Xenophon Strategies

Online Interest in Tiger Woods Waning

Blake Rhodes

As our family prepares for a great turkey feast today, I’m wondering how Tiger Woods will be spending his Thanksgiving.  Since he sat down for his helping of turkey last year, his personal and professional life has been turned upside down.  So has his impact in social media, despite his recent foray into the Twitterverse.

A year ago, he was the number one golfer in the world with a beautiful wife, two young children and a worldwide product endorsement portfolio worth more than all but a few athletes, if not celebrities. He also owned a positive 76 percent social media sentiment score and his name had been mentioned more than 81,000 times in online posts during the month of November. 

Fast forward to this Thanksgiving: no wife, no number one ranking, and three fewer major sponsors.  Tiger’s social media sentiment also has fallen 23 percentage points to its current 53-percent mark, which is actually three points lower than the week after last Thanksgiving’s accident.  During the last year, news of his habitual infidelity, a divorce, a rehab stint, an exodus of those sponsors and no victories on the PGA Tour have combined to sully his online reputation.

Even with the negativity surrounding Woods, what should be more concerning to his agent Mark Steinberg is that the volume of online conversations about his client is declining.  Since Woods returned to the PGA Tour in April for the Masters, mentions of his name in online discussions have exceeded 100,000 in a month only once – in August when the divorce with his wife, Elin, was finalized.

The height of Woods’ online interest during the past year has been for negative reasons.  The huge spike in December (350,924 mentions) and February (192,143) coincided with mistresses coming forward and his initial press conference, respectively. (See chart in upper right hand corner.)

Putting image aside for a moment, sponsors want to be connected with spokespeople who spark conversations.  At least online, those conversations about Tiger Woods simply aren’t happening in the huge numbers that spur a sponsor to engage.

Perhaps Woods’ new Twitter channel can help re-start those conversations.  He currently has more than 250,000 followers, but has only Tweeted seven times in the week that he has been active.

My advice to Tiger:  use your cell phone this Thanksgiving to Tweet and engage in conversations with your fans. With engagement -- replying and chatting with followers instead of only posting, he can start the process of getting himself back in the social media conversation for the right reasons.

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