How to tailor your social media profile to benefit your recruitment

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by Zach Mason

Director of Communications, The Basketball Embassy

The prism through which high school prospects can attract the attention of college scouts is the same instrument capable of destroying any chances for athletes to receive scholarship offers.

Social media consistently proves itself as both one of the greatest assets in college recruitment and greatest threats to a player’s hopes of playing at the next level.

College coaches have a track record of turning down recruits based on what they find on their social media profiles. It seems simple enough to avoid posting anything that could prove catastrophic, but there are other ways to convey your dedication to the sport and your well-balanced priorities through your social media accounts.

Here are a few ways you can use social media to improve your status in the eyes of scouts.

The bio

College coaches are like hawks when searching for information about players on social media, so make their job easier by including the following information in your bios:

  • Full name (no nicknames, jokes or emojis)

  • Class (numerical form - 2021, 2022, 2023, etc)

  • School

  • Any awards or achievements (District 25-4A Newcomer of the Year, No. 56 in Texas Top 100 rankings, etc.)

  • GPA, ACT and/or SAT scores

  • If you have your wingspan, vertical jump, or any other physical measurements, feel free to include those.

  • Stats aren’t as important, but if you’re lacking in some of the other areas but averaged 15 points per game at a 5A school, it’s not going to hurt to have in your profile

  • Include any links to your highlight tapes/Hudl videos

  • It’s also a good idea to pin your highlight video to the top of your profile page

The posts

Your timeline should be consistent, basketball-centered and free of any cursing, bullying, or sexually explicit content. Coaches want to know you’re in love with the game, so for players looking for college scholarships, it’s imperative to fill your timeline with all things basketball.

You also can use your timeline to showcase how good of a teammate you are by retweeting your classmates accomplishments and offers, lifting up and congratulating others, and keeping your posts positive at all times.

The likes

On Twitter, coaches can (and do) scroll through every tweet you’ve ever liked. Fair or not, college coaches use this as an opportunity to see who you “really” are. You can be saying all the right things on your timeline, but if you’re tapping the “like” button on questionable content or even content not related to basketball, coaches may feel concerned about your priorities.

The stories

If you’re posting videos to your Instagram or Snapchat stories that indicate you are anything other than a highly focused student-athlete, just hold off. Be wary of the crowd you’re hanging out with and always remember, if you’re unsure of whether or not it’s a good idea to post something, don’t post it. Less is always, always more when it comes to social media for high school students.

The big picture

At the end of the day, you need to treat your social media profiles as business accounts if you want to play at the next level. Social media can be an amazing tool to help get you recognized in a sea of athletes, so make sure you’re representing yourself in the highest light, streamlining your posts to be clean, concise and useful, and connecting with as many coaches as possible.

If you would like the author of this article to review your social media profile for you and provide suggestions on how to improve it, send an email to zmason@thebasketballembassy.org and we’ll be happy to help.

Zach Mason