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Table of Contents

Social Media Platform Comparisons:

What is Disc Golf?

- Facebook

15

Disc Golf as a Business

- Twitter

17

Company Overview - Discraft

- Instagram

19

Company Overview - Innova

- YouTube

21

Disc Golf Audience Demographics

- Google+

23

Strategies Why Social Media is Important for

Disc Golf

- Blogs

25

Company Goals

Overall Online Presence Evaluations

27

Company Websites

10

Conclusions and Recommendations

29

Social Mention Analyses

12

Sources

30
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What is Disc Golf?

The game of disc golf is simply the game of golf, but the golf ball and
club are a combined into a Frisbee-like disc and the golf holes are
baskets with chains. The objective is the same, to finish the course
with the lowest number of strokes (or in this case, throws) possible.
Since the game was invented in the 1960s, it has spread to 40
countries with over 5,500 global courses.
Instead of having different types of clubs and
balls like normal golf to achieve different
lengths and trajectories, discs in disc golf have
different weight, material, thickness, and grips
that change the way a disc flies when thrown.
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Disc Golf as a Business

Because different throws requires different discs, disc golf companies
try to diversify their inventory with multiple variations of the three
major types of disc: putters, midranges, and drivers. Along with discs,
disc golf companies sell disc bags, targets, apparel and more.

There are many different disc golf companies, but the first two that
will come to any disc golf players mind are Discraft and Innova.
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Company Overview - Discraft

Discraft was founded in 1979 by Jim Kenner in Wixom,
Michigan. They currently have 48 different types of
discs, with their most popular amongst professionals
being the Buzzz. Along with disc golf discs, they also
are the producers of the famous ultimate* disc, the
Ultrastar, which is the official USA Ultimate disc.
Today they are the sponsors of Team Discraft, a disc
golf team that competes in world championships,
winning in 2005, 2007, and 2011.
According to their LinkedIn, they employ less than 50
people.

Jim Kenner founder of Discraft

*the sport of Ultimate Frisbee is known only as Ultimate at a professional level, due to the fact that the Frisbee is a trademarked
product of the company Wham-O, and is never used at a competitive level of play.
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Company Overview - Innova

Dave Dunipace founder of Innova

Innova was founded in 1983 when Dave Dunipace

created the mold for the Eagle. As the
producers of 88 different molds of discs, most
high-level players have at least one Innova disc in
their bag. Along with disc golf discs, Innova does
produce some ultimate* discs as well, one of
which being the Pulsar which is the official
Major League Ultimate disc. They are the
sponsors of and are endorsed by many world
champions including twelve-time world
champion Ken Climo.
According to their LinkedIn, they employ less
than 50 people.

*ultimate discs are larger than disc golf discs and are seldom used in disc golf, requiring their own line of production and branding.

Disc Golf Audience Demographics

Disc golf is a sport that many learn in their adolescent years, but carry with them
for a lifetime. The Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) provides lots of upto-date information on the demographics of disc golf players. The 2015 data they
provide shows that the age and income distribution is wider than most sports,
due to the cheap barrier of entry* and simplicity of play. As can be expected, the
states with the largest populations tend to have to most disc golf players and
courses, and the United States leads the
world in courses with Finland and then
Canada coming in second and third. One
major distinction in the audience is on
the difference of gender; for PDGA
members, only 7.4% are females.
*disc golf discs typically cost around $10-15, and it is possible to play an entire course with only one disc; green fees
to play a round are usually $0-$10

Strategies Why Social Media is Important for Disc Golf

The PDGA estimates that 8-12 million people
in the world have played disc golf, which
makes up 0.001% of the population. Most
people dont know the difference between an
ultimate disc and a disc golf disc, let alone
what all those metal baskets are doing in their
ball park. The two leading disc golf companies in the world hardly have anything
contributed to their Wikipedia or LinkedIn pages, even though the two always have
their names plastered as sponsors at every disc-related event in the United States.
Although the sport has been around for 50 years, it experienced its highest volume
of growth in the last decade, with PDGA members increasing from 9,629 to 30,454,
and worldwide courses increasing in number from 1,973 to 5,500. Discraft and
Innova use social media as a way to raise primary and secondary demand; for their
brand and for their sport.
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Company Goals
Both Discraft and Innova have a macro goal of driving online sales.
Neither of these companies have brick-and-mortar stores, but sell
their products through online retailers of their choice.
Micro goals for disc golf companies like these two include getting
follows and shares on social media and views on their videos and
content, which raise their brand awareness and consumer
involvement, and having traffic directed to their websites where
they can direct consumers to eventually making an order online.

www.

$$$
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Company Websites
discraft.com
Discrafts site has a slightly dated
look, but provides all information
needed for someone visiting their
site. Across the top bar they
provide links to their product
catalogs, videos, group
information and more. On the
Order page, there is no option
to order directly from the site as
they delegate the online retail
responsibility to dealers they
trust. Discraft sells their product
in physical stores but own none of
their own, which means this site
is the closest thing that Discraft
can provide as a visual
marketplace for customers.

