Firestarter – Frances Reimers

On today’s episode, I speak with Frances Reimers from Firestarter a brand agency. Frances works a ton with professional athletes on their social media, personal brand and everything in-between. We talk about how players should use social media in the recruiting process, as well as pitfalls to avoid. For more about her services, visit – http://www.yourfirestarter.com/

Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. I’ve got a very special guest for you guys today, one of my longtime friends who, uh, is the brand personal brand consultant to the Stars, uh, at, at, uh, Firestarter Frances. How are you today?

Frances: I’m good man. It’s great to see you.

Matt: Great to see you too. And. I know I won’t do a proper introduction.

Justice. Let’s just say Frances, I’ve known each other for God, almost 15 ish years. 20, oh God, we’re not that old. We’re almost 20. We’re not that old. . Uh, so let ev do me a favor. Start off just by letting everybody know what’s Firestarter. What have you been doing over the last few years? 

Frances: Yeah, so I am the founder and c e o of Firestarter.

We are a Virginia based, um, brand consultant firm, and I work exclusively with high school, college and professional athletes and coaches. And so for my clients, I do everything from marketing to pr to endorsements to, uh, for-profit and nonprofit launches. And. 

Matt: and, and you do a darn good job. I know you’ve, you’ve been doing a lot with, uh, player foundations and I think Aaron, Donald, uh mm-hmm.

John Feliciano, all those guys. Good. Some, some N F L clients and all that kind of thing. But what the reason I wanted to talk to you today is in the college recruiting world, uh, social media is, is [00:01:30] everywhere, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, and, and I get a lot of questions from parents, from players, you know? , what kind of things should they be doing?

Should they not be doing, how does, how does social media really fit into the college recruitment process? And kind of what have you seen from, from your experiences? 

Frances: Uh, it plays a big role in the recruitment process. Um, it, it certainly, um, is something that is a must do. Um, you know, five, six years ago. A, a kid could go through the athletic recruiting process, um, without social media and, and make their way down down the recruitment funnel.

But today, coaches, especially in like football and basketball, this is a, a key area where kids get seen, um, can grow. And depending on what state you live in, high school, kids can even monetize their brand. And as they go into college, Everyone can monetize their brand. So, uh, social media has become just basically a, a cornerstone of our lives where we are going forward.

We’re not going back from this. And so it’s really important that parents, right, from that junior high level on up, if their child is active in sports. Oh, no, I froze. There we go. We’re back. . We’re back. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s really important that, uh, that parents get [00:03:00] their child active and out there, especially if they’re, if they’re gaining attention, you wanna capture that light in a bottle and keep it going all the way through their high school.

And then onto, uh, hopefully they’re, they’re collegiate playing career. Um, There are ways that it can go wrong and and wrong quickly. Um, and so it’s really important that if a parent or an athlete is going to put themselves out there, uh, to be visible for the recruiting process. There’s always a couple like tried and true, uh, things that I, uh, tell parents that they should.

First things first, uh, audit. And what I mean by that is if your child already has social media platforms, and, but now we’re really going to go from, you know, your child just using. Social media for fun or interaction or you know, to converse with friends. Now we’re switching this over because we want this to be a vehicle for recruitment, a r a vehicle for monetization.

Um, I always tell parents first things first we audit. And what I mean by that is go back. To through their accounts all the way to the very beginning and start getting rid of images, videos, anything on their account that really just doesn’t make them look the best. Doesn’t put them in the most flattering light, you know, maybe.

they have a picture from when they were nine with a group of their [00:04:30] friends. Let’s get that stuff out of there and really start curating, um, a social media feed that is benefiting the child now and, and long through the recruiting process. Um, because people do go through those feeds, especially Twitter and go back and see.

What kind of character, um, this child is? What, what, what will they bring to the team’s culture? Um, who are they? Are they a good person? Are they a team player? Are they a complainer? So much of character and values can, can be read through somebody’s posts and how they put themselves out there in words and in images.

First thing first, go back and audit. Um, I tell parents and, and athletes all the way up to my professional athletes is go back every year and audit yourself. Clean that stuff out. Sometimes we say and do things in the moment that we thought were funny, that we thought were relevant. Now don’t maybe look so good.

