How to Promote Team Tryouts on Your Social Media

Team tryouts are an exciting time, both for you and potential players. It’s a chance to give your team even more visibility as well as an opportunity to onboard new forces. However, it can also be a stressful time if you don’t plan ahead and come up with a marketing strategy to promote the recruitment.

A good way to start your promotion is to announce it on your website with a simple blog post. You can also send out an email to your subscribers and ask them to forward it to their friends or anybody else who has kids or is interested in joining a team for your particular sport.

But, nowadays, you cannot ignore the power of social media. Promoting your team tryouts on your social media channels is a great way to extend your reach and in this article, we’ll show you how to use them as a part of your marketing strategy.

3 Ways to Generate Interest About Tryouts On Social Media

Before diving into specific platforms, here are a few content ideas that will help you spark interest in your team tryouts.

Talk About the Atmosphere in Your Team

You can generate interest by sharing updates about the atmosphere in your team, showing photos of players having fun and interacting with each other during the events, matches, and during training sessions. But, don’t be afraid to share what happens outside of the training room and show how your team gets involved in a community as well as socializing outside of the locker room.

Share The Benefits of Being Physically Active

Another way to get people interested in joining is to talk about the benefits of being physically active. You can even go beyond and talk about meeting new people and forming new friendships as well as highlighting how much time potential team players can expect to spend on training.

Ask Current Players to Share Their Experience

Sometimes, hearing the first-hand experience may just be the thing a potential player needs to hear to convince them to join your team. Ask your current players to help you with the tryouts promotion and invite them to share their experience on your page. They can do so by sharing a written post of their own or even by recording a brief video in which they talk about why they love being on your team and why others should consider joining.

Optimize Your Profiles During Tryout Season

Lastly, don’t forget to optimize each of your social media profiles for the tryout season.

Temporarily Change Your Profile Banner

Create a special header image for the tryout season which has the start and end date of the tryouts as well as the location and the hours. You can do this on your Facebook page as well as on your Twitter profile if you are active there.

Replace the Website URL With the Signup Page

During the tryouts, edit your profile to point visitors and followers to your signup page instead of your usual website link. You can even use a service like Bitly to track how many signups came from a specific social network so you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

Promote Your Team Tryouts on Your Facebook Page

Using your team’s Facebook page is a great way to tell your fans that you’re opening up recruitment and keeping them up to date with the tryout dates. Aside from announcing the recruitment and posting about the date and location, your posts should also include why someone should consider joining.

Image Credit: Red River College Rebels via Facebook

Try Facebook Stories or Facebook Live

As your tryout dates approach and during the entire period while you’re actively recruiting new players, consider using Facebook Stories. It’s a more personal way of inviting potential athletes to join since you can use video to highlight how the tryouts are progressing. Keep in mind that Facebook stories disappear after 24 hours so it’s a good idea to use this tactic closer to the open date and during the tryouts itself.

Facebook Live, on the other hand, is a great way to capture and share “in the moment” photos and short videos which can not only show how much fun it is to get involved in a sport but it’s also a great way to boost your overall engagement and gain a few more fans in the process.

Use Instagram and Instagram Stories

In a similar fashion, you can use Instagram and Instagram Stories to engage your followers and fans and encourage them to come try out for your team. Since Instagram is a highly visual platform, focus on sharing photos from the training or community events.

Image Credit: FC Miami City via Instagram

You can also go live on Instagram and approach them the same way as you would Facebook Live. Share what’s going on during the tryouts or post a video of your current players sharing how being on your team has helped them be more active and find new friends.

Tap Into Video With Youtube

Videos are all the rage now so use Youtube to your advantage. While the same principles from Facebook and Instagram can be applied to Youtube as well, there are a few other things you can do.

Make a short video announcing the tryouts and invite them to visit your website for more details, then follow it up with more educational content.

Ask your coaches to share their tips on how to stand out during tryouts and what qualities they look for in a candidate. You can also ask your coach to share advice on preparing for the tryouts.

Keep in mind that Youtube is a great way to build up hype for each recruiting period if you post replays of past matches and leave a call to action to sign up for the waitlist throughout the year.

Image Credit: Howard Elite Basketball via Youtube

Use the Power of Social Media to Recruit New Team Members

Social media is a great way to interact with your fans but it’s also an excellent addition to your marketing strategy. Use it to promote your next round of tryouts and make use of the tips in this article to get your promotion going. Don’t forget to download our cheat sheet of ideas on how to build hype and how to use popular social media channels during the recruitment season.

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