If you are a personal trainer or a fitness coach looking for ways of growing your fitness business, then social media marketing may be the answer. Social media marketing is an extremely powerful way of marketing your fitness business – especially in today’s digital age. And you need good ideas to get started.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook allow you to share your content with billions of people across the globe. When properly used, social media marketing for personal trainers can be a cost-effective and valuable solution for generating leads and building a loyal customer base.
Also, social media provides a means of connecting and engaging with your audience while providing a platform of networking for personal trainers.
But for social media marketing to deliver the right results for your personal training business, you will need to have a robust social media marketing for personal trainer as well as unique and varied content.
In this article, we will share with you actionable social media marketing tips that will help you to reach a wider audience and land more fitness clients. We will also give you some content ideas, which you can use as inspiration for your social media marketing strategy.
1. Social Media Marketing for Personal Trainers: Success Tips
Without a doubt, the benefits of social media marketing for personal trainers are almost immeasurable. The question is, how can you leverage social media to grow your fitness business? Here are some handy tips:
1.1 Define Your Target Client
The type of content that you will be posting on your social media platforms will depend on your target client. Hence, before you start posting, you should first define who your target client is.
For example, if your personal training services are aimed at a specific group of athletes such as marathon runners, then the type of content that you post on your personal trainer Facebook page or on your fitness Instagram account should be meant for that audience.
Furthermore, defining your target client will also help you to choose the type of social media platform to focus on. As you may expect, different age groups tend to prefer different platforms. For instance, if you are targeting an older clientele, then Facebook may be the ideal choice. On the other hand, if you are targeting people within the age of 20 to 35, then Twitter and Instagram will be the preferred choice.
By having a clear idea of who your target client is, it will be easier to come up with the right content, which can connect with such an audience. Also, you will carve your own niche in the industry while establishing yourself as an expert.
1.2 Post Strategically
After defining your target audience and choosing the social media platforms that you will be using, you then need to decide your frequency of posting. Also, you need to decide the time you will be posting on these platforms. While it may appear like something trivial, posting frequency and time have a considerable impact on the level of engagement of your personal trainer Facebook posts if you are posting on Facebook.
As a general rule, avoid putting up too many posts on your social media channels on a single day. Posting too much may make your audience lose interest in your content. And once they lose interest, the engagement levels will decline, meaning you will struggle to gain followers.
Ideally, you should post thrice per week, especially if you are starting out. Using this approach will give your target audience an opportunity to learn more about your brand. And once you gain a sizeable following, you can then increase the frequency to five posts per week.
As mentioned earlier, the time you post can also affect engagement levels. Regardless of how great your content is, if no one is engaging with it, then you will be wasting your time and effort.
So, when is the best time to post on social media? Again, this will depend on your target audience and the platform you are using. According to Sprout Social, the best time to post on Facebook is between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. And if you are posting on your Instagram fitness page, the best time will be between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., from Monday to Friday. Saturday is the worst day for posting on Facebook while Sunday is the worst for Instagram.
1.3 Post Quality Content
To grow your following on social media, you will need to provide your target audience with valuable and relevant content, which they can’t find elsewhere.
The more unique, relevant and valuable your content is, the more the shares it will get across various social media platforms. And this will lead to higher engagement and more followers.
On the other hand, if your content is generic, no one will bother checking it, leave alone sharing it. So, try as much as possible to post content that will benefit, inform and educate your audience. At the same time, try to minimize promotional posts as much as you can. While there’s nothing wrong with advertising personal training services on social media, you shouldn’t overdo it.
By dedicating your personal trainer Facebook posts, fitness Instagram posts and personal trainer posts on Twitter to helpful, actionable and valuable content, you will come across as a fitness professional to your audience, as opposed to a salesperson.
1.4 Engage Your Audience
To grow your following on social media, you need to be constantly engaging your followers. And you should do so in a professional and timely fashion. So, make sure you answer their questions, reply to their comments, like their posts and resolve their issues as fast as possible.
1.5 Collaborate With an Influencer
Most social media users will only pay attention to your posts if you have a large following. Unfortunately, this is not always possible, especially if your account is new. The good news is, you can bridge this gap by collaborating with a fitness influencer in your niche.
Collaborating with an influencer can help to boost your content’s visibility. Furthermore, considering that influencers have large followings on social media, partnering with them can help to boost your credibility as a personal trainer. If they endorse your fitness brand, it’s highly likely their followers will follow suit.
2. Social Media Marketing for Personal Trainers: Content Ideas
As mentioned earlier, you have to post frequently on your social media accounts, to grow your following. The question is, what type of content should you post, to help grow your following? Here are some ideas to consider:
2.1 Informational Content
One of the main reasons why people follow personal trainers and other fitness professionals on social media is to learn various things. Your followers want your expertise and advice. To this end, you should make sure you post informational and educational content regularly. For instance, you can share various workout routines or nutritional tips. And such informative content will go a long way in helping those who may be stuck in such areas.
2.2 Inspirational Content
Another reason why people may be following you on social media is to look for inspiration. Lack of motivation and inspiration is one of the main reasons why most people discontinue their fitness routines. And as a personal trainer, you can use your personal trainer Facebook posts to inspire your audience.
For inspiration, you can share your fitness journey, where it started, the challenges you encountered along the way as well as how you overcome those challenges, to become who you are today. Also, you can share some of your client's success stories, share fitness inspirational quotes, or even host a challenge, using a certain hashtag.
2.3 Entertaining Content
While the main goal of using social media may be to grow your following and grow your client base, it doesn’t mean you should always take yourself too seriously. In fact, most people visit social media platforms mainly for socializing and entertainment.
So, once in a while, feel free to post funny videos, photos or any other type of content that can add fun to your personal trainer Facebook page or Instagram fitness account. Sharing jokes, memes, and gifs will help to showcase your sense of humor and personality. It also helps to humanize your personal training brand.
2.4 Networking Content
Your audience will also appreciate posts that connect your page to other fitness professionals. For instance, you can have posts linking to pages belonging to nutritionists, healthy food services, fitness bloggers, massage therapists and chiropractors, just to name a few. Besides providing a networking opportunity, such posts will keep your visitors longer on your page, which may lead to even higher engagement with other posts.
2.5 Promotional Content
The ultimate goal of having a strong social media presence is to find prospective clients and convert them into long-term fitness clients. To this end, you also need to be including promotional posts, accompanied by a call to action.
For instance, you can encourage your followers to sign up for your newsletter, join your online fitness accountability group or sign up for an upcoming group fitness class. But like mentioned earlier, don’t be too promotional.
3. Wrapping It Up
Social media provides a great opportunity to showcase your personal training brand, reach a wider audience and connect with potential personal training clients. However, it’s also worth mentioning that the results will be directly proportional to your input. If you don’t post frequently or you post low-quality content, you will not see any progress. On the other hand, if you are ready to create high-quality content and post regularly, social media will reward you with followers and help to grow your personal training business.