Twitter: Audience Growth Tips

By Preston McClellan, IAGA Consultant

Twitter has been in the news a lot recently for many reasons, and it should still be a pillar of your content and marketing strategies. There is an extremely strong and active community of millennials on Twitter that are passionate about golf – many of which compete in amateur events at some of the IAGA member associations. 

The challenge on Twitter comes when you try to reach new people and expand your audience. Oftentimes, people think you have to rely on going viral, while the more effective strategy of small engagement wins is much more effective. What does that mean?

Two social media strategies that are effective on Twitter: 

1. Competitor audience engagement: Make a list of at least 5 accounts on Twitter that have followers that you think would be interested in your content. For example, if there is a PGA TOUR event in your state, the tournament’s Twitter account would be a great example. 
   1. Each day, interact with 5-10 followers of those target accounts. You can follow them, like tweets, reply, hop into conversations, etc. 
   2. Keep a list of the accounts you follow and interact with to see which ones respond and reciprocate the engagement. Continue to engage with those accounts while discontinuing following or engaging with those who don’t reciprocate. 
   3. 5-10 new accounts engaged per day can net ~100 new followers a month. 
2. Search for phrases: Twitter allows you to search for phrases, so you can set up ongoing monitoring searches for your associations name or common terms relevant to your state and golf. This will enable you to have the opportunity to jump into relevant golf conversations even when you aren’t directly mentioned.