How Do You Get College Coaches To Follow You On Twitter?
Coaches are beginning to use social media as a recruiting tool more and more. Getting a coach to follow you is an important part of the process and is just one more way coaches can communicate with prospective student-athletes.
**One approach to get a college coach to follow you on twitter is to maintain a professional profile, follow that coach and their program, and like and comment on their posts. Consistent engagement with their profiles and posts will encourage that coach to explore your profile and follow you back. ** Unfortunately, there is no foolproof strategy for getting a college coach to follow you on twitter, so you’ll want to try many strategies.
Included below is some additional detailed information further explaining how to get college coaches to follow you on your social media profiles. We’ll cover some important tips for your social media profile, what to include within it, and the rules of coach and recruit interaction over social media.
Important Tips For Your Profile
Today we see social media becoming more and more of a recruiting tool for coaches. Take into account some of these tips as they are all important in trying to get a coach to follow you on Twitter and other social media profiles.
Set Account To Public: This is a necessary step in order to get followed by a college coach. While private accounts may be effective at keeping random people from seeing your posts, they aren’t a good way to get you noticed or followed by collegiate coaches. Setting your account to public will allow coaches to scroll through your posts, see any film or highlight videos you’ve posted and can result in a coach following you.
Have A Clean Social Media Page: When coaches see inappropriate posts, captions, or comments it only takes away from you as a recruit. Be kind and courteous whenever possible and aim to have a social media profile that you would be comfortable with anyone reading. In addition to this, limit inappropriate comments on your own page. While at a certain level this may be impossible to manage, simply try to keep your page as clean as possible.
Follow, Like & Direct Message: Showing interest in a coach’s program is a good way to get on their radar, and eventually receive a social media follow. Simply following a coach on social media may get them to notice who you are, but actively following their page by liking and commenting on their posts will make sure a coach is familiar with your name and let them know you’re interested in their program. Lastly, a direct message is the “loudest” way to engage with a coach on twitter, but they will have to already be following you or enabled receiving direct messages from anyone for this to work.
Highlight Accomplishments: Twitter and other social media outlets can be used to put your accomplishments on display to coaches. Before just posting whenever and whatever comes to mind, try to have your social media pages focus more so on your extracurricular activities and your accomplishments. Professional social media accounts are a way to separate yourself from other prospective student-athletes and may lead to you being a much more desirable athlete in the recruiting process.
While these are just a few tips, there are plenty of ways to get collegiate coaches to see and follow your social media pages. More than anything, remember to handle your social media accounts professionally.
What To Include On Your Profile
Trying to get a scholarship to play college sports is similar to trying to get a job. Be sure your social media profiles are professional and that you would feel comfortable showing them to a prospective employer or college coach.
Basic Information: Part of a coach’s recruiting responsibilities is filtering through hundreds of recruiting profiles. You’ll want to make sure the information they are looking for is clear and easy to find on your Twitter account. Your username and handle should be your real name and include anything you want to highlight to college coaches in your description - like your high school, graduation year or vertical leap.
Profile Picture: An important part of your social media profile is your profile picture because it lets coaches reviewing your profile attach a name to a face. Consider using an “athlete headshot” as your profile picture. This is a photo of you smiling while wearing your jersey. This type of photo is much better than an action shot or team logo because a coach can see your face and number. Whatever you choose as a profile picture, make sure it’s a clear, professional shot that includes your face.
Emphasize Film: This is arguably the most important facet of your social media profile. When coaches come across your social media pages, they may not know you all that well or be heavily recruiting you. The quickest way for them to gauge you as a prospect is to see your film or highlight video. Either post them directly on your page or link to your recruiting profile where they are located. If a coach clicks through and likes what they see, it’s likely they will follow your account and put your name in their recruiting process.
Your social media profile should be sure to cover your basic information as well as put on display some of your athletic ability. Creating a professional social media profile along with attaching any relevant highlight film will only make a coach’s job easier, and may just land you on their radar.
Social Media Rules
While social media is a great tool in the recruiting process, it’s fairly new, and has a few important NCAA rules regarding it. Discussed below are a few of the different NCAA rules focused on social media and coach interaction with prospective student-athletes over an online forum.
Basic Rules: The most important NCAA rule on social media use is that coaches are not permitted to publicly communicate with recruits over social media until after those athletes have committed to their program. So even if a coach follows you, he or she may not comment on your online posts. No comment, however, doesn’t mean coaches aren’t watching. Follow the tips listed above and keep your social media profile clean and professional.
Specific Rules: For every NCAA sport, the rules of coach and prospective student-athlete communication are all a bit different. For Division I baseball, softball, men’s and women’s lacrosse, and women’s basketball, coaches are able to start privately communicating with prospective student-athletes through direct messages after September 1st of their junior year. Beyond just this, for all other Division I and II sports, coaches can start direct messaging recruits after June 15th of their sophomore year.
With it being such a new method of communication between coaches and prospective student-athletes, there are quite a few stringent stipulations. Be sure you are aware of these and know when it’s okay for coaches to communicate with you. Coaches may have substantial interest, but aren’t allowed to reach out to your social media profile. Be patient.
Things To Keep In Mind
A Follow Isn’t Everything: If you are followed by a college coach, you may think to yourself that said coach has substantial interest in you as a recruit. While this is sometimes true, coaches often use their social media pages for different purposes. Of course, many coaches use it to scout potential recruits and to gauge fit with their program. There are, however, many other coaches who use it as a tool to encourage high school athletes to attend camps. While a camp may strike you as a great place to showcase your talents, more often than not, coaches are trying to raise money for their programs.
Be Professional: In anything you do, but especially when constructing your digital identity on social media, be professional.. Make sure to include any relevant information on your profile as well as attachments to any highlight clips or game tape. Additionally, keep your profile clean and limit profane language on comments. The recruitment process is an extremely competitive one, so tightly monitoring your social media profile and keeping it clean can be a huge differentiator between you and other recruits.
Be Proactive: If you are trying to get on a college coach’s radar, be proactive. Instead of waiting for coaches to discover who you are and follow you on Twitter, take initiative. Follow and like the content of coaches and athletic programs to get your name on their radar, and improve the likelihood of receiving a follow from a coach yourself.