“Clubster replicates the club environment and the club experience in a social network.”
Recently the St Louis Chapter of the Club Managers Association of American gathered for an education session on Social Networking and Social Media for private clubs. Don Williams, CEO and Mike Gold, CTO of Clubster were invited to be panelists for an open discussion on how clubs can adapt to the numerous advantages of social networking. We were excited to participate, as it gave us an opportunity to communicate directly with club managers about this important issue.
After much discussion about how some clubs were trying to use Facebook and Twitter to market events and interact with their members, Don Williams introduced Clubster to the audience. Don provided an overview of Clubster and talked about the numerous benefits to the clubs and members. These are all outlined on the Clubster website (www.clubster.com). Mike Gold focused on two significant discussion points; 1) the issues relative to privacy and security inherent with such “open” networks like Facebook, and 2) the ways that Clubster addresses the interaction between clubs and members and member to members in a completely “private” network.
Many of the attending Club managers were naturally concerned about the security and privacy of the network, and how Clubster was different from Facebook. Mike explained that in order to be a “Clubster” a person must be a member of a private club, and only your club members can access the network and see your club’s news, events, posts, and blogs. If they resign from the club, they no longer have access, it’s that simple.
Needless to say, Clubster was met with a huge level of interest by the audience. As one manager put it, “Clubster solves almost 100% of the things I have been worried about with the more open social network offerings”. In fact, during Gold’s presentation, several in attendance were on their laptops, iPhones and Blackberry’s signing up on Clubster.
Clubster plans to begin releasing the administration tools to clubs to begin using the network this upcoming summer 2010. Stay tuned!!!
Whether it’s a holiday brunch, a special wine tasting, or a weekly couples golf game, these days, your club needs to be prepared to manage these events efficiently and cost effectively.
Wouldn’t it be great if every time your club events coordinator knew exactly how many members and guests would actually be showing up at these events.
It would be kinda like seeing the Wall Street Journal a day ahead of time, your club could save tons of money, and be able to manage things like real pros.
Well, with modern social networking technology, your club can get there, and Clubster has those tools built right in.
By using Clubster to communicate with your members, whenever you post an upcoming club event, your members will be able to click a single “RSVP” button and instantly inform you that they will be attending, and exactly how many adults and/or children will be joining them. In addition, they will be able to click another “Guest List” button, and see a complete guest list, so they will know what other club members will be attending.
So, without any phone calls or wordy emails, your staff will know who and how many members are attending.
Wouldn’t that be great! You will be able to order the right amount of food, drinks, golf carts, staff…simply everything you need to manage an event, to help insure each club event is a success.
And guess what, this will make both your staff and your members happy….what’s not to like??
At Clubster, we’re all about making people happy, which makes us happy.
Isn’t that a happy thought?
In early February 2010, Clubster made its official entry into the private club world at the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) Exposition in San Diego. Clubster was quite a splash, and was warmly welcomed by managers from all over the country and was considered one of the brightest concepts to be introduced in years.
Social networking was one of the hottest topics at this year’s Expo. Clubster is currently in development as the first exclusive social network for private clubs and their members. It will provide an extremely private and secure platform for clubs to communicate directly with their members, their members to communicate back with them, members to build custom groups of friends with whom they might choose to communicate with and cross communication between members of clubs all over the world.
At present Clubster has over 900 clubs that have registered on its website (www.clubster.com) to receive the administrative tools to become users of the Clubster network. Clubster will be rolling out to the industry this upcoming summer of 2010.
Does you club currently have an interest in social networking, but cannot figure out how Facebook or Twitter would work?
Would you have a higher degree of interest in social networking if you knew it was private and secure as well as totally controlled by you for your members?
Help us to help you…please express your interests, concerns or comments to this blog!!
-
- Clubster Founders at the 2010 Golf Industry Show
Clubster CEO Don Williams discusses Clubster! – Click here for the video