If you are a shooter and you have engaged in one of the social media sites you have probably made connections with other shooters who enjoy the sport like you do. If you have not been on one of the sites you might be missing out. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to see what’s happening with other shooters in real time via their status updates. Shooters from all over the world use status updates to relay all kinds of information. They may report how they shot today or how good those targets were. Some even upload pictures right from their cell phones as it happens. It can be quite entertaining.
Recently these sites proved to be a boon for shooters who wanted to know what was happening at the World FITASC champs in Australia. It allowed near instant feedback from a far away place. I am also sure that it contributed to crashing the host website as people passed the links to scores around the web. An example would be George Digweed posting how he shot each day as he finished his round to both his Facebook and Twitter pages. Companies that sponsor shooters like Pilla (HiDefSpex) also routinely report on their shooters and products.
Christian Parker who runs the ClaysportsOnline forum has been very successful at leveraging social media to help shooters interact. He recently had this to say,
I use Twitter to drive traffic towww.claysportsonline.com, to promote the clubs and members that post on our site and to reflect back a positive image of the sport by sharing links to interesting sites like yours & making certain to retweet photos and tweets of people having fun shooting– especially if it’s a lady shooter. Only about 10% of NSCA members are female. We just aren’t doing a good enough job of attracting that 51% of the population.
Facebook is another great way to connect with your friends in the shooting community. A vital tool for clubs to build a brand and to attract new shooters. Share photos of your last competition. Invite people to your next shoot or hunter safety course. You can see what George Digweed is up to or check up on Bradd Kidd’s photos from World FITASC in Australia.
You can find Christian here on Facebook and Twitter.
If you do try out some social media sites be aware that they run on an approval system. You have to ask to be someones friend and they may turn you down if they don’t know you. Don’t worry, often as you interact more with users on the site you often find that person asking to be your friend. This is because they see what you are posting through mutual friends and in a way get to know you. They may learn you are from their area or perhaps shoot at the same range.
Social media sites also allow you to interact with blogs such as this one by making posts available to friends who might enjoy them. For instance, there is a small icon in the top left of this post that says "retweet." If you have friends who would like what is in this post and you are a member of Twitter, you just click on the icon and it will allow you to tweet a link to all of your friends. You will also see a set of icons in the upper right corner of all the pages. If you click on them, you can follow me on Twitter and join my Facebook and YouTube pages.
A good place to start would be by following me on Twitter and Facebook. There you can look through my friends list for people you already know and find people you might like to know. I have discovered these sites to be very shooter friendly and they are gaining new members at an incredible rate. I have only scratched the surface of social media here. You can get connect on many more sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Yelp.
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