Where To Post Highlight Videos?
Highlight videos are an integral part of sports recruiting because they give athletes a chance to showcase their talents across a number of digital platforms. Today’s technology, social media, and communication makes sharing and posting highlight videos easier than ever, so it’s important to understand the best practices for increasing your audience.
Highlight videos can be posted and shared across a wide range of platforms, including sports recruiting sites, emails to coaches, and social media. These avenues are highly accessible so it’s crucial that you take advantage of the opportunity to display your skill set in front of as many eyes as possible.
The first and arguably most important step in the recruiting process is simply getting noticed and attracting initial attention, and highlight videos are the perfect opportunity to achieve this step. By understanding the various places where highlight videos can be posted and seen by coaches, you will be able to exploit a number of opportunities to jumpstart your recruitment.
Brief Overview On Content And Importance Of Highlight Videos
Now that you know where to share your highlight video, it’s important to remember some key elements of creating highlight videos so that they’re an effective reflection of you as a player and will achieve the goal of gaining attraction from college programs.
Include The Right Material: Athletes can go in a number of different directions with highlight videos, but it’s essential to demonstrate a well-rounded skill set that shows your impact on different areas of the game. You’ll want to include clips that show your individual skill sets, but also your value as a team player and a contributor to all applicable parts of the game depending on your sport and position. You should also consider making separate skills videos to advertise the technical, detail-oriented aspects of your game, allowing highlight videos to serve as a more all-encompassing display of your impact and competitive strengths.
Keep It Short Yet Effective: A highlight video should be about 5 minutes long, giving you enough time to showcase your best performances and techniques. The goal is to gain attention at a convenient and accessible measure, thus providing coaches with a short but memorable exhibit of your playing level. With that, you’ll also want to put your best highlights at the start of the video so viewers are encouraged to keep watching, and even if they don’t watch the video in its entirety you can be sure that they’ve seen the best you have to offer. A video that’s too long could lose the attention of viewers and as a result diminish its effectiveness. The key is to gain recognition, and if coaches want to see more they can request full game tapes or come watch you play.
Add Variety & Character: Your highlight video should include minor details showing that you can do the “small things,” but also include impact plays that change the outcome of games. You’ll want to achieve a balance between technical aptitude, strong work ethic, and an overall well-rounded playing level with value on all important elements of the game. While highlight videos are largely a demonstration of skill and playing level, it can also be very helpful to include clips that demonstrate character, sportsmanship, and a positive attitude. Coaches value admirable personal qualities just as much as athletic capability in many cases.
Highlight videos are extremely important because they greatly expand opportunities to get noticed and engage with coaches. These points are helpful to keep in mind for creating content that will increase your chances of not only attracting viewers, but impressing your audience and allowing your highlight videos to serve as an effective tool in your recruitment.
Where Can I Share My Highlight Videos?
A great highlight video is meaningless without the right audience, so you’ll want to be proactive in marketing yourself and understand the best platforms to display your content.
Email Directly To Coaches: There are no NCAA restrictions that limit your ability to initiate contact with coaches during your recruitment. You should use this freedom to be highly proactive and reach out to as many programs as possible, and the easiest way to do so is by email. Share your highlight videos with coaches when you do reach out. A coach will be happy to hear that you’re interested in his or her program, but if your email does not contain anything that demonstrates your playing ability, it’s difficult for coaches to mutually gain interest.
Actively sharing your highlight videos with coaches is the most efficient way to put your athletic talent in front of the most important people in the recruiting process. By doing this, you will increase your chances of impressing programs and building relationships with coaches, which is the essential purpose of recruiting.
Sports Recruiting Sites & Agencies: There are dozens of platforms designed specifically for creating and sharing sports recruiting content, such as highlight videos. You should utilize as many of these as possible because these are the networks that attract the specific viewership you’re looking for – coaches, scouts, and other recruiting supporters.
Today’s media and internet make accessing and sharing content as easy and efficient as possible, and sports recruiting sites and agencies are designed specifically to help players get noticed and attract attention. You should provide your highlight and skills videos across as many of these platforms as possible – the larger the audience, the better chances you have of engaging interest and furthering your recruiting goals.
Social Media Platforms: Social media offers the opportunity to spread your highlight videos to a highly diverse and large audience, which can be an excellent source of engagement for sports recruiting.
While you obviously want coaches and recruiters specifically to be seeing your highlight videos, it also can be extremely favorable to simply get your content in front of friends, family, and everyday people on social media networks. There are many people that are unaffiliated with college programs but have relationships with coaches and influence in the world of recruiting.
Social media can allow you to access these entrenched networks and you never know what opportunities might present themselves with certain viewers, so it’s important to spread your content across as many audiences as possible. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are perfect examples of established social media platforms with millions of users, and you should use this to your advantage by providing your content for the internet to see.
Keep in mind that using social media as a recruiting tool can also expose you to scrutiny and people who view your highlights might also browse other parts of your profile. Coaches want to recruit good people as much as they want to recruit good players. Make sure that your highlight videos and social media accounts as a whole contain appropriate content and reflect your character in a positive light.
Timing Tips For Sharing Your Highlight Video
Share Updated Highlights: You should update your highlight and skills videos as much as possible to provide viewers with the most recent and relevant reflections of you as a player. By updating your highlight videos, not only are you demonstrating a proactive and serious mindset on your recruitment, but you’re also showing your improvement and development as a player.
Coaches want to see that you’re a capable player with great achievements, but they also want to see that you’re committed to improving and willing to get better. Sharing updated highlight videos with coaches and social media platforms allows people to track your development and gives you the opportunity to show that you’re working to be a college-ready player.
Share Before The Season Starts: Sharing your highlight videos as your high school season approaches is a strategic move because if your content engages coaches, they will have the opportunity to come watch you at some point during your upcoming games.
You should also send updated highlight videos around the halfway point of your season and at the conclusion of your season so you can keep coaches informed on your progress and overall performance throughout the year. However, if you reach out and share your videos for the first time towards the end of the season, coaches might not have a chance to come watch you play, which could result in a loss of interest or a missed opportunity.
Remain In Contact With Viewers: You should try to get in contact with various people who watch your highlight videos, and this might be people who aren’t coaches or scouts. The goal is to build a network of people who can lead you to potential opportunities and advocate on your behalf, so it’s necessary to expand your communication as much as possible.
There are many people who might not work directly for a program, but have various connections and relationships with programs. By sharing your highlights with these larger audiences and keeping in contact with them, you’ll be able to build a team of support that will make your recruiting process far easier than doing it alone.
Things To Keep In Mind
Making Effective Content: It’s important to remember that no matter where you share your highlight videos, they won’t attract the proper attention if they’re not effective in marketing you as a player and person. Your highlight and skills videos should be relatively short, demonstrate a wide variety of skills and talents, and indicate that you possess the intangibles like work ethic, passion, humility, team work, and character.
Proactive Sharing: The responsibility is on you to be proactive in sharing your highlight videos with as many people as possible. This takes effort, but there are various platforms and means of communication that will open up more opportunities, such as emailing coaches, posting on sports recruiting sites, and sharing on social media.
Network Building: Sharing highlights allows you to put your talents in front of not just coaches and recruiters, but also various other people with influence and connections in the sports recruiting world. You should build relationships with as many people as possible and build a network of supporters that can open doors and advocate on your behalf.