that you’re interested in or cool experiences that you’ve had. Coaches aren’t expecting you to post pictures of yourself studying for the SAT or being inducted into the National Honor Society. They want to see a picture of the huge fish you caught when fly fishing or that awkward family photo from your fun family vacation. Overall, coaches will hop on social media to get a better idea of who you are as a person and make sure that you’re staying out of trouble.
- Do Follow & Subscribe.
Follow and subscribe to College Programs that you are interested in on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Many college programs have a strong presence on social media, so following their pages can be a great way to get to know them better and keep track of how their seasons are going. Use the information that you get from social media to personalize the emails that you send to college coaches. For example, start your email with “Hey Coach K, great win over UNC the other day!” Short, personalized lines like this make your emails stand out by showing a coach that you care about their program.
- Don’t be offensive or inappropriate
Not only should you never post distasteful or inappropriate pictures of yourself, but you shouldn’t like, comment on, follow, or be tagged in any offensive posts. Hopefully you know what qualifies as inappropriate, but we’ll spell it out for you just in case: don’t associate yourself with anything related to drugs, alcohol, sex, racism, or foul language. College coaches want mature, coachable players on their teams, and it is a big red flag for them when a prospective student-athlete is inappropriate and immature on social media.
- Don’t be confrontational.
Coaches are looking for mature student-athletes that are respectful and coachable. If you have an issue with friend, relative, or classmate, don’t hash it out with them on social media. Talk to them in person and resolve the problem privately. Conflict is often unavoidable with team sports, and coaches want players that can handle tough situations in a healthy, mature way.
5.Don’t be arrogant.
There is a difference between promoting yourself and being arrogant. There is nothing wrong with posting a short video of your recent game-winning goal…that’s awesome. But adding a caption like “Had to put the team on my back again” comes across as conceited. College coaches don’t want to deal with wannabe superstars, they want hard working players that put the team above themselves in all circumstances.
90%, if not more, of college coaches and recruiters check potential student-athletes social media profiles. Some programs even outsource their social media research to consulting firms, agencies, or student volunteers. Virtually all student-athletes are screened on their social media presence throughout their recruiting process. Recruiting is more than what skills and talent you can bring to the court, the water, the track, or the fields. Recruiting is also about your character, personality, whether you are coachable, a social butterfly, a go-getter, family oriented, your hobbies, and your likes and dislikes. That is why it is so important for you as a student-athlete to take your presence on social media very seriously. Keep in mind, once you “put it out there”, it’s out there! You can delete, clean-up, and make-over your social media accounts, but once you put it out there, it’s out there! Don’t let social media be the reason why you loose out!
Helpful Links
athletematch.com
https://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting/contacting-college-coaches/social-media
http://www.sportsthread.info/social-media-do-s-and-don-ts
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