Last month, we covered the top six mistakes golf courses are making on Facebook. Those mistakes were:

• Being overly promotional
• Just posting flyers
• Posting infrequently
• Not engaging golfers with comments
• Posting the same thing over and over
• Not analyzing your efforts

For the full article please visit – The Six Biggest Mistakes Golf Courses Are Making on Facebook.

Now that we’ve covered the mistakes let’s talk about how to do Facebook right.

Ask Questions

The purpose of social media is to develop relationships with your customers outside of the golf course. It requires engagement. One easy way to do this is to create posts that ask a question. Engaging questions prompt your audience to answer which gives you an opportunity to extend the relationship even further.

Here are some questions we’ve posted for golf courses in the past which tend to get a lot of engagement:

• Do you repair your ball marks?
• What ONE thing would you add to the golf carts at our golf course?
• You’re teeing off on our 167-yard Hole #12 with a pin in the middle of the green. What club is in your hands?

Just asking questions is not enough, you need visuals to go along with them.

Use Visual Content

Visual content draws the viewers into the post and, as a result, gets higher engagement. Golfers are twice as likely to comment on a post that has a picture or video than a post without. Facebook algorithms also show visual content to more of your followers.

Visual content can be in the form of photos or videos.

Using the above examples we could use:

• a picture of a ball mark on one of our greens before we ask the question
• a picture of one of our golf carts next to the clubhouse
• an aerial video of the 167-yard 12th hole at this golf course

Once your golfers start engaging with your content it’s a sign that you’re beginning to do things right. Take it to the next level by engaging with your audience.

Engage Your Audience

Once your golfers start to comment on your Facebook posts you need to respond. Provide responses which try to extend the conversation. Don’t post a throw away comment that is easy to ignore.

The Facebook algorithms show your posts to followers more often when they have more engagement. If you focus on building engagement, your Facebook posts will show up to more people more often.

If you want to see great engagement in action check out our friend, John Hakim’s Facebook Page at Greenskeeper.org.

The more engaged your audience is on Facebook, the better job you’re doing with your social presence. To ensure your audience is engaged in your social efforts you need to be authentic.

Be Authentic

It’s easy to tell which golf courses outsource their social media marketing to a firm who doesn’t specialize in golf. For the most part, they try to use stock photos, funny videos and memes to drive engagement at your golf course. But, they rarely do.

Golfers follow your Facebook page to find out what’s going on at your golf course.

To be authentic:

• use actual photos of your golf course
• pose questions that only your golfers would know
• update them on course conditions, course improvements and special promotions
• highlight your staff members and golfers

Know of any other ways you can be authentic at your golf course? Add them in the comment section.

Be Consistent

I see it all the time. A golf course will pick up their social media presence only to let it slip in and out of dormancy. Consistency is important to continue to drive engagement and to make more of your golfers aware of the activities taking place at your golf course.

Inconsistent posting results in less engagement and, therefore, less exposure for your club.

Our average Facebook posts reaches approximately 1,000 people. Daily posting insures that our golf-related Facebook posts are being seen more than 30,000 times per month. Being inconsistent substantially drops the amount of daily exposure your golf course could be receiving.

Analyze Your Efforts

A successful campaign on social media depends on how well you analyze your efforts and can adjust accordingly. Facebook Insights is a part of every Facebook page and it is a great tool to help you monitor your efforts.

Facebook Insights can give you valuable information about:

• Reach
• Engagement
• Likes
• Promotions
• Page Views
• Post Performance
• Demographics
• Local Information

The metric we tend to look at the most when analyzing our efforts is how our posts performed. Each post shows how many Facebook users our post reached, which actions took place and how many people clicked through to the website. This information is critical in terms of catering your content to your customers. The more you analyze your efforts the more you’ll find what resonates with your audience.

Conclusion

In our last post you learned what not to do with Facebook marketing for your golf course. In this post you learned what to do with Facebook marketing for your golf course.

To establish a strong Facebook presence for your golf course you need to ask questions, use visual content, engage your audience, be authentic, be consistent and analyze your efforts.

These tips are designed to help you build a strong online presence for your business, but there is so much more that Facebook offers to help you get more golfers to play your golf course and play more often.

Thanks for taking some time to see how to do Facebook right for your golf course. We will be sharing more tips like this soon, Including a big one: The Difference-Maker in Facebook Marketing Today. Join our email list to ensure you learn even more about how to be successful on Facebook for your golf course:

• About
• Latest Posts

Zeb Welborn

Zeb Welborn is the founder of 19th Hole Media, author of the Social Golf Course, president of Welborn Media and the host of the Twitter Chat, #GolfChat. Find out more.

Latest posts by Zeb Welborn (see all)

• GolfBoard and Social Media: How To Surf Your Way to Sales And Marketing Success - February 27, 2018
• Eight Ways To Improve Your Golf Course’s Chances Of Luring More Weddings Via Social Media - February 17, 2018
• 19th Hole Media Top 10 of 2017 – The Best in Golf for 2017 - January 15, 2018