Let’s be honest when it comes to building a gymnastics recruiting profile there is a lot of noise and poor advice being tossed around out there. Things like creating your Instagram account and then just keep posting videos! Have you heard this one before?
Then you have 20 follow up thoughts like what type of videos should I post? How often do I need to keep updating my page? What should I write in my BIO when I only get 150 characters?
When it comes to your gymnastics recruiting profile it feels overwhelming and chaotic. And there are so many reasons why Instagram is not the ideal platform for your gymnasts to stand out in the recruiting process.
But let’s be clear, it’s NOT YOUR FAULT! It’s really the only option out there, UNTIL NOW. This is one of the major reasons we custom built the Gymnastics Plus platform so that we could solve these problems for you.
Inside Your Gymnastics Recruiting Profile
The reason to create your profile is so that you can stand out, get exposure and showcase your personality and gymnastics!
The real real is that Instagram is NOT built for recruiting or to help you stand out. The platform was built for entertainment! And that’s the primary reason people, including college coaches, log on to IG is so that they can be entertained.
What this means is that even though you might be relentlessly posting videos you are crossing your fingers that your video will be seen. Because we all know that if you scroll past something it is almost impossible to go back and try to find it unless you go directly to that person’s profile.
On IG you are not guaranteed to have coaches’ attention and their attention is what you want. Coaches can get easily and quickly distracted even if they open up IG to look at recruits and then quickly see a cooking recipe they wanna try or an interview with someone.
The distractions are endless!
So Part 1 of what makes building your gymnastics recruiting profile inside Gym Plus is to pull their attention away from distractions and onto you!
Each gymnast has their own link they can send to anyone so that they can view their profile!
Showcasing You In Your Profile
On other platforms it’s hard to showcase who you are as a person. Yes, they see the gymnastics videos but a large part of recruiting is the personality fit for their specific program. This is where no one else is giving you tactical advice on building your gymnastics recruiting profile.
They wanna know what your values are, what are the areas you wanna grow and develop as a person and how would you describe your personality beyond saying all the generic things like…
I work hard, I am a good leader, I bring a positive attitude etc. They want examples and before Gym Plus the only way to do that was if you got a chance to speak to them.
And I know what you might be thinking, I post some other things besides gymnastics and again the real real is posting a few prom photos does not help out coaches hardly any.
These are conversations we have had directly with college coaches. Knowing more about the athlete and who they are as a persona and the things they value in life allows us to have better conversations with them when they pick up the phone and call.
It makes the first 10-15 minutes of a call much smoother because they already have context about who you are and not wasting that time trying to get context about you and your values.
So how do we solve this?
Inside creating your gymnastics recruiting profile you are able to showcase you as a person and a competitor…
At the top of the home page of your profile the first thing coaches see is your “introduction video”, we coach you on how to create a 2-3 minute video about yourself. Literally step by step!
Then you have space to write about yourself and your major accomplishments with 500 characters. You can brag about yourself much more.
Then after your video you have your profile information:
- Graduation Year
- Level
- GPA
- Club Gym and Location
Next you have your additional resources and their contact information:
- Strength Coach
- PT
- Nutritionist
- Mental Performance Coach
Lastly you have all your contact information which includes you and your parents emails and phone numbers.
Plus your club coaches contact information so that if they are not allowed to contact you yet they have the ability to reach out to your coach and express interest!
So that rounds out the broad overview on the homepage of your gymnastics recruiting profile.
Gymnastics Profile
On other platforms there is no way to organize your videos. On IG you can only pin 3 posts to the top and there is no way to search for your videos unless you send coaches the exact links.
We solved that problem for you!
Inside your gymnastics recruiting profile we break up your videos into 3 categories which are:
- Routines
- Skills
- Upgrades
Then under each category it’s broken up into events so that each event and category are separated. If a coach went to your profile and only wanted to watch you bar routines they can do that with a click of a button.
We then took it one step further where college coaches can search and filter anyone on the platform.
For example they can search “2027” “Bar” Routines” and then everyone who meets that criteria your videos will show up for them to view!
With all that said these are the most critical pieces when creating a gymnastics recruiting profile!
You must have the ability to keep college coaches’ attention on you, not endless distractions on social media.
Coaches are extremely interested in learning more about you and your values. The easiest way to do that without having to get on a phone call with them is to have a real “about you video and profile”. This is a must in your gymnastics recruiting profile.
Coaches are tired of endlessly scrolling on profiles to find videos. So there must be a way to organize your videos so they can find you effortlessly!
Start today building a gymnastics recruiting profile that stands out!
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Check out our podcast with hundreds of conversations with gymnasts, coaches and olympians: https://gymnasticsplus.org/the-championship-corner-podcast/
