GMAQ - Golf Management Australia Queensland August 2012 | Page 16

3. Research your competitors’ activities You need to gather competitive information that can help your efforts. Conduct a competitive analysis of your top five competitors’ use of social media for the following: • The social media sites that they actively participate • The type of content they publish • The number and type of followers, fans and views • The products, programs or events promoted This might be other venues that offer a similar product to your club (eg. Dining, gaming etc) in your area. 4. Release offers and programs that are exclusive to your social media channels You must give importance to your social media with exclusive offers for these promotional channels. This will entice potential customers to share with their networks the offer that is not available from other marketing channels. As an example, provide offer an exclusive offer for your social media channel, such as discount golf voucher, special meal deals etc. 5. Social media participation requires authenticity and transparency The words “authenticity” and “transparency” are a bit over- 16 www.gma.org.au used today, however, these are cornerstones to be successful with social media. Be a real human being in your interactions. This is the foundation to build trust and connections with real people on social media groups and networks. 6. Look for value opportunities in selling through social media Take the opportunity to leverage social media in selling your products and/or services by offering relevant items that are of value to your followers. Make it easy for them to make the purchase from these social media channels. 7. Always test and refine based on results generated Social media programs as a marketing channel are not exempt from testing and refining your messages and offers. You must make the effort to test, gather results and analyse how it can be improved before launching the program to the entire channel. Apply these 7 Marketing Tips for using Social Media to give you the foundation for success building and growing your business using these communication channels.