By The Pollack Group
Golf is an inherently social sport, so it made perfect sense for the agency to utilize social media to drive awareness, ticket sales, and fan engagement around a uniquely exciting golf tournament. The agency’s organic social media team was on the ground in Dallas at the 2023 Invited Celebrity Classic, crafting unforgettable social media and digital content for both the tournament and its founder, Mike Flaskey.
The Invited Celebrity Classic features 40 celebrities and a full field of PGA TOUR Champions competitors competing together at Las Colinas Country Club in Irving, Texas. Celebrity competitors included Actor & Comedian Alfonso Ribeiro, Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Tony Romo, “The Bachelor” alumni Ben Higgins and Wells Adams, and Pro Football Hall of Fame Running Back Emmitt Smith.
The agency used video and image-based storytelling to give followers a behind-the-scenes look into the fan experience at the event, showcasing celebrity interactions with a local Dallas spin, top-notch hospitality offerings, eye-catching sponsor activations, and providing tournament updates. The Invited Celebrity Classic’s social media presence garnered over 45,000,000 potential impressions for the two-week period leading up to, during, and after the tournament. Mike Flaskey and MFE’s channels earned over 5,000,000 social media impressions over the same period, leading to 51,000,000+ combined impressions from tournament and MFE’s channels.
For the tournament’s social channels, the agency’s strategy struck a balance of engaging with and creating content tailored around the event’s high-profile celebrity competitors while also highlighting the professional golf, hospitality, fan experience, and other key content areas around the event. Whether it was Instagram collaborations like one with USC Athletics to showcase Trojan legends Reggie Bush and Marcus Allen, or Twitter posts encouraging friendly trash-talking among competitors, the agency’s social media strategy successfully rallied both the golf and celebrity communities to drive heightened awareness all week around the event as well as its name sponsor, Invited Clubs. The agency also coordinated to provide celebrities and their content teams with high-quality photos of themselves throughout the week, providing them with ready-to-use content to highlight their participation on their own social media channels.
For Tournament Founder Mike Flaskey, the former CEO of Diamond Resorts and Founder of Mike Flaskey Entertainment (MFE), the agency’s social media strategy positioned Flaskey as an influencer and thought leader in the golf and experiential vacationing space. The agency helped Flaskey use his social media platforms to showcase how MFE can put on incredible events like the Invited Celebrity Classic that create brand awareness, sponsor engagement, and help establish companies like Invited even further in the fast-growing golf industry. The social media content helped drive leads throughout the week from companies and leaders looking to MFE to run similar tournaments and events for them.
Live event social media moves the needle, pairing highly engaged audiences with visually captivating content. The agency teamed with its clients to create and engage a Dallas-centric social media community around the competition, and we hope to see you at the 2024 Invited Celebrity Classic.