So go back there and clean it up. Um, second thing, really important for the recruitment process is what is in the bio. Very, very important and so many kids. Um, it blows my mind how many kids and how many parents watching their children’s accounts just completely missed this step. Um, you’re seeing it more and more.

Student athletes wanna make sure they’re using every character of their bio. Their name should be in there, their school, their sport, their [00:06:00] position, um, as they get older in high school, their gpa, their SATs, ACTT scores, um, and how to be contacted via email. Don’t assume a coach is going to DM you so. An email account, uh, in, in your bio to be reached.

Also a phone number. Sometimes coaches will text, or even if you can believe it, in this day and age, actually call. So have a phone number now. I know for parents having an email and a phone number out there for everybody on the worldwide web to see, um, and it makes some parents, especially for younger student athletes, a little uncomfortable.

Um, what you can do is, you know, create a dummy. Phone number that goes through, you know, Google or a burner phone, something that somebody can’t, uh, directly attach to your child. Of course, mom or dad can put their phone number, but they may not want their phone number out there either. So there are workarounds, but absolutely have a way to be contacted and absolutely have an email account.

Um, and because I’m a brander and this is what I do, Create a handle and an email account that has your name and that matches that way, it’s easier for coaches to remember. You have to keep in mind they’re looking at hundreds and hundreds of kids every single year. [00:07:30] So any way to help make them connect the dots of your, your name, your phone number, your email, any way you can tie that together, it’s, it’s really important to do so, and it’s really helpful to the coaches when they’re trying to reach student.

Matt: So sorry. Oh, sorry. But on that point though, um, you talk about auditing your account if you already have one. If you already have one, should you create a new one that’s just about recruiting that so you can match up? Emails and, and maybe have it be, be separate, focused or, or what do you think about that?

Frances: No, I think, I mean, especially if a child, uh, has an account and has followers and has a decent amount of followers, I would leave it. I mean, especially something like Twitter and, and Instagram too. You can always change your handle if you want to. So if, if their handle was. iHeart Soccer 62. And now they wanna change it to, you know, Connor Novik 62.

If it’s available on Twitter and Instagram, they can certainly make those changes. Handles can be changed if they’re available. Um, you might have to get a little creative if you want everything to match, but if you already have an account, Just keep trucking with that account. Uh, no need to start all over because one for one reason, uh, at which I spoke of, which is about followers, but two, um, it causes confusion if, if a coach is seeing two different profiles with the same [00:09:00] person, they’re like, Okay, that’s his information, but that’s also his information.

Which one am I following? Which one am I engaging with? So just leave one, um, and, and change the handles if you want to. And of course you can always go on Gmail and create a Gmail account with whatever, you know, handle whatever is available. But you can find clever ways to make them all match. Um, but another thing is, is biopics.

So your, your shot and your banner on the page, um, wanna be creative with that in, in the picture. Obviously, make sure that the coach can see your face. Um, this is, this is a, this is more of an issue in, in sports like football or lacrosse where they’re wearing helmets and it’s a little hard to see their face.

Players will often post a picture of them playing, which is great. That seems like a natural thing to do, right? But you want people to be able to see your face and know that they’re looking at the right person. And so, um, have a picture. You can still be in uniform, but just something where we can actually see you.

Um, and then of course, that banner, you can change it into whatever you want. So why not use that space? To show a little personality, a little flare. Maybe there’s something that the student athlete loves to do outside of sports. Maybe they have a saying that they really love anything to help kind of, um, diversify their account, but differentiate [00:10:30] themselves from, uh, from all the other kids out there that are being recruited.

So, , they seem like little tiny things, but they do really add up when people are looking at profile after profile. You want to be able to, to make your stand out from the pack, look a little bit different, read a little bit different. Um, and so I always recommend, especially during the recruitment process, that kids do that and their parents help them with that.

And then of course when we get into content itself, right? What, what’s the content that’s gonna break through? Well, video, video, video. And I know some people hate making videos because they don’t know what to say. They don’t know if they’re, you know, acting right. They’re not a TikTok dancer, and so they, you know, they, they’re not really sure what to do.

But video is king. And for a a, for a student athlete who is going through the recruitment process, Coaches and, and scouts and trainers seeing video of, of the child in action, um, the child working out training, all of this is very important. Also, video becomes very important too for coaches to see personality.