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Company Websites
innovadiscs.com
Innovas site welcomes visitors
with a accumulation of articles
written about or by the company.
The website is similar to Discrafts
in three ways: the top bar
provides links to all needed
portals for making a transaction
or learning more about the
products, this is the locus of
business for Innova as they own
no physical stores, and they leave
the actual retail process to other
sites which they recommend on
their main site. Innova does
however provide Course, which
includes a comprehensive guide
for those interested in course
planning.

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SocialMention Analyses

SocialMention shows the perception of a brand through analyzing its mentioning and reputation online; the key
measurements are Strength (likelihood that your brand is being discussed), Sentiment (ratio of positive to negative
mentions), Passion (likelihood that someone repeatedly talks about a brand) and Reach (the range of influence).

Discraft
24%

Innova
Strength

19%

16.44 : 1 Sentiment 7.00 : 1

30%

Passion

40%

30%

Reach

16%

These figures represent an average of data collected over the last two months on a weekly
basis, to ensure that a single days numbers wouldnt unduly affect the data.

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SocialMention Analyses
Conclusion: According to SocialMention, as a whole people online are more likely to be
talking about Discraft, their language is more often positive and more people are likely to
be aware of the discussion. The only area in which Innova leads is Passion. Innova has a
disadvantage in this analysis however because the keyword Innova isnt specific to just
the disc golf company (eg. Toyota Innova). Using the search term Innova disc Toyota to
only see conversation about the
discs and the brand, because
Innova itself is a common
company and product name, was
much more limiting than being
able to search just Discraft, and
likely altered the results.

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Facebook

Facebook is a good place to start when analyzing social media presences due to the flexibility Facebook offers for what types
of posts one can make on their site. External links, photos, and videos are easily shareable on the site, and further
information about a company is easy to find. Facebook allows for simple interactions between a customer and a brand.

Discraft
18,945
1.23
28 likes
6 shares
2 comments
323 photos, 28 videos, 69 links
Links back to own site on occasion

Innova
Page Likes
Frequency
(avg. posts per day)
Reception
(avg. per post)
Usage

74,558
2.18
57 likes
9 shares
4 comments
489 pictures, 107 videos, 81 links
Links back to own site frequently

Frequency, Reception and Purpose data was compiled by sociograph.io, measuring the pages last year of activity .

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Facebook
Both Discraft and Innova use Facebook posts to reach their audience, but Innova
ultimately does a better job of using those posts to achieve company goals. While
both pages share unique video and photos to gain attention, Innova capitalizes on
this by always including a link back to their website, whereas for Discraft only
product reviews written by themselves link back to their site while photos and
video do not. Based on the way the two operate their Facebook pages, Innova
seems to have more of a strategy for driving consumers to their website,
whereas Discrafts page appears to be more focused on entertainment and
brand awareness at the most, with the occasional reminder to visit their site.

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Twitter

Companies like Discraft and Innova primarily use Twitter to communicate, share images and video and connect their
followers to larger content hosted on other social platforms. It just so happens that both accounts were made in April 2009.

Discraft
15,700

1.19

560 Photos and videos

Promotions,
interactions, branding

Innova
Followers

Frequency
(avg. tweets per day)

Usage

22,500

1.43

372 Photos and videos

Summarized versions
of articles, links to site

Frequency was calculated as an average number of tweets over the last calendar year.

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Twitter
Innova dominates Discraft in the number of tweets with links that direct to their
website, but Discraft has a slightly more diversified approach than Innova in
terms of what they publish on their Twitter. The two companies both post with a
steady frequency of tweets, but Discraft varies itself by tweeting promotions,
disc golf events, their disc golf team, and even comics. Apart from having their
own comic strip, Innova does this to a degree as well, but with less of a human
approach, making their Twitter seem more like a livestream of links directed
towards themselves. Furthermore, Discraft has Innova beaten in that it uses
Twitter to connect with their fans, whether by responding to customers inquiries
or through retweeting relevant videos or other posts.

