Recently, student-athletes have been able to do something they’ve never done before — profit from their name, image, and likeness. Many of the endorsement opportunities that are presenting themselves to student-athletes are on social media, which makes total sense! Social media marketing is a huge space and student-athletes often have a significant following. On MarketPryce, we’ve seen dozens of student-athletes already close social media marketing deals.

One thing that can often stand in the way of a great marketing partnership, though, is a student-athletes preparedness on social media. Sure, the majority of athletes have Instagram accounts, but they are not optimized for marketing in the same way professional athlete’s profiles are.  

So, how do I as a student-athlete set my social media up for success in marketing?

Here are four steps.

Make Your Accounts Public

Privacy and having a personal life is important, but if you want to utilize your social media for marketing purposes, you HAVE to be public. Before they agree to work with you, brands will want to check out your engagement (how many likes, comments, replies), and they can’t do that if your account is private. Brands will want to promote your profile and content if they work with you and having a private profile makes that much harder.

On MarketPryce, we provide brands with social media stats, but we can’t access them if the account isn’t public. Consider creating a second account that’s just for family and friends if you want to keep that content separate from your fans and followers.

Switch To A Professional Instagram Account

The majority of student-athletes currently have “personal” Instagram accounts and that is totally understandable! For the majority of your life, social media has been a purely recreational activity. Now, however, as you look to close marketing deals, it’s important to make the switch to a professional account. Don’t worry, it won’t take away any of the usual things you know and love about Instagram.

A Professional Instagram account helps you track interactions and engagement, see details on your followers, boost posts, and understand your reach better. In short, it makes you a better ambassador for a brand.

To make the switch, go to your profile settings, then click “Account,” then scroll down to “Switch To Professional Account.”

Have Your Name In Your Profile

Many social media users have nicknames, phrases, or abbreviations in their profiles instead of their actual first and last names. While this is a nice way to personalize your profile, it can be difficult if you want to grow your marketing value. If someone sees your game and wants to find you or a brand wants to connect with you on social media, it might be difficult for them to find you.

It’s super important to have your first and last name somewhere on your profile! Whether it is in your account username or your display name, make sure it is on there. The last thing you want is someone who is interested in working with you not being able to get in touch because they can’t find your exact Instagram or Twitter account. It’s just one more step to make it easier on a potential marketing partner.

Check Your DMs

In case you’re not already in the habit of it, make sure you check your Direct Messages! Besides chatting on MarketPryce, DMs are one of the main ways athlete marketing deals get coordinated. If you don’t regularly check and reply to direct messages, you could be missing out!

On Instagram, you’ll have the Primary, General, and Requests tabs in your messages section. If you don’t follow someone, their messages will go in your Requests tab. There, you can view it and decide whether to accept or decline the message.

On Twitter, users can actually turn off Direct Messaging entirely. We recommend NOT doing this. Make sure anyone who wants to get in touch with you can get in touch, and then you can make the decision on whether or not to reply.