It seems like everybody has heard about social media, referring to sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, and much more. Social media websites allow people to connect, share content (videos, pictures, etc.), and enter into a conversation about whatever they want to talk about. Social media is not only transforming how people of all ages communicate and share information; social media is now revolutionizing how high school athletes are getting noticed and recruited by college programs, both big and small.

If you you're a stud athlete with dreams of playing college athletics, learn how to leverage these social media platforms to help increase your exposure. Here's three strategies to get started...

1. Upload your highlight videos to YouTube, Vimeo, Yahoo Video, Myspace Video, and Facebook.

Anybody who has ever been through the college recruiting process knows that sending out countless highlight tapes in the mail is a complete pain in the butt. While you still want to continue to do this, you can compliment your efforts by also uploading all of your game clips, highlight tapes, or even a personal player video interview to these video sharing sites. Make sure you label, tag, and fill in the descriptions of the videos with you personal information. Search engines like Google and Yahoo will "crawl," pick up, all of this content and start pulling it up in results when somebody does a search for your name.

Below is an example of a player that has uploaded his game videos and clips. Every time a coach does a search on YouTube for his name, his video clips will immediately pop up.

2. Build relationships with coaches on Facebook

Leverage Facebook as a powerful communication tool. First, identify the names of the head coaches and recruiting coaches for your specific region. You can do this by simply going to a college team's webpage and looking at their list of coaches.

On Facebook, do a search for these coaches and befriend them. Introduce yourself with a nice message explaining how excited you are about their program and how you're interested in playing for them. It's vital you provide your school name, jersey number, contact information, and even a couple links to your video highlights on the video sharing sites.

Develop a relationship with this coach via Facebook, and later on the phone and through email. If you do this consistently, and you are a good fit for their program, you will begin to create top-of-mind awareness. Assuming you are physically and academically a fit for a program, developing a strong relationship with your recruiting coach will significantly increase your chances of getting a scholarship.

Think of it this way.... there are potentially hundreds of players from around the country that are competing against your for scholarships and and a limited number of acceptance letters. Stand out from the pack by developing strong relationships with coaches.

WARNING: Make sure you if you follow this strategy, that you remove any pictures, videos, comments, or anything on your Facebook profile that can get you in trouble. You can adjust your privacy setting so that only certain people can view your videos, pictures, etc. Tell all of your friends that you are trying to get recruited and not to post any risky content on your profile.

3. Use Twitter to share your game stats, athletic stats, game scores, articles, etc.

Twitter is a "micro-messaging" service that allows you to update your daily status. Essentially people can "follow" your status updates and follow your life. This can be perfect for recruiting. Note that Twitter is relatively new and majority of coaches are not necessarily on twitter yet. I think this will be a very powerful strategy for getting exposure as Twitter becomes more popular and accepted by coaches around the country over the next couple of months and years.

Like with strategy #2, identify heads coaches and recruiting coaches. Do a search for them on Twitter and begin "following" them. You may even want to call them, introduce yourself, and tell them you are on Twitter and would like them to follow you.

During your season, update your twitter status at least once per day with information about YOU. You can tweet about your statistics from your last game, weight rooms stats, or even your fastest forty yard dash time. Talk about combines and camps you plan on attending. I also recommend posting links to articles that were written about you in the local papers, and from recruiting websites, like Rivals. Again, the goal is to develop relationships and create top-of-mind awareness for you as a good college athlete prospect.

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These strategies can increase your exposure and increase your chances of getting recruited. However, in order for them to help, you must stay disciplined and take consistent action. A one-time effort with any of these strategies won't help you at all.

Note that sending emails, making phone calls, and meeting coaches directly in person, are always the most powerful ways to develop and build relationships.