What I Learned About Social Media Marketing From Playing Golf

What I Learned About Social Media Marketing From Playing Golf

Can you learn anything about social media marketing from playing golf? A major factor in the success or failure of a social media marketing campaign is the strategy implemented. Without a proper strategy, your posts on social media platforms may not be having the impact you want. For those golfers out there, you can take various aspects of the game and apply them to your social media marketing efforts.





Set Goals that Make Sense

Watching the pros on TV hitting a tee shot 300-plus yards and reaching the par-5’s in two shots, doesn’t mean you can too. When coming up with a social media plan, have an end-game in mind that makes sense for your business. If that means that you need to spend a little more to expand your social media presence to amp up and reach more followers, make sure the investment makes sense for your budget. Set realistic goals, making sure you’re not trying to reach too much, too fast.

Do Enough Research on your Target

Professional golfers never enter a tournament without at the very least a practice round, and most often several, taking careful notes of all the hazards and difficulties that they may encounter during their rounds.

Likewise, when making your social media marketing plan, making assumptions can prove to be dangerous. Conducting extensive research before jumping into a plan is essential, and with the sheer amount of demographic data and analytic tools that are at your disposal, there is no excuse for not being prepared. A great deal of information about your audience to influence your marketing strategy is already out there. 

Social media demographics are key and speak directly with respect to which of the networks your brand’s approach should be, as well as the types of content you should be publishing. An example would be as YouTube and Facebook both are prime locations for ads, with their high-earning user bases, platforms such as Instagram have more millennials or GenZ users, who generally are impacted by more bold, eye-popping content. LinkedIn has a user base of well-educated, professional users making it perfect for in-depth, industry-specific types of content that would likely not appeal to audiences on Twitter or Facebook.

The demographic data for those platforms are all fine and good, but how this applies to your customers is the big question. You will need to conduct further analysis of the data to determine how your customers’ demographics fit your social media strategy. 





Evaluate What’s Working, What’s Not and Adapt

During a round of golf, those clubs that were doing the job last week just may not be working this time around. Making sure you don’t keep trying to use what isn’t working can lead to a pretty high score, so golfers are always adapting to how their game is each day. With your social media marketing plan, it’s likewise very important to be able to adapt your strategy as you progress through your plan, understanding what is working and what isn’t.

By continually analyzing your efforts, you’ll be able to see how each campaign is working, looking for your top-performing content and fine-tuning those campaigns that need help accordingly. 

Much of social media marketing is trial-and-error, but monitoring your metrics in real-time can allow you to make those tweaks necessary to keep your marketing strategy on track.

Jordan Fuller is a retired golfer and a business owner. He also owns a blog,  https://www.golfinfluence.com, where he shares a lot of golf tips from how to play golf to perfecting your golf swing. On some days, when he is not playing or writing, Jordan goes on business meetings with his colleagues, and you can even find him wearing his favorite golf shoes at work.” 

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