How the PGA Tour Uses Social Media to Connect With Fans
The PGA Tour hired a dedicated social media employee in 2007 and has worked with its partner Turner Sports to make social media a core part of their editorial and marketing focus. Mashable has published an article detailing the league’s social media activities, and the business benefits it is seeing from that investment.
The league currently runs a number of active social media accounts. The central hubs are their Twitter account (~20,000 followers), their Facebook Fan Page (~37,000 fans), and their YouTube channel (~4 million views). Each of these social media outlets gives the PGA Tour a platform for posting news, scoring updates, calls to action, and multimedia, as well as a place for fans to sound off, ask questions, voice concerns, or generally connect with Tour officials and each other.
According to PGATour.com’s executive producer, the audience numbers are not as high as they would like to see, but they have found a lot of value in the connection with their fans nevertheless: “The social media platforms that we run, as well as those that we don’t, have become an important feedback mechanism for the PGA Tour. It gives us a chance to see almost immediately what our fans think about certain events or topics.”
In addition to the Tour’s official channels, over 40 players can be found on Twitter, from veterans like Stewart Cink and Ian Poulter(over 2 million combined followers), to rookies like Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel. Further, a number of Tour events have their own profiles on both Twitter and Facebook, allowing the events to connect with local and national fans all year round, not just on the weekend of the tournament. The PGA Tour tracks these Twitter users using a collection of Twitter Lists.
The PGA Tour hired a dedicated social media employee in 2007 and has worked with its partner Turner Sports to make social media a core part of their editorial and marketing focus. Mashable has published an article detailing the league’s social media activities, and the business benefits it is seeing from that investment.
