Having an active presence on social media can help your fitness business thrive.
The problem that many fitness professionals have is that the social media world seems so overwhelming.
Where do you start, and which platforms do you put your time into?
Too many people, including fitness professionals, go in with a shotgun approach and end up hitting nothing.
Let’s narrow it down to the best social media for fitness businesses.
Why You Need a Social Media Presence
Even if you’re a person who hates social media, it’ll be tough to compete in this industry without embracing it.
And don’t think that your target fitness market doesn’t use social media.
Did you know that the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is females over 55?
Or that LinkedIn’s most popular sector is service, with personal profiles for everyone from cheesemakers to the President of the United States?
There is a group of people on these channels or accounts just waiting for you to put your brand on their radar.
Benefits of Social Media
If you’re on the fence about spending time on social media for you business, consider these benefits:
Cost Effective: It works with any budget, including no budget at all.
Unlimited Reach: You have a huge potential audience.
Easy to Connect: You can engage easily with your customers.
People Can Find You: You have a visible online presence to share your fitness content ideas.
How Am I Doing?: You receive real-time feedback, making it easy to change things up.
Get Them Involved: You can leverage from your most enthusiastic supporters.
Top 4 Social Media Platforms
As of January 2002, there were 17 social media platforms with at least 300 million active users.
For fitness professionals, the following four platforms have proven to be the most productive in terms of reaching and interacting with their audience. [1]
Instagram has more than a billion regular users. Research shows that 71% of them are under the age of 35 and the average user spends 53 minutes on the platform every day. [2]
Around 75% of US businesses are now using Instagram as part of their marketing plan and so should you.
Marketing Tips for Instagram
Here are some ways you can improve your marketing with Instagram:
Use Themes
Have monthly themes to share your best fitness content, broken down into weekly areas of focus.
For instance, your theme for the month of May could be heart health.
Your weekly focus within that theme could be healthy fruit and vegetables, which easily lend themselves to great image creation and messages.
Embrace Visual Elements
Keep your Instagram fitness content visual.
Put in the effort to take the best shots, add relevant filters, and create something special that will get you those likes and comments.
Don’t Forget a Description
Add a description that’s worth it.
This is your space to talk about the image to tell a story and add some hashtags.
Be Consistent
Above all, post consistently.
It’s ideal to post daily, but if you can only post a few times per week, stick to it.
LinkedIn allows you to network with people you would not ordinarily meet so that you can build your business connection base and potentially grow your business.
There are more than 500 million users on LinkedIn, with 45% of them earning more than $75,000 per year. [3]
That makes it the perfect platform for you to position yourself as the expert personal trainer in your niche to target high-earning professionals.
Marketing Tips for LinkedIn
Keep these marketing tips in mind when you post on LinkedIn:
Use the Right Profile
Create distinct personal and professional profiles.
Your professional profile should be brand-centric. Focus on what makes your personal training business unique, for example.
Clearly spell out your unique selling point (USP). You should also endeavor to get the permission of existing clients to use testimonials.
At the end of your profile use a call to action to encourage readers to get in touch.
Endorse Your Partners and Competitors
If you endorse a business on LinkedIn, there is a high chance that they will return the favor.
This may include equipment suppliers, uniform providers, supplement companies, gyms, or personal trainers.
When you endorse them, you appear on their profiles and become visible to their followers.
Use the Built-In Advertising Campaign Feature
LinkedIn offers a built-in ad campaign manager that allows you to select from a range of different advertisement types.
You are able to create ads, choose the target audience, promote content and track engagement.
Join Groups
When you join relevant groups on LinkedIn, you can freely interact with industry experts and engage with prospective clients.
Be sure to take time to read through previous comments to get familiar with the type of content being shared.
Always try to share content that will create value for other group members.
With more than two billion monthly users, Facebook is a global phenomenon that cannot be ignored.
Half of active users of Facebook log on daily, with the average user having 130 friends on Facebook. [4]
More than 300 million photos are uploaded daily, with the average user spending 20 minutes per day on the platform.
By setting up a business page on Facebook, you can see real-time results from interacting with your customers, allowing you to interact and engage with them for relatively little cost.
Marketing Tips for Facebook
Here’s how to optimize your marketing efforts on Facebook:
Post Regularly
Post tips and great content regularly.
Your best posts should go on your personal and group profiles.
Go Behind the Scenes
Create posts that provide ‘behind the scenes’ insight into your business.
You can provide screenshots and ‘look inside’ videos that personalize the business.
Offer Something Valuable
Create content that is both comfortable to you, but also useful to your niche audience.
This could be a free trial, a challenge, a free fitness cheat sheet, or another fitness lead magnet.
The idea is to offer plenty of free content without asking anything in return. This will help to build trust and establish you as the authority.
And if readers have questions, be sure to always answer those questions promptly.
Use Social Proof
If it’s applicable, I highly recommend sharing screenshots of your client’s before-and-after pics (with their permission, of course).
This is evidence that you know your stuff and you can bring the results that you promise.
Pinterest is an electronic version of scrapbooking. It was launched in 2010 and currently has about 150 million active users.
Pinterest has a predominantly female audience, with 77% of monthly users being women.
The secret to successfully marketing your brand on Pinterest is to share great images for others to admire and dream about. [5]
This is an ideal platform to share before-and-after images, inspirational physique pictures, and workout shots.
Marketing Tips for Pinterest
Here’s how to use Pinterest for your fitness business:
Schedule Your Posts
Create a weekly pinning schedule so that you can stay consistent with your content.
Pin Appropriately
Be sure to sure Pin original content showcasing what you do, but also Pin from different sources.
Optimize Your Content
Decide on keywords that need to be incorporated into your descriptions.
Make sure the keywords are relevant to the post and your business.
Pin Your Website
Do you have a fitness blog?
Use a plug-in that allows you to Pin images from your website and blog.
When readers like your content, they’ll have the chance to Pin your blog and share it.
Be Social
Read others’ original content and comment on it.
This can open up opportunities to network or simply get yourself in front of different audiences.
What’s the Best Social Media for Fitness Businesses?
Social media offers a relatively easy opportunity to market your fitness business for free.
You don’t necessarily need a presence on all these social media platforms.
Instead, focus on the one or two platforms where your target market hangs out, and post original and engaging content there.
Not sure what kind of content you should post on social media?
I can help!
Let’s connect and discuss the best content to post on your social media accounts.
References
- “Global Social Media Stats – DataReportal – Global Digital Insights.” DataReportal.
- “The Ultimate List of Instagram Statistics for 2022.” FindStack.
- “The Practical LinkedIn Marketing Strategy for Fit Pros in 2019.” LinkedIn.
- “Digital 2022: Another Year of Bumper Growth.” WeAreSocial.
- “Pinterest Stats and Trends.” DataReportal.
