Recruiting Help – Social Media
This will be the first of at least a four-part series in an effort to help navigate recruitment for our high school prospects. One of the main topics of conversation when talking to players, coaches, or parents is always recruitment.…
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Continue ReadingThis will be the first of at least a four-part series in an effort to help navigate recruitment for our high school prospects.
One of the main topics of conversation when talking to players, coaches, or parents is always recruitment. How does a certain player get recruited over another? How do we increase exposure for some? How do we get that one particular school to notice? How do we increase the prospect’s chances of earning an athletic scholarship?
It can be quite simple actually – it is how we communicate. Communication comes in several forms and most of it is something we can control. Whether it is how we speak and treat others, body language, or how we promote and protect our personal brands. With that said, I felt it would be great to dive into recruiting and write on just a few topics to give out some basics how to’s on communication and then promoting & protecting your personal brand through social media.
Social media is certainly a form of communication and a great easy way to set a foundation for how to promote oneself to the community of college coaches. There are right ways to set it up, but no perfect way. Certainly, on the flip side there are absolutely wrong ways to go about your actions online, so be careful and use good judgement. Keep just a few things in mind as you review your prospects online profiles; make it easy for someone to find you. Then the next thing is that ALL colleges and universities have someone dedicated to watching a prospect’s social media. Often, it’s just a singular coach but the bigger the university the bigger the budget and with that there might be someone on staff in that it is pretty much a huge portion of their role with an athletic team.
Below is a focus on Twitter or now called X. It still the main form of communication for you, teams, and coaches. This is by far the largest platform to use. But the rules apply to anywhere you are made a public post.
When reviewing this helpful template let’s use it as a guide to the basics.
- Be searchable: Remember a coach’s main job is to coach a sport not to be a social media or search consultant expert. Use your first and last name just as it appears on your school’s game program (if correct).
- No Handles: No one knows or cares that you are an @anklebreaker33 – Be searchable, make it easy to find you – Same goes for nicknames.
- Your Location: the real location you are based out of. A lot of schools have very tight budgets and with that can only recruit in a limited geographical area. Some schools like players from a particular area because of a certain style. Ex. Chicago style of ball is much different that rural America ball and so are coaching styles.
- Who you follow: This can be important because it can be viewed as your circle of friends.
- Who to follow General Rule: 5 Dream schools and with that all of the coaches & basketball staff. Follow their team page too. Repeat for 5 realistic schools according to your skill level. Then repeat for everything in your geographic area regardless of size of level of play. ie DI vs DII vs DIII vs NAIA vs Community College. The thing is that everyone wants to get promoted at their work and those basketball coaches are the same. That DIII coach today might be that D1 assistant tomorrow.
- Turn on direct messages: This is so important especially after your sophomore year going into your junior year. June 15th at 12:01 am is when it is permissible by the NCAA, for college coaches to contact you directly. Of the five college coaches I asked to provide input for this article, all 5 said something about being able to contact the prospect.
- BIO: List truthful information and keep it simple. Example John Doe, 6’5″ W 2025 New Hope HS, My City WI, AAU Team Grade Point Average, Hudl Link Do not lie about height, it makes you look silly. General Rule you are allowed 1 inch of stretching. Do not put guard or point guard down if you don’t handle the ball when the pressure is on. Don’t put SG or shooting guard as position if you cannot shoot above 33% from deep. Again, can make you look silly and that is not promoting or protecting your brand.
- Pinned Tweet: Your first tweet/post can be pinned, which means it will always appear at the top of your feed until you unpin it or pin another. This should be a great highlight or a write-up that you could be proud of.
The Don’t Do Rules:
- Posting, Likes, Retweets: You are endorsing something when you do a like or a retweet. It goes beyond that particular message that you’ve just retweeted too. There is nothing stopping a coach or team researching the person or organization that you just put a like on. That has to measure up to your new standard of promoting & protecting your new brand.
- No Likes or Retweets: No Racist, bullying or cyber bullying, offensive, Inappropriate or explicit, cheating, partying, irresponsible behavior, dishonesty, negative comments about coaches, teammates, or opponents.
- Burner Accounts: Be careful here. Do not try to hide behind a secondary account or profile. Chances are they will find it. My reasoning here is simple, if someone’s job was to search social media accounts then I am going to be pretty good at it and I will find what someone is hiding. If you want an account for a basketball profile versus a personal account that is fine. Make sure each profile is labeled correctly and the rules still apply to both profiles.
College Coaches Input:
All five coaches, which came from D1 (4) and DII (1), had to say that they felt social media was a positive thing. It especially helped in beginning the recruitment process where it allowed them to track multiple kids, gain knowledge on more talented players, and then when permissible, to start the relationship building with communicating directly with someone. It helps them to not spend so many hours doing the grind work and then focusing those hours in film or other areas important to the respective teams.
In some form they all mentioned the word ‘character’ and the insight that social media can give them there. The likes or the retweeting of head scratching stuff was a specific phrase one alluded too.