Using Social Media to Increase Tournament Attendence

All too many martial arts tournament promoters are so busy running their schools, lining up officials, and registering their own students that they overlook the simplest, cheapest ways to market their event to non-students. If you want to bring new people in, there are free tools at your disposal.

None of these will increase your tournament attendance overnight. But by steadily building an online presence, you'll expand your social reach. If you do nothing else, make a Facebook business page. Then send your students invitations to "like" your page and post your event there. They can also "share" your posts with their friends.

If you are ambitious enough to link your page to twitter, then please interact with the community. There is an active martial arts community there but they are interested in forming a relationship with you before they share your information. Beware the spammers who "follow" you immediately. They are interested only in getting you to follow back.

Once someone shares you tournament posts via Facebook or twitter, THANK THEM. Nothing will get your information spread more quickly than interacting with those who are helping you. On twitter you can "retweet" any posts that share your information.

Social media is your key to reaching the "second level" contacts of people you already know. Use it to your advantage!