You know, because they’re not just recruiting for your physical capabilities, which is very important. They’re also looking at your personality too. Are you a good fit for the program? Are you coachable? Are you humble? Are you polite? Um, they’re looking at that stuff [00:12:00] too. And video is a great way for a student athlete to let their personality shine through and kind of show, uh, who they are day in and day out.

I’m not saying that that images just plain images or graphics don’t work as content. They absolutely still do. But the world is migrating, um, towards video. That’s why TikTok is so huge. That’s why YouTube continues to grow year over year. That’s why reels on, on Instagram, uh, just continues to grow in popularity.

Um, we’re, we’re literally too lazy to just look at an image. We have to be entertained with a video. Um, this probably isn’t that heavy of a lift for our young student athletes who are very digitally native. Mom and dad might get a little nervous around it, but I, the younger kids, I think they’re, they’re comfortable with it and they know what to do, but not just show.

What you are like out on the pitch or on the field. Um, the playing is important, obviously showing highlight reels is important. Obviously, if you, you know, score the, the game winning goal, absolutely get that up there. But make sure you’re showing content. That shows the whole person, uh, what you do outside of your sport.

Um, maybe you’re really good at school, maybe you have a really interesting hobby, um, outside of playing sports. Don’t be afraid to show that whole picture and the reason to train yourself Now [00:13:30] to do that, that will come in handy later on if you want to monetize or if you go on to play at the collegiate level and you are thinking.

Sponsorships or endorsements. Showing that whole personality of yourself really does help, uh, companies decide if they. Want you to endorse their product if they wanna do marketing campaigns with you. So, uh, be sure to whole, you know, show the whole, whole picture and the whole, uh, you know, uh, the, your roundedness of who you are as a person.

Cuz it really does help in a lot of different ways. But during the recruitment process, they, they wanna see what kind of, what kind of person you are off the field and, and on. Um, , I tell, I tell parents not to get too worried about your child being on every platform. Um, I really would advise people to stick to the platform that the, uh, student is actually going to use.

It’s better for a athlete, really, honestly, anybody. It’s really better to be on one or two platforms. But you’re maximizing those platforms. You’re putting up the content every day. You’re engaging with people all the time. I would rather have a client doing that than a client that just is buckshot, meaning they’re on every platform.

but they never post anything. There’s nothing, you know, they have a YouTube page, but there’s nothing there. Um, or they have [00:15:00] Instagram, but there’s only one picture of them. Um, we all know those accounts and we’ve seen ’em. Um, I say, if, if your child likes Instagram, be on Instagram. Coaches are definitely looking through Instagram for students for the recruiting process.

However, um, Twitter is where it’s at. Uh, that’s where the coaches are. Um, that’s where the reporters are. That’s where a lot of the sports world is. Um, and so if you’re like, okay, I’m only allowing. My son or daughter, one platform and, and which one should we go to? Twitter. That’s where the coaches are, that’s where coaches are looking at kids, both the kids that they have and the kids that they wanna have.

Um, that’s where they’re looking at their, their competitors and, and what they’re putting out there. Um, and, and it’s really, Twitter’s really easy. If an article gets written on your child, then you just like and share it. And that’s. Content for, for your child to help get them more views. Um, and so Twitter is kind of the most active place right now for the recruitment, but coaches are definitely on Instagram too, and more of more of them are going to that platform.

Some do look through TikTok, some are active in in, in recruiting on TikTok, but not as much. Um, and of course, Facebook for young people, that’s, that’s nonexistent. Um, and then of course a, a young [00:16:30] athlete doesn’t need LinkedIn, but for the parents out there watching this who might have a child who is a senior in high school or maybe they’ve just started college, um, uh, I would definitely recommend getting them into the LinkedIn space, and that’s a whole other conversation for another time.

Twitter is really where the majority of that recruitment activity is happening, and Twitter moves very quickly. So it’s a platform that requires a lot of content. Um, you can’t post once and then walk away for two weeks and expect that people are gonna see you unless. , everything you post gets 200,000 likes, which is highly unlikely.