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Instagram

Instagram is one of the more creative social media platforms, which provides brands an opportunity to appeal to the
emotions of their consumer base.

Discraft

[Discraft
doesnt have
an Instagram
account]

Innova

N/A

Followers

N/A

Frequency
(avg. posts per day)

N/A

Reception
(avg. per post)

N/A

Usage

25,000
1.12
527 likes
9 comments
422 posts
Photos and videos related to articles
written on their site about their disc golf
team or discs

Frequency was calculated as an average number of posts over the last calendar year; Reception was calculated by instagram-stats.com.

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Instagram
Beyond the simple fact that Discraft doesnt have an official page which
guaranteed Innova the victory, Innova does use this social media platform
intelligently. In a manner of speaking, they play by the house rules on
Instagram, meaning that they fit in with the Instagram community and dont just
act like a company. Their posts and captions are very similar in nature to those of
any Instagram user, just that they always happen to include some Innova product
or sponsor in them. The images and videos they post are optimized for
Instagrams square format and they hashtag appropriately. Innova seems to be
aware of how its audience wants to interact with their content on Instagram and
doesnt push links to their main site on every post they make, but primarily uses
this medium for branding.

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YouTube

YouTube is one of the more diversely used social media platforms, in that it gives companies a lot of opportunities to connect
to their audience in various ways. Companies can use YouTube to inform, entertain or persuade their viewers.

Discraft
17,881
35
1,700 views
5 subscribers
Tutorial videos, tournament recaps, product
announcements

Innova
Subscribers
Videos
Reception
(avg. per day)
Usage

8,886
18
252 views
6 subscribers
Tutorial videos, product announcements, team
videos

Reception was calculated using socialblade.com/youtube.

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YouTube
Despite beating out Innova in total subscribers and average views per day, its
hard to say that Discraft has a better YouTube channel than Innova based entirely
on the fact that they havent made a post in two years. In the time that they were
active, all of their videos were getting tens of thousands of views, causing viewers
to learn about and desire their products. The videos they made five years ago
about how to properly throw a disc still bring in lots of views today, due to the
fact that the number of players learning to play disc golf is increasing and are
seeking videos like these for information. Innovas most popular videos are also
tutorials, but their series of educational videos was less extensive than Discrafts
was and on a site like YouTube the rich get richer in terms of view counts. Both
brands do a subpar job, but at least Innova has posted in the last year.

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Google+

Google+, while largely ignored by millennials, does have its purpose in the social media world. The platform congregates
users interested in a certain topic, and gives those users the opportunity to specify what communities within that topic they
are interested in. This is a great way for people to follow things that they care about and filter out what they dont.

Discraft
2,319

Innova
Followers

342,255

Interests
(Communities)

1.10 comments
9.64 likes (+1s)
0.73 reshares

Reception
(avg. per post)

19.31 comments
18.36 likes (+1s)
1.92 reshares

456 photos, 18 videos, 37 links

Usage

624 photos, 110 videos, 40 links

Reception data calculated by allmyplus.com.

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Google+
When looking at the way that Innova uses Google+ versus Discraft, it is clear to
see why they are dominating their competitor on all levels. A fundamental
difference between Facebook and Google+ is that Google+ is designed to create
communities under the banner of one larger topic, which is something that
Discraft has not yet figured out. Innova offers on their page nine different
communities (called Interests) for their connections to follow, which helps
users engage with what they care about more. This phenomena increases users
desires to actually use Google+ and interact with Innovas posts, as they are
specific to their interests. Discraft, however, has no real strategy for using
Google+ and appears to be using it as a forum for hosting all of their content
without purpose.

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Blogs

When a company starts to use a blogging website, they are taking a step forward in the evolutionary process of digital
marketing from only having an online presence. Blogs offer a chance to actually publish, which is better than your website
just being the place where people infrequently visit to find out information and make orders.

Discraft

Innova

Tumblr

Host

20-30

Frequency
(posts per month)

Photos, promotions, videos, interactions,

comics, awareness, news

Usage

Own Site

1-10

News, videos, promotions

Frequency is a loose average of how many posts they have made per month in the last year.

