If you’re like most PGA Professionals who manage a golf course, resort, teaching academy or just teach independently, you are always looking for new ways to grow your business. Whether you’re looking to sell more shirts in the golf shop, fill tee times or book more lessons, you need new ways to connect and market toward your customers.
The popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have opened up new marketing avenues and forever changed the way we look at marketing. A relatively new photo sharing service called Instagram has again opened up a new channel for today’s PGA Professionals to connect with customers.
Over the past six months, the Instagram app (which is available on smartphones running iOS and Android operating systems) has gained much popularity through the news of its $1 billion acquisition by Facebook. Instagram currently has more than 100 million users, with 58 photos being uploaded each second.
The beauty of the Instagram app is in its simplicity. After you sign up for an account, simply take a picture. Then use one of the built-in photo filters to make it more dramatic or picturesque, and upload for the world to see.
You have the option of adding a comment to the photo as well. Recent enhancements to the app let you post the photo to your Facebook or Twitter account directly from the app itself; making sharing with non-Instagram users extremely simple. The entire process of taking a picture and uploading it only takes a few seconds.
Leighann Albaugh, PGA head professional at Richmond (Va.) Country Club, currently uses Instagram as a way to be more transparent with her students. She posts beautiful and fun pictures of the golf team from Randolph-Macon College (where she’s the head women’s golf coach), of kids having fun at the club, members having a great time after tournaments, clothes for sale in the golf shop, training aids, lesson tip reminders and much more.
“I started using Instagram because I believe the old adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ I am still fairly new to Twitter and most of my tweets include pictures,” she says. “Instagram takes my social media posts to another level, as it allows users to doctor up their pictures and make them pop. In addition, it is easy to post on Twitter, Facebook and any other
social media platforms with one click.”
What golf facilities and PGA Professionals should love about using Instagram is that unlike Facebook or Twitter, you don’t need to think of something creative to say. “A picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer.
No longer do you need to struggle to find the correct words to post – simply take a photo and add a filter. The pictures come out looking amazing. The speed and simplicity of adding elements of interest to your photos is what makes Instagram so appealing.
Through the Instagram app, users can “follow” you – similar to how Twitter works. No “friend requests” are necessary – your pictures can be open to the world. Once you post a picture, your photo will appear on your follower’s feed. It’s as simple as that. Golf Web Design offers their clients easy ways to display their Instagram pictures directly on a club or personal website – which is a wonderful branding and customer engagement tool.
We recommend you take advantage of this app by setting up an account and start taking pictures right away. Build your following by following other users, telling all your customers, post some information on golf cars, etc. Exciting images will engage your followers and create unique relationships that will keep them coming back for more.
We firmly believe that businesses need to be visible on the digital platforms that their customers are using today. We encourage all of our clients to be proactive with their businesses by using tools that make connecting with customers easy.