Um, you have to keep feeding the beast, as I call it on Twitter because, uh, the content life cycle on Twitter is only about 16 minutes. Um, which means when you post a piece of content, it lives in people’s feed for about 16 minutes and then it’s gone. So you have to constantly feed that platform. But that’s where the recruitment activity is happening.

Um, and then, uh, the other piece of, of advice I would give to parents and, and student athletes, if, if they’re building, whether it’s for recruitment or they’re trying to monetize, uh, Consistency is key. Consistency is so important. I don’t care if you’re trying to lose weight or grow, um, your finances or building a brand.

It’s all [00:18:00] about discipline and consistency. You have to stay on top of posting. Um, like I said just a second ago, you can’t post something once. Walk away for two weeks and, and think that you’re gonna be seen or that you’re gonna grow an audience. It just doesn’t work that way. Social media and the algorithms that control social media are based off of, of two things that you can control.

There’s a lot of other things going on in the algorithm that we can’t control, but the two you can, um, Your consistency, meaning that you are posting on a regular basis, your audience is being trained, that you’re gonna be posting on a regular basis, and then the second half of it is your level of engagement.

So if you go on a platform like Twitter, for example, Um, you should be liking, sharing, commenting because that helps bring you up to the top of the feed. People are more likely to see you, the more active you are on that platform. Um, for people who are heavy Twitter users, they probably notice that every time they log onto their account.

There’s that one person or a couple of people that are always at the top of their feed and it’s, and it’s simply because that person is posting and liking, sharing, commenting, and that’s, and that’s how they stay towards the top for a young student athlete who is going through the recruiting process.

Posting, obviously they’re getting that stuff up there on a regular basis, a couple of days a [00:19:30] week, not just after the Friday night game, and then they’re quiet the rest of the week. We need stuff throughout the week, but this active student athlete is also posting their content, but they’re. Liking other friends content.

They’re, you know, liking and sharing articles maybe from a particular writer or a particular publication, um, uh, that, that is, you know, positive towards their team or their community. Um, they’re liking. Celebrity posts and, and, and other activity that’s going on on that platform, that really helps. But the one thing I caution with parents, uh, monitoring this, we can see, especially on a platform like Twitter, we can see what your child is liking.

So make sure that, that this young man or young woman understands that you can like stuff, you can share stuff. That’s great, that’s good, but we can see what you’re liking. So if you’re liking something inappropriate, if you’re liking something that you really shouldn’t affiliate yourself with or something that is in bad taste, we can.

And, and recruiters see it. All they have to do is tap on the little tab on somebody’s Twitter account and they can see what they liked and shared. And that’s really important. I actually know of a kid who lost a football scholarship, um, to a D two [00:21:00] program. because the coach that was recruiting him went onto his Twitter and was looking at the, not the stuff he posted, but the stuff that he was liking, and it was very inappropriate stuff.

Very, uh, just very crude, crass stuff. And, and the coach was like, this is not our culture here. This is not what we’re looking for. And. Offer was taken. So the, this stuff is really important. It’s really important for moms and dads to be watching that, especially the younger, the student athlete, uh, mom and dad watching that and making sure that not only are they making good decisions about what they’re posting, but making good decisions about who, who they’re engaging with and, and their, you know, social media etiquette now.

Matt: And I’ve heard. This question sometimes, you know, asked about parent involvement and the coaches I’ve talked to, interview on the podcast have all kind of told me the same thing is the kids should run their account, not the moms and dads. And it’s pretty obvious when it’s mom and dad, but that doesn’t mean.

That mom and dad is off the hook, right? 

Frances: Absolutely not. Um, and in fact, um, mom and dad can absolutely help. Um, you know, especially if the, the student athlete is younger, you know, mom and dad may be helping, you know, with grammar or whatever the case may be. I, I’m totally o on board with that. Um, mom and dad, just keeping a.

To make sure nothing inappropriate is going on, like I just mentioned, [00:22:30] but it really needs to be the student athlete. It really has to be as authentic as possible. And when mom or dad or a publicist like me is. The one operating the account. It’s very obvious. It like, um, I can change my voice to match that of the clients, but even a trained person like me that does this, people can still tell the difference between something that was written by me and something that’s written by, um, you know, a 14 year old boy.

