Using Social Media To Reach The Gen Z Athlete

Written By: Nate Harding

If we are honest, most coaches feel like keeping our team social media accounts updated is just another task to add to our ever growing list of daily priorities. As a millennial coach, I feel like I have one foot in the social media game and one foot out. I like to feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the social media trends of today. Despite my confidence in my social media abilities, I can't help but feel like I’m doing this thing wrong sometimes. I definitely do not have all of the answers to communicating effectively on social media, but I do feel like we may be missing the mark as collegiate and club swim coaches. Generation Z is the main generation that most swim coaches spend the majority of their time training. Coaching the Gen Z swimmer has its set of obstacles. I genuinely feel like understanding the relationship Gen Z has with social media is an important factor in effectively coaching the Gen Z swimmer.

In this blog post I would like to share my insights on interacting with Generation Z swimmers while running my college and High school swim teams instagram accounts. I will also give four helpful tips to hopefully help you build a connection with your Gen Z swimmers through social media.

1. Posting Engaging Content

When I converse with many different swim coaches about social media, it feels like most coaches are “posting” because they know their swimmers or potential swimmers spend a lot of time on social media. The truth is, the algorithm is set up so that users are only shown content that is relevant to their interest and engagement behaviors. A lot of coaches are not aware that instagram only sends out each post to a small percentage of your audience initially. If and only if that post gets a good amount of initial engagement, will the instagram algorithm decide to send it out to more of your followers. Imagine this: you are a club coach of around 100 swimmers who runs the team instagram account. The instagram account has about 400 instagram followers who consist of mostly current swimmers and parents. You post a picture on Instagram about how the weekend taper meet was a success. The Algorithm decides to send out your post to roughly 10% or less (40) of your followers to see. Assuming most of those followers that see this post are swimmers, this post initially will get sent to around 20-30 swimmers. Although at least 90% of your team is on Instagram, not even half of them will see your post initially. After a few days, most of your swimmers will eventually get around to seeing your post because they spend hours on the platform. The problem with this is you had to compete with whatever else is consuming their attention BEFORE your post was seen.

One solution to this problem would be to post engaging content that your swimmers find entertaining, educational, or interesting. I can't speak for every coach, but I know that I have struggled with this. I struggle with striking a balance between what I deem is valuable as a coach and what my swimmers deem valuable. What helped me get through this was understanding that there are some values that my swimmers and myself have in common. I just need to speak their language. Social media is another language. I just need to learn how to communicate to them. Here are some helpful questions:

2. Understanding The Relationship Your Swimmers Have With Your Social Media Accounts.

Believe it or not the Instagram algorithm is prioritizing your post and deciding if or when to show your post to your swimmers. In order for Instagram to show your swimmers what they want to see, the algorithm uses their interactions to piece together who is “closest” to them. This can be broken down into 4 categories:

As you can see, if you tailor your content to at least three of these four things you will likely be successful in connecting more with your swimmers via social media. Is your content worthy of searching for? Is your content worthy of sharing to a friend via direct message? I have to remind you that the swimmers need to answer yes to these questions. Another tip for accomplishing those things would be to leverage parents. Club parents as well as parents of collegiate swimmers love to post their children on social media. If you're finding creative ways to involve all swimmers on Instagram, then naturally parents will also share your post to their audiences.

3. Tracking Engagement

It is absolutely mind boggling to me how many naturally analytical swim coaches do not check their instagram analytics to see what is or isn't working. This is the equivalent of giving swimmers swim sets with no pace clock and having them compete with no stop watches. They can do it but how do we know if they've improved, gotten worse, stayed the same, etc? Instagram analytics is a way for you to know what type of content your audience enjoys and engages with the most.

First you should change your account to a business account or creator account. This will give you access to valuable insights into each of your posts. Our Redlands Swim & Dive Instagram page would average about 1800 views per Reel video. Anyone could go on our page and see that. What everyone cannot see is that I know exactly which types of videos perform better than others. I know which videos I’ve posted get more comments, which receive more shares, etc. For example, instagram videos highlighting our campus and showing various campus views did better than videos of our swimmers at practice. This makes sense because I have a lot of prospective students following our Instagram page. I’m assuming due to COVID, they really wanted to see more of the campus. I still posted videos of practice but tailored my content strategy to include more campus videos.

It is very important to know what your audience likes to see most and give them more of that. In the end, all of your content will be more likely to get pushed out by the algorithm.

4. Teach Through Instagram

Truthfully speaking, I am still trying to figure out creative ways I can have my team instagram accounts be an extension of what I am coaching on the pool deck. Some studies suggest that Generation Z spends on average of 5+ hours a day on social media. Imagine if you could capture 20-30 min of that time with engaging content that would help with stroke technique, mental health, or dryland ideas. I would imagine swimmers would be more welcoming to critique and correction if it is being reinforced with engaging content.

Instagram has so many features that you could do well with social media by just focusing on Instagram alone. What are some creative ways to implement and reinforce what you are teaching on the pool deck on social media?

Well that's all I have for today. I hope that was helpful and feel free to follow our Team Instagram @uredlandsswimdive. I also just started an Instagram account for the High School team I coach. I will be experimenting with a lot of ideas on that page as well. @Yucaipahighswim

Best of luck with all of your social media endeavors!

In July 2019, Nate Harding joined Bulldog Athletics as a full-time assistant coach for the men's and women's swimming teams under the direction of Head Coach Leslie Whittemore. Harding brings solid coaching experience at the college level, specifically in Southern California over the last three seasons. He most recently served as an assistant at Biola University in La Mirada where he helped the Eagles break eight school records during the 2018-19 season. In addition, Harding offers knowledge of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) due to his two seasons at Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. There, he contributed to the success of 16 NCAA qualifiers and an NCAA champion. Harding's experiences span beyond college coaching with successful stints at Claremont High School and Carter High School in Rialto. He also has worked as an assistant swim coach with Mt. Baldy Aquatics in Claremont. Harding completed his Master of Science in Kinesiology with a concentration in sports performance at Louisiana Tech University in 2011. He earned his bachelor's degree in Kinesiology with a concentration in sports management from Grambling State University. He resides with his wife Joneese and daughter Ezriela in Redlands. Beyond coaching and spending time with his family, he enjoys cheering on LeBron James, doing cross-fit, and playing pick-up basketball.