History of USTA League - a 35 Year Success Story

How Tennis Works: Two-Handed Backhand
with Carl Bryan

Tennis and Social Media

How to use Social Media in your tennis business

By Rich Neher

Part 1 - How to use Social Media effectively at your club Social media provides you with a great opportunity to reach and engage with more potential members and clients than ever before. A successful social media presence can benefit your club or your program in a number of ways. But if you waste too much time or money on ineffective tactics, then it doesn't matter how efficient you're being. Part 1 is all about the effective use of social media in your club. Part 2 will be published next month with time saving social media tips for tennis professionals. Social media can take over your life if you let it. If you don't come up with a plan for managing social media, then it will manage you. 1. Ask yourself "What are your club's objectives?" Your social media communications should reflect your club's objectives. If your tennis club is focused on attracting new members then having a closed Facebook group is pointless, a Facebook fan page will work much better for you. If your charity tournament's objectives include securing more volunteers, then your social media should reflect this with "volunteer of the month" and other recognition strategies. If you want to engage the younger members of your club, then using Twitter to post results as they happen will make them feel involved, especially if they see their name up in lights. I briefly touched on this a few months ago when we discussed the Millenials. (See TENNIS CLUB BUSINESS September 2014) 2. Understand the value propositions of both Facebook and Twitter To use social media tools effectively, you should try and understand their strengths and weaknesses. Facebook is an informational tool that is easy to use and perfect for keeping your members updated on the goings on at the club including events and fundraisers. It is also great at allowing the club to attract potential new members by encouraging the general public to visit and like your club's Facebook page. What it is not good at is real time updating of information. A club that updates their Facebook page 20 times in a day is in danger of losing their followers. However in the Twittersphere, you cannot update enough. In fact, Twitter followers expect a constant stream of information. And that makes Twitter a perfect tool for results posting and event day updates where there are lots of activities happening that can be promoted through your club's Twitter feed. I always encourages clubs to have both a Facebook and Twitter presence and to have a mix of informational communication (volunteer of the month, upcoming events, and so on) and real-time updates (like results, calendar changes, etc). 3. Select success metrics How are you going to determine whether your social media efforts are actually making a difference in your tennis business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness for that business? How will you transcend (hopefully) likes and engagement? Will you measure ROI? What key performance indicators do you use to measure that ROI?

4. What’s Your One Thing? It really doesn’t matter who you are, what your credentials are, what reputation your club has, or how many pros work at that club, your service features and benefits aren’t enough to create a passion-worthy stir. How will your offering appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head? Remember, Disney isn’t about movies, it’s about magic. Apple isn’t about technology, it’s about innovation. What are you about? Do you turn beginners into tennis players for life? Do you have what it takes to create a sense of fun and competition in your players? Are you able to teach your leaguers how to win matches and go to Sectionals and Nationals? What are you about? 5. Engage your followers Variety is the spice of life, and that also applies to social media. A Facebook page that has the same information posted day in, day out, will not capture the imagination of your club members or potential new members. Facebook allows you to post images and video. It allows you to post links to other interesting sites and articles. The list below represents the different types of communications you could include in your Facebook posts: A statement - e.g. "Happy Birthday, John" A picture of a club event, a member, a pro A video of a clinic Links to the Grand Slams A question - e.g. "What do you think of Novak Djokovic's chances of winning Paris?" A poll of your members about opening hours and court time An invite to an event A joke, an anecdote Mix it up a little and monitor the "likes" to see what form of communication is engaging your club members the most. Twitter is similar in that you can vary the way you communicate with your followers with: tweets, retweets, direct messages, photos, videos and so on and again making use of all these options will give you the best chance of engaging your community, members and non-members alike. In summary There are still clubs out there that choose to ignore social media, treating it as the tool for the "young ones" but what should be happening is that a club owns their social media and develop a strategy to make sure it is used as a tool to achieve club objectives. Most clubs have members that are proficient in the use of Facebook and Twitter, the mistake some clubs are making is letting them loose with no direction and no goals. Change that and your club will reap the benefit of these awesome tools. Next month: Time saving social media tips for tennis professionals.