Social media is huge! Let’s run down the stats,1.6 billion people on Facebook, 1 billion on YouTube, 430 million on Instagram and LinkedIn and 325 million on twitter. These are to name the top few social media platforms and doesn’t including the emerging platforms like Pinterest and Snapchat. With the access to these types of audiences I am floored when I have young basketball players say to me they can’t get EXPOSURE. Really? It’s never been easier to get exposure as an athlete. You just need to think of yourself as a brand and market yourself.
What do you mean building a brand and marketing yourself?
To better explain this I am going to give you an example that might make me seem like a pervert. But I think it’s a perfect example of how creating yourself as a band and marketing it, can generate enough income for you not having to work.
I have recently been going to Dohertys gym in Dandenong and I have noticed the same three girls at the gym every time I am there. I notice them because they are super hot! These three girls are fitness models and it is clear that this is their career. Going to the gym and photoshoots. Viewing their Facebook and Instagram profiles (yes I did some stalking) you can see the amount of followers is insane. As a result supplement companies ask them to endorse their product. These women have positioned themselves in a way that they can use their influence to get paid. Pretty smart right? So how did they do it? Let’s break down the steps.
Get social
As I said at the beginning of this article the social media net casts itself over a billion plus people. Communication through these tools is a great way of getting recognised and building a name for yourself. So the first thing to do if you do not have a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or YouTube account is to get one. Also, if you have a lot of garbage on your Facebook account, such as offensive material it’s best to delete that account and create a clean account. Adding all your friends is easy, offending a coach or scout due to offending material is impossible to recover from.
Here’s somethings to do on social media to get recognised
- Publish useful content daily. What are you up to? How are you feeling? What your goals are? Your progress and so on. Try not to make this a ploy to be a motivational speaker. There are too many annoying people out there that think they can make self absorbed status updates to be like a motivational speaker. Just be genuine and be yourself.
- Use relevant hashtags such as #basketballtraining, #basketballpreseason on each content publish to ensure people follow you.
- Give something back to your community. Tell people what in your training worked. Give them inside tips; in a way be a mentor. Answer peoples questions.
- Make a lot of video content of you training, scrimmaging, playing and just hanging out. Please keep this fairly basketball specific. Don’t put videos of the big night out with the boys or the people you hooked up with on the weekend.
- Make some product reviews and contact the company you made a review for. Chances are if they like you they will send you some free product maybe even sponsor you.
- Add plenty of people in your field of basketball. This includes players and coaches of teams that you hope to oneway play for. Look, people in the NBA might be a little harder to reach however the European athletes are a little easier to get an add from.
Build a basketball profile
Might seem like a shameless plug but if you haven’t read my book “Build a basketball profile” I strongly suggest you do. I break down into detail what is needed to get a strong basketball profile that can be shared with coaches and scouts. Click HERE to find out more about the book.
Building a brand for yourself is a great start to getting exposure to basketball clubs around the world. Having a solid profile with video followed up with content will see plenty of players and coaches following you. This then can be converted to a form of passive income where companies will approach you with free samples or even sponsor you.
Just remember though, if you are planning to play college basketball there are rules that might see you lose eligibility. Accepting gifts or payments may see your classed as a professional player. If you fall under this category it’s best to check in with the NCAA. As a start here is the rules to keeping your Amateur status and eligibility for college. NCAA Amateur rules.
Create your brand, market yourself and get the exposure.
