by Dan Christensen, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
The need for an effective social media presence in recruiting has become increasingly important with the limitations put on face to face interactions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For some coaches, this is something you are totally comfortable with and feel confident in sharing your brand and telling your story effectively through social media. And that is great!
For others, using social media to effectively recruit is a little scary. And that is okay!
Regardless of how confident and comfortable you are with social media, when it comes to recruiting, focus on showing the personality of your program. What are you like as a person outside of practice? Are your players fun to be around? If you focus on that, you’ll be helping yourself out in the recruiting process.
Now for some, your response to that is “okay, but how do I show our personality? What do I post? Which platforms should I be on?”
For those that want help, try these two things:
1) Study those that do social media well
Sometimes the best thing to do to get better at social media is to just spend time being on it. I am not advising you to spend hours and hours every day just scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. That will eat into your productivity in other areas which is no good.
But, do spend some time thinking about what coaches and programs you admire or relate to. Then follow their social media pages. Maybe do some research to figure out which coaches or programs in your sport or your area have the biggest followings. And just spend some time seeing how they portray their personality through the pictures, videos, and thoughts they post.
Beyond sports, find other people in other industries that have reputations that you feel are similar to the personality of you and your team.
Being creative and original is important. But, even the best writers, composers, and artists, get inspiration from others and use that to make their own content.
2) Ask your team for ideas
Your players are closer in age to your recruits than you are. And your players are probably more active on social media and aware to what is trendy than you are. So, ask them for help and ideas!
Have them think back to their recruiting process which for some may have only been months ago. Ask them what they would want to see from a coach and a team to make them interested in that program. They might give you some fantastic ideas that relate really well to the recruits you are trying to connect with!