Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly this spring hired Megan Whitt as Coordinator for Recruiting Operations with the goal of improving the program's "ability to reach recruits through social media," according to Chris Hine of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Whitt works with Notre Dame assistant coaches to "connect with prospects in today's social media-driven world." Every school "has a social media presence and communicates with recruits through those avenues, but how schools utilize social media can vary." On each social media platform, Notre Dame "posts quick videos -- less than 30 seconds in length -- that offer a glimpse inside the program." The videos may show players "goofing around before a flight, getting pumped up before a game or a snippet of Kelly's postgame speech after a victory." Whitt and her colleagues use "flashy graphics that preview and recap the weekend's games and also provide information about the program." Those graphics are "mailed to recruits and posted to Notre Dame's Instagram and Twitter accounts." Whitt also uses recruits' Twitter and Instagram accounts "to gather their interests to custom-make graphics and mailers." Notre Dame's social media team can track if their efforts are working "based on the amount of Instagram likes or retweets they get for certain graphics." Whitt said, "If you recruit a big mass the same way, it's not going to work because they want to feel special. So we try to take each kid as much as we can on an individual basis" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 11/12).
