Social Media

By Rickey Potts, IMAVEX

A lot of you out there are probably sick and tired of hearing about Faecbook and Twitter and how it is changing the way we communicate. Facebook actually started out as a way for college students to stay connected. In fact, when Facebook was first introduced over six years ago, you had to have an active college email address to even be able to create and run an account. That has since changed and Facebook now has over 400 million users with over 50% of them checking their Facebook and adding content on a daily basis.
Twitter was developed a few years after Facebook was introduced, and was similar in nature to how you can push information. But, Twitter limits you to 140-character status updates and does not have the control that Facebook does over your content. You have a lot less freedom with your content, and while you can still share pictures, videos, and links, you are forced to think outside the box in how to control this content in less than 140 characters.
But how can Facebook work for you? How can you, as a golf course or as an instructor, use tools like Facebook and Twitter to generate more leads and to get more rounds or more lessons? That is where I come in. I am going to, with the help of AMF Golf Management, be pushing you news and information about these social sites and how you can begin using them to increase your revenue.
So Who Is Ricky Potts?
I am a content specialist and social media consultant at IMAVEX. We are a full service Internet marketing firm offering everything from website design and development to search engine marketing and optimization. Here at IMAVEX our goal is to help you generate more leads, to increase your bottom line, and for you to see a value in the products and solutions that we provide. I have been with the company for almost two years, using social media in my own personal life for over six years, and bring to the table experience and an education based in using social media as a way to brand you and to generate sales.
Social media, as much as I hate that wording, is here to stay. I like to consider social media more as online brand reputation management. Folks are online more than ever and are talking about you, your services, your golf course, and his or her experience with you and your products. The brand is being discussed whether you like it or not. You cannot control your brand, necessarily, but you can recognize that people are talking about your brand and do what you can to help share information first.
What Will This Blog Teach Me?
I have been asked to start writing as a guest blogger for AMF Golf Management and all of its members and affiliates. This comes as a great honor to me to be able to share my expertise with you all in a well-organized manner. These blogs will be short, to the point, and will begin to break down these tools to show you exactly how you can generate an income using social media. I want to prove that the time you put into these efforts is worthwhile.
I will discuss tools such as Facebook and Twitter in detail and even go further into these services providing examples of what content you should be pushing, how to push it, and how to react to it once it has been shared with your user base. For instance, think of your email database. All of those people are getting your mass emails. Think of this as the same concept. Let’s say you have 500 followers on Twitter and you post a message (known as a tweet). Those 500 people who vested in following you now have the ability to see your content and then react to it on a daily basis. Note that this content is also indexed by Google and helps your SEO as a brand.
Please feel free, when reading these blogs, to contact me with any questions that you might have. I have a deep seeded passion for this stuff and it seems to be all I can think about. Social media is not going anywhere and the sooner that you can realize that and accept this shift in communication the better. I am here to help you in that process. Thank you for your time and I look forward to working with each and every one of you.