There’s, there’s a huge difference. So, um, the kids managing their own accounts is, is really, really important. But to the parents. Um, I’m gonna take it one step further. Mom and dad, you need to behave yourself on social media too. Um, uh, coaches do look at your accounts too. Not as many, not as frequently, but if there is a mom or dad out there, really, um, act.

You know, just outta sorts on social media that could negatively impact your child. Um, you know, coaches, they don’t wanna deal with something that’s gonna be a problem, potentially a problem down the road. So mom and dad, you need to keep yourself under control and. and you can’t get aggressive with coaches or, or players or, or, you know, anyone like that.

I’ve actually seen, um, a parent go after a, a, a coach on Twitter because their, their child was not [00:24:00] recruited, um, to play at that particular school. And I mean, just. Horrific behavior, but mom and dad, you have to watch it too. And, and mom and dad, what you are saying, what you are posting, what you are liking could potentially come under scrutiny as well.

I mean, keep in mind, depending on the school, there’s only so many scholarships to go around. Like, and if a coach is, is trying to decide between two kids, Don’t give them a reason to walk away from your kid because of silly online behavior. So make sure everybody is keeping it clean, keeping it respectful, keeping it positive.

Um, but the same goes for parents too. Uh, coaches are looking, watching, and, and paying attention. 

Matt: Well, and it’s not just on social media, cuz I could tell you I’ve had multiple coaches tell me that they purposefully show up to a game where they’re scouting a player before the game starts and they’ll park near the parents.

To see who, who, who are the yellers and the screamers, and the ones you know. berating the referees or yelling about the, the way they’re talking to their kids or other kids and Yeah. And they’ll, they’ll, they’ll scratch ’em right off the list. And so it’s, it’s in person. It’s online and, and, and that’s great overall advice.

Yeah. Um, you’ve been super generous with your time, Francis, giving us a lot of good information. I’m gonna g leave you with one last question. Um, and, and it’s similar to the one I ask our, our coaches when I interview ’em. What, what didn’t we cover? What else is [00:25:30] there? What’s the kind of one last piece of advice or something that we didn’t talk about that you would be remiss to not say to, to potential student athletes out there?

Frances: Yeah, the big one that I see, especially with student athletes, media is becoming more and more of a thing in small towns in big towns, you know, podcasters and bloggers and small media firms are popping up left and right, and they’re covering. Student athletes as young as junior high. Even. I watched a video on Instagram today of a third grade basketball game,

Um, so, so video and media is, is everywhere. Um, and, and for some young adults, that’s scary. Being interviewed is incredibly overwhelming for some people, some adults, quite frankly. Um, but having. Speaker training and media skills is vital. Um, because you want, you know, uh, to be honest, as an athlete, you want that microphone shoved in your face because it usually means that you did great, you had a good game.

The media is interested in you as a person. You want that cuz that’s easy content. But you wanna make sure when that microphone comes up to you, to your face that you are. to have the conversation. And so, um, for parents, if your son or daughter or student athlete, if you’re on the shy side, um, if public speaking um, is not something that you’ve done a lot of, [00:27:00] take a class, do it online.

I mean, there’s tons of YouTube videos out there to help you become a better public speaker. I do media training with kids all the time, but there’s stuff at local community colleges. . If your child is at the high school level, there probably is a, you know, a speech or a presentation course right there at their school that they can participate in or they can join the speech team.

Um, is another, is another way. But having those media skills, having those speaking skills will never not be something that a student athlete doesn’t need. They will need these skills for the rest of their. But this need is getting younger and younger. So I strongly encourage, um, uh, parents and, and student athletes to get speaker training and engage with the media in a positive way.

If, because believe me, if they know you and you’ve been good to them, they’re gonna be good to you and you’re gonna get a lot more coverage when you engage with, uh, the media in a positive way, offline and on. Um, it, it, it definitely can help it. Athletes all the way down from little kid all the way up to.

Matt: Awesome. Well, Francis, I really do appreciate your time and these amazing insights for, for the Discover College soccer community. I know we get questions all the time about it and I said, okay, who can I talk to? And, and you, the list was one, so I appreciate you . Yay . I appreciate you, uh, making yourself available and, and hopefully we’ll be in touch again soon and [00:28:30] hopefully you and I will see each other in person soon cuz it’s been way too long.

Frances: It’s been way too long. Thanks for having me. All right. Thanks.