How to Choose the Right Social Media Channel for Your Tennis Club

So far we have talked about the importance of social media marketing for your tennis club and some common mistakes businesses make. Now we are going to discuss how to choose where to focus your time and effort as part of your tennis marketing strategy.

Social media can be thought as a supplement to your website:

• It helps you drive traffic (more visits) to your site, and
• provides an outlet to promote your products, services, and content.

There are, however, over 200 social media channels. Some popular ones include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube or Twitter. If you are like most tennis clubs and organizations, it is likely that you will not be able to maintain quality presence on all of them. So, which ones should you focus on?

In general, it is best to select those that offer the best potential for reaching your ideal customer. You will also need to consider, which channel is able to broadcast the type of information and media that is best suited for your business (YouTube - for videos, Twitter - for quick news updates, etc).

Facebook

With over 1 billion daily active users, Facebook is still the most popular social media channel (Source: Facebook as of 2/01/17). If you are a B2C (business-to-consumer) business, which normally tennis clubs are, you cannot afford not having a Facebook business page. B2C content tends to have an entertaining and relaxing tone - something, which tennis clubs and tennis professionals normally do really well. The goal is to focus more on entertaining the followers/fans with your content rather than informing them. Posting videos, pictures and articles on regular basis can be a great way to get your name in front of a larger audience - when your followers click on them or "like" or "share" them, you get free advertising (because their friends see those actions). You can also use Facebook for paid advertising - the Facebook Ads service can be used to target a specific demographic (area code, gender, age group) and give you more exposure.

B2B (business-to-business) companies, such as tennis court builders or equipment providers, can benefit from this channel as well by establishing a leadership - featuring your company culture, posting relevant informative professional content and visuals (pictures, schematics, videos), and advertise. Of course B2C can be professional and serious while B2B can be fun and entertaining as well, but the most important part is to remember to write for your audience (not just about yourself) and about what they are interested in.

YouTube

YouTube has over 1 billion users who watch hours and hours of videos every day. You should pick YouTube as your social marketing channel if your goal is to post a lot of videos - for example, teaching tennis lessons, tennis tutorials, guides on "How to Improve Your Serve", promotional videos, and event interviews or interviews with tennis celebrities. YouTube is a video social network - you can post visual content, but you can also generate subscribers and they can friend, like, share, comment, and "favorite" your videos. All these activities can bring more people with similar interests to your channel. YouTube is actually ranked second in terms of search engine popularity, so you should probably take advantage of that and post at least couple of well-made videos about your tennis facility!

Twitter

If you have breaking news, schedule-related announcements, class cancellation update to share, Twitter is the best social media channel to reach out to your followers as well as the general public. Common Twitter mistake is trying to tweet the same exact post from your Facebook or another social media channel. Your tweets should never be exactly the same thing as what you post on other social media channels! For effective tweeting, pick one or two topics as the primary focus of what you write about - for example, 1). posting club-related news, announcements, class updates, and 2). posting videos. Otherwise, why would a person want to follow you on, let's say, both on Facebook and Twitter if you will be posting the same exact thing?

Instagram

Instagram is very popular among young, educated users. In 2012, Instagram was purchased by Facebook, so those two platforms can be associated. It is a visual social media platform - users rely on photo and video posts. More artistic niches tend to excel on Instagram as the app allows you to edit the pictures and videos you take and add various photo effects. The tennis industry, however, is also represented pretty well on this social media platform (see US Open Instagram). Instagram is a powerful social media platform. If you can take creative photos or videos and find the right hashtags to go along with them, you will most likely have success with this platform and get more exposure for your business. Instagram also allows paid advertising if that is something you decide to pursue at some point.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the business-oriented professional network. Originally it was a networking website for processionals but the platform has evolved and now it can be used for connecting with recruiters and HR, participating in groups and discussions, posting articles, to name just few of its capabilities. There are few ways you can promote your business on LinkedIn - two common ones are via your Personal Page and via your Company Page. Just like on Facebook and Twitter, you can post status updates, pictures, videos. Keep in mind, however, that the content shared on LinkedIn should be strictly of a professional matter. You can join LinkedIn Groups and become an active participant, which can help you build yours and your company’s online reputation by sharing relevant and informative opinions to your industry. That can also attract views to your Company Page and bring more traffic to your website.

Important to consider: How many channels can you manage?

You do not have to pick one social media channel. You can, technically, use all of them. Keep in mind, however, that in order to have success with social media, you must be consistent and post regularly, otherwise, your channel will look abandoned and you will end up weakening the impact of your efforts. In addition, most of the different channels require unique content (the content that works for twitter, may not work for Facebook). If you don’t have the time or resources to handle multiple channels and designed the appropriate content for each, then it is important to focus only on the ones that are most relevant to your business strategy.

The social media can be overwhelming at first, so we suggest you start with 2-3 channels, and if you feel you are managing them well, expand from there.