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Blogs
When analyzing these two different blogs, it is hard to draw comparisons based
on the different formats, content, hosts and purposes. It seems the two brands,
while both explicitly stating that they are blog owners, define a blog as something
largely different. For the purposes of entertainment and interaction, Discraft has
an advantage on Innova due to the informal nature of Tumblr compared to other
blogging sites. However, as the goal of online marketing is to eventually drive
consumers towards a companys website and to exit the goal funnel a pleased
customer, Innova in this case has a better blog. Their blog is more informative of
what is happening in the disc golf community, and it is hosted on their own
website, which helps Innova direct customers to their products.

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Overall Online Presence Evaluation

In the process of Content Marketing Evolution,

Discraft appears to only be at the second stage:
Blog. They have moved past simply having an online
presence, and consistently post on the social media
platforms that they own, but they are lacking a
strategic approach to social media marketing.
Discraft was a criminal offender of overlapping
content on different channels, which does nothing
more than drive users away from your brands online
presence as it conveys a message of unoriginality or
an inability to deliver meaningful content on a
consistent basis.

On the contrary, Innova displays its dedication

towards online marketing through its intelligent,
multifaceted approach to using social media. Discraft
views activity on different platforms as a necessity,
but Innova correctly sees these platforms as different
ways of expressing to consumers who they are as a
company and what value they can provide. To
contrast Discraft, Innova is at the fourth stage of
Content Marketing Evolution: social media, as it is
evident that Innova doesnt treat social media as an
obligation but rather as an opportunity to develop
and reach out to audiences across the world.
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Winner!

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Conclusions and Recommendations

For both companies, an area to grow would be YouTube. Amongst highlight
videos, trick shots, tutorials and product demonstrations, there are plenty of
low-budget, easily deliverable videos worth making that will draw in viewers.
Innova ought to model their approach to Twitter after
their Instagram page as an effort to make it more relatable
to their followers, which would in turn motivate followers
to click the links to the main site provided in those tweets.

www.

Discraft has a few more areas to improve, the most obvious being that
they get an Instagram account. Secondly, their Facebook, Google+ and
blog need purpose, as the three are nearly mirrors of themselves on
different platforms. Each post should directly contribute towards a micro
or macro goal, not just be something that is shareable like a comic. Each
social media channel has its own purpose, and optimizing your posts to
adhere to the minute differences in these platforms can be monumental
in creating value for your company. Comic strips arent worthless, only
their creation and presence shouldnt take precedence over the desire of
directing viewers to your main site and converting.
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Sources

Discraft logo - https://infinitediscs.com/UploadFiles/3a0de6b5-e525-48fc-97f0-a83a87ba9688discraft_logo.png

Innova logo - http://www.innovadiscs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Innova-OL.png

Man throwing disc - http://www.clker.com/cliparts/3/4/4/6/1216180196217045555mazadillon_Frisbee.svg.hi.png

Basket - http://webpages.charter.net/RiverCountry/IMAGES/pole01.gif

Background - http://eagleoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/fairgrounds-disc-golf-course.jpg

Disc types - http://www.discraft.com/pix/grc_classes.png

Jim Kenner - http://www.usaultimate.org/assets/1/Page/Discraft_Kenner_HoF_2011.png

Dave Dunipace - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Dave_Dunipace.jpg

Demographics information - http://www.pdga.com/files/2015_disc_golf_and_pdga_demographics.pdf

Twitter logo - http://image005.flaticon.com/9/png/512/8/8800.png

Discraft Buzzz - http://www.gottagogottathrow.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/DC-ESP-BUZZZ-IMG.png

Innova Boss - http://www.gottagogottathrow.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/IN-CE-BOSS-IMG.png

SocialMention logo - http://sazbean.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/socialmentionlogo.gif

Facebook logo - http://resolutionmedia.com/us/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/06/FB-f-Logo_blue_530.png

Twitter logo (2) - http://drogasmexico.org/images/tw_bird.png

Instagram logo - http://cyberpr.com/assets/instagram-logo-transparent-background_zps6befc220.gif

YouTube logo - https://www.youtube.com/yt/brand/media/image/YouTube-logo-full_color.png

Google+ logo - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IMGb4CkWC98/VeXR6rWlM1I/AAAAAAAA7c4/aC-I28R6_ps/w1664-h1664/GooglePlus-logos-02.png

RSS logo - http://www.clker.com/cliparts/0/e/4/f/12065637851779660844SRD_RSS_Logo.svg.hi.png

Scale - https://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/221789/Golden-Off-Balance-Scale.png
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