Do College Coaches Look At Social Media?
For college coaches today, social media has become an integral part of the recruiting process. Coaches use it for a variety of reasons such as publicizing games and camps, getting to know recruits better, and as another form of recruit-coach interaction just to name a few.
College coaches do look closely at social media. Much of the recruiting process, from the coach’s perspective, revolves around developing relationships with prospective student-athletes. Prior to any communication whatsoever, coaches will likely skim through your social media pages trying to learn a bit about you and check for anything that they find to be alerting.
Included below is some additional detailed information about how college coaches use social media in the recruitment process including why social media is important along with details about how to use your social media profile productively.
Why Is Social Media Important
Social media usage is something that is becoming more and more important in the recruiting process for prospective student-athletes. Below are a few reasons why this is so true.
First Impression: Your social media page can often be a coach's first impression of you as a person. You may not realize it, but before a coach reaches out to communicate with you, they and their coaching staff have often done a hefty bit of research beforehand. So, social media can have a huge influence on the recruitment process. Make sure to keep your social media profiles clean so that you can make a great first impression on any coach looking at them.
Entices Coaches To Make Offers: Social media pages allow coaches an opportunity to gain much more information about a prospective student-athlete. One of the most important ways that social media helps coaches is when it comes to offering athletes. Athletes are often encouraged to post when different school’s offer them scholarships to play collegiate athletics. The reasoning behind this is that often coaches will follow the lead of others in terms of offering players. If a coach sees you are getting scholarship offers, they will often follow that lead because they will trust other coaches’ judgement that you can play at the next level
Coaches Learn About Recruits: Social media profiles give coaches a lot of information about both your personality and character. Looking through your profiles allows coaches to gauge what your interests are and what you’re like not just on, but off the field/court. Additionally, social media profiles are a great way for coaches to evaluate character. By looking at what players postt, coaches are better able to understand what kind of athlete they are dealing with and whether or not they want to consider pursuing him/her for a roster spot on their team.
Can Establish A Brand: This point is becoming more and more important. As the NCAA ventures closer and closer to allowing athletes to profit off of their likeness, building your own brand as a prospective student-athlete is becoming more important. Social media is a great way to go about this. By actively promoting yourself on social media, you can not only grow your following, but that of the school you eventually decide to commit too. With this being said, regardless of the NCAA rules, being actively engaged on social media can be extremely beneficial in terms of raising popularity for both you and the school you attend.
Additional Communication Outlet: In our modern society, social media is beginning to dominate traditional forms of communication such as email and paper mail. With that being said, social media profiles are important to maintain. You may want to reach out to coaches via their social media profiles as another way to get into contact with them. Additionally, coaches may also use this themselves to reach out to you as a prospective student-athlete. Either way, the more ways for you as a prospective student-athlete can get in touch with coaches, the better.
Social media is only growing in importance as years go by. With many of the popular platforms being created so recently, we are realizing the ways in which they are beneficial in the recruitment process every day. Be sure to utilize social media to promote yourself as a prospective student-athlete.
How To Use Social Media In The Recruitment Process
Whether you are an avid social media user or not, coaches will still want to take a deeper look into your online presence and understand how you conduct yourself on social media. With this being said, try to use your social media profiles beneficially in the recruiting process.
Keep Your Accounts Public: Keep your account public because it makes it easier for coaches to discover you. By being public, you will be able to use your social media profiles as a way to build a network of connections. But keep this rule of thumb in mind, don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want your parents to see.
Connect With Coaches: Following a coach or a team account and actively engaging with the content they post is yet another way to display your interest in their program. This will not only give you greater insight into what’s going on with the team, such as when their next game is, but it will also help to develop an initial relationship with a coach. While a coach may not follow you back immediately, you will be one of their followers which won’t go unnoticed.
Be Active: For your social media profiles to benefit you during the recruitment process, it’s important that you are somewhat active in posting on them. If you have a Twitter account, be sure to tweet out to coaches and teams to show your interest in them. In order to use social media for your benefit in the recruiting process, they should effectively promote you and your athletic abilities.
Keep It Clean: Typically this goes without saying, but it’s very important to keep your social media account clean. Beyond profanity, avoid posting or commenting anything on social media that could result in negative attention being drawn towards you. What you post on online forums is generally seen as a reflection of the person you are, so avoid posting anything negative or profane.
Social media can and is being used in a variety of ways. These are just a few simple things to remember when trying to use your social media profiles beneficially in the recruitment process.
Things To Keep In Mind
Once It’s Posted, It’s Posted: When you post something on your social media account and then delete it, it’s never really gone. Be extremely careful when using your social media profiles and double check before posting. Be sure to avoid posting anything that could draw negative attention to yourself such as profane language or insensitive comments.
Social Media Is An Asset: Social media should be used as an outlet for you to build your personal brand. Be actively engaged on your own social media accounts by posting updates of any accomplishments or awards you may have received. By posting this kind of content you are effectively promoting yourself as an athlete, and bringing more attention to yourself as a recruit. Social media is also an asset in the sense that it can be used to reach out to coaches and establish your interest in various programs. Make sure you follow both coach and team social media profiles and be actively engaged on those with both comments and likes. Doing so may just get you the look you needed from a college coaching staff.
Be Active: Being active on social media is arguably the most important thing you can do outside of performing well in the classroom and while playing your sport. While it may not seem like it, simply reaching out to coaches and following their social media profiles can do a lot. Be sure to reach out to coaches whose programs you’re interested in, and be active on their pages.