With the Ryder Cup set to tee off next week, European Tour and Ryder Cup Europe Social Media & Community Manager Jamie Kennedy (@EuropeanTour) will be busy handling the social media for the European team. This will be his second Ryder Cup, the first being in ’14 at Gleneagles, which he said was the “hardest week I’ve ever done.” But Kennedy added that the '14 event “felt like the first social media Ryder Cup.” Kennedy: “I keep telling people that when I got into social media I didn’t realize it was going to be the end of my social life.”
Social media differences between a European Tour event and the Ryder Cup:
It’s quite similar. You have practice days, press conferences, tournament days. Everything is just magnified probably a 100 times. Our press team is not necessarily distressed, but you just know the world’s watching, so for us, we have to tell the story of what’s going on that week. That’s probably more of a live look-in week than some of the other weeks are. There’s just such a great history behind the event and so many stories to tell that it’s difficult to get your head around all that.
How golf fans and non-golf fans consume social media:
The average golf fan is probably a bit older than the average sports fan or the average social media user. We have to appreciate that our average fan might be in his 40s, but our average social fan is in their 30s or 20s. One of our key objectives is to make sure we’re reaching a younger audience with what we’re doing on social.
On U.S. fans consumption of social media compared to European fans:
Everything in U.S. sports media is designed to be very much fan focused, from going to an event to sitting and watching at home to all the TV adverts. There are not many sports in the U.K. that have TV timeouts and things like that. The U.K. is more of a traditional market -- Europe certainly a bit more traditional as well. But it’s interesting with the analytics that you can get through social media now. It’s just amazing to see where things come from. You don’t think there are massive Ryder Cup Europe fans in New York or in Bangkok, but it’s just such a global world. It means that one of the challenges for us is to make sure that we’re constantly producing content and posting it when those guys are active as well.
Producing content specifically for social media platforms:
I don’t think we’re actually that far away. The Ryder Cup is a different beast than typical Tour events. Obviously, it’s only one event every two years and TV deals and rights packages are loaded up way ahead of time. But we’re already looking to certain events and how we can carve out holes for events before the tournament and how we can host them on social media. It’s just such a great platform for not only pushing the idea of the event and getting eyeballs on the event, but creating the conversation around it.
Style to posting on platforms:
You have to be aware of the fact that the European Tour is basically a governing body. We’re running events. We’re not an individual or personality. So for the Ryder Cup, we’re representing a lot of partners and brands and history. But if you’re not taking some risks and pushing boundaries and having fun trying to entertain people, there’s not really much point in social media. Every now and then I get sort of told off, but if I’m not getting told off every two or three months, I don’t think I’m really doing my job.
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