What do your Social Media profiles say about you?

The Internet has changed over the past 5 or 6 years and is now primarily dominated by social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.  I'd be willing to be that the majority of people reading this found out about it through Facebook or Twitter!  On my social media pages I try to share catching tips, general baseball knowledge, motivation, and updates about myself and the ETSU baseball program.  Here is the question though, what are you sharing on yours?

I'm not exactly referring to the coaches or parents who follow me, but really I'm talking about the players.  There is a lot of competition among players to earn athletic scholarships or sign professional baseball contracts.  How do you think coaches/scouts decide which players they want in their program or organization?  There are two main things that coaches look at: 1) The players athletic ability and skill/talent level and, 2) The player's make up.

The talent is easy to evaluate.  Anyone who earns their living by coaching or scouting baseball can go to a game and pretty quickly tell you who the best player on the field is.  What is more difficult is trying to determine if the player is going to work hard, stay out of trouble, act in the manner that you want him to act, and basically be an "ideal" student-athlete.

Coaches will try to determine the player's make up through telephone calls, emails, talking to references, and campus visits, but it can still be hard to know if the player is really being sincere or just on his best behavior while around a coach/scout.  However, it is very easy to click on a player's Facebook or Twitter page and see how they act when they're not around you!

For example, I follow a lot of players that I'm recruiting on Twitter and I can learn a lot about them by doing so.  You would be surprised how many players regularly post inappropriate photos, dirty jokes, and write words that wouldn't make their mother proud!  What do you think that tells me about them?  Does that make me want to continue recruiting them, or move on to the next player who has similar skill set?

So, from now on, you aren't allowed to make the excuse that "I didn't know coach was reading what I was posting" or "Why would he be looking at my Instagram photos?"  Coaches are looking at how you act...all the time!  Once your baseball days are over your future employers will be doing the same thing so please make wise decisions!  It is so easy pull up a person's history on the Internet now that you have to be really careful about how you project yourself.

If you think people aren't paying attention to what you're saying online you're wrong!  Watch what you say or write and think if what you're communicating reflects positively or negatively on you as a person!

In case you haven't seen my social media profiles here is a link to each of them:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube