Mike Woods, the 2008 PGA Merchandiser of the Year for Public Facilities, the 2007 Northern California PGA Section Merchandiser of the Year for Public Facilities and the 2004 Section Professional Development Award winner, is the PGA of America Vice President and General Manager at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, California.
Mike Woods on the importance of reaching out to social media influencers to drive participation:
To boost participation on our range, we went from managing our own social channels the traditional way – posting updates, swing tips and the occasional product highlight – to inviting a handful of local and national content creators to come experience the facility and share whatever felt authentic to them. Reaching out to local influencers in your area, whether they’re shoppers, moms or golfers, can bring great results. Most likely, there’s someone in your community who has 100,000 followers and can help tell your story. To make contact, we usually DM them through Instagram or TikTok. Two of the ones we’ve connected with are @birdogey and @taraleann89, who both have really big golf followings for different reasons. Some of their posts get more than 80,000 views, and they’re connected with golfers far younger than our typical base. This is one of the reasons we started seeing more teens and twenty-somethings at the range every evening, often packed shoulder to shoulder waiting for stalls.
Mike Woods on the business impact of reaching out to social media influencers to drive participation:
While exact results for connecting with social media influencers are hard to measure, we do relate these relationships to success in bringing more golfers to the facility and the range. We measure social reach each month, things like followers, clicks, etc. These are social media scorecards, and the goal is to grow that each month. When we’re able to lean into a channel like this, we can do collaborative Instagram posts. It’s not just @taraleann89 but @taraleann89 and @hagginoaks. It’s being seen by a lot more eyeballs, and some of those people who see it come out to Haggin Oaks and follow us. This allows us to keep up with them in terms of sales and promotions, giving us an audience we wouldn’t have otherwise.
