Although the rules vary by Division and sport, recruiting new players through social media is now the accepted and likely the preferred norm. Coaches are allowed to privately message students through Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, and have become increasingly reliant on Instagram and YouTube to highlight campus perks.
Since many of the up-and-coming high school athletes have been raised in a social media bubble, it is a wise move on the part of coaches and recruiters alike to reach out to athletes through their preferred communication platform. Additionally, contact through a Twitter or Facebook message has the potential to feel more personal than a generic “we want you” mailer. Forging this connection is smart, and it just makes business sense.
For all of the sense that I can derive out of using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to touch base with athletes—I initially had a difficult time finding the logic in the induction of the newest approved recruitment method for college basketball: Snapchat.
At first glance, it’s hard to see why a 10 second Snap would be beneficial in regards to serious recruitment. The image “disappears” briefly after its introduction unless you can capture the image with a screenshot within eight seconds, and only a handful of captioning characters are available for text-utilization. As I’m sure you’ve figured by now, this platform can be used as the mobile version of a Las Vegas bender. Whatever happens on Snapchat stays on Snapchat for eight seconds and then it’s like it never happened. Imagine the possibilities!
NCAA says SnapChat permissible to use for recruiting correspondence in Basketball & most other sports beg. 8/1. This should be interesting.
— Texas Compliance (@TexasCompliance) February 11, 2014
It was this Vegas perception of the app that clouded my initial judgment. You see, like many of us who no longer part of the teen/tween crowd, I was looking at this recruitment method from the adult perspective. Snapchat’s target audience is somewhere between the ages of 13 and 25—which means that as an NCAA coach, these Snaps are formulated to appeal to high school athletes that you want to contact.
In its new social media ed column, the NCAA specifically names Snapchat as a type of electronic transmission.
— John Infante (@John_Infante) February 11, 2014
If an estimated 80% of teens have a cell phone, and a quarter of them use Snapchat, then it definitely stands to reason that colleges could reach a huge audience by sending Snaps. Snapchat accounts are also private (similar to an email) so other people can’t see your Snaps, and vice-versa—this could be another reason that the app appealed to the NCAA.
In regards to what the coaches and recruiters will send, only time will tell. I’m sure that recruiters will get creative, and I’d imagine they will use the app as more of an attention getter than as an actual platform for information exchange. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to police the accounts with the data private, but we can only hope that students and especially the coaches can maintain professionalism and use Snaps accordingly.
Recruiting athletes for the NCAA is pretty cutthroat. Generally, everybody wants the same handful of talented kids, and as a result, these prodigies have been getting hounded by schools since they were high school sophomores. If a college wants a specific athlete bad enough—they have to establish themselves and stand out among a sea of other prospects. Enter Snapchat—one of the newest social media platforms used predominately by young adults. Although it’s being met with speculation, I think that there is real recruitment potential for this app, and I think that colleges would be smart to look into how to best utilize this platform to their advantage.
Julia Randall is a guest contributor who already can’t wait for March Madness. When she’s not busy planning her next trip to Whistler, you can find her Snapchatting.