Previously, golf’s best-known connection with Tweeting was the (probably apocryphal) story of Tiger Woods’ ’I just wopped Tweety Pie’ SMS to friends, having just beaten an infamously canary-clad Sergio Garcia in the final round at The Open in 2006. But now Ian Poulter is opening up a new front for golf in the Twitterena.

After only a matter of months, Poulter’s microblogs have attracted almost 250,000 followers - a phenomenal number for the platform – and won him widespread media coverage and praise. Which is just how the savvy, outspoken Poulter likes it. “It’s a very clever marketing publicity tool and one that I have complete control over”, he was quoted as saying recently.

Poulter’s success is no accident. It’s down to two factors

First, his dedicated, thoughtful use of the platform. As he puts it: ‘…this is a great way of getting the information out there quickly and giving golf fans some insight they’ve never had before.’ And he’s as good as his word. Take this morning for instance, when Poulter uploaded pictures from each tee at Turnberry as he practised for The Open. Brilliant.

Second, his use of media interviews to market his microblog and create his very own content factory. Enter ‘Ian Poulter Twitter’ into Google, for example, and you currently get 120,000 returns, and plenty of interviews like this, from today’s Times.

Plenty of food for thought for marketers on a variety of fronts. But Peter Alliss won’t approve at all.

By Tim Crow on July 14th, 2009

Tags: Blogging, Branded content, Default, Digital marketing, Golf, Tiger Woods

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