GUEST POST
If you manage to successfully use social media for fitness brands, that will change the game for you. Here is why: Your audience is out there spending time on social media while looking for motivation to start doing regular exercise.
The fitness industry was on a consistent rise in the 2010s. Even though the momentum was lost in 2020, when the pandemic pressured people to opt towards online fitness programs, the industry is recovering now that the pandemic is not as hard-hitting as before.
The future for the fitness industry seems promising as well. According to the statistics, the effect of the sudden drop in 2020 will not persist, as the revenue already rebounded back to the pre-pandemic levels in late 2021. Analysts predict a 171.75% growth in the industry by 2028. Fitness brands need to start focusing on getting their share of the cake.
Do you want to invest more time and resources in your social media pages? In this material, we will walk you through some social media tips for fitness entrepreneurs, personal trainers & fitness influencers!
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Table of Contents
The Impact of Social Media Content on Fitness Marketing
Gym owners, personal trainers, and fitness influencers are constantly looking for ways to generate leads, and this can be done on social media as well. However, compared to your personal account, using social media to promote your product and services can lead to many other advantages.
Here are the benefits of promoting your fitness business on social media:
- Build authority
- Develop meaningful interactions with your audience
- Generate trust
- Increase brand image
- Gain access to insights
A. Build Authority
Your social media strategy can help establish and build brand authority by using consistent messaging, visual branding, and tone of voice.
You demonstrate your fitness industry expertise when you provide valuable content and share fitness tips in your social posts or live streams, while also keeping your community members engaged.
B. Develop Meaningful Interactions with Your Audience
Your social media channels are an excellent place to build meaningful relationships with your community members while increasing engagement.
Oftentimes, undecided target customers will look for information about losing weight, health tips, or advanced insights on fitness activities on your social media accounts or through a direct message.
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C. Generate Trust
Before they make any purchase, people need to trust your brand. On social media, you can make your brand voice easily listened to. Whether you share instructional videos or motivational content.
At the same time, social media is an essential tool for collecting feedback, therefore, as a fitness business, you can also publish user-generated content and ignite conversations with people trying to meet their fitness goals. In the end, the closer your audience feels to you to purchase certain services or products.
D. Increase Brand Image
Whether you have a Facebook business page, an Instagram account, or a TikTok one, being active on social channels will help you increase your brand awareness.
While social media fitness marketing can increase the visibility of your brand, it will take time and consistency. You can engage with a larger audience and drive value by sharing content and encouraging user-generated content to further drive word-of-mouth marketing.
E. Gain Access to Insights
Do gyms actually know how many membership inquiries resulted from their most recent newspaper ads? Or from a flyer campaign? Tracking is feasible, but it’s difficult and rarely precise.
Fitness businesses sometimes don’t know where they received the information about a new customer when they call, which makes it difficult to pick which marketing initiatives to reinvest in.
However, social media platforms include built-in “insights” or reporting data that display the outcomes of all your activity in simple charts. This makes it quite simple to figure out what worked and what didn’t, so you can replicate what was successful in the future.
5 Tips for Killer Social Media Marketing for Fitness Industry
Given all that, now is the perfect time to promote your fitness brand on social media platforms. Whether you are an influencer, a brand manager, or even a gym owner, we have put together a list of tips that can make you stand out on fitness social media.
Here are our social media tips and tricks for the fitness sector:
- Highlight your customers’ personal stories with your brand
- Find your brand voice
- Share educational content to establish your authority
- Create social media posts regularly
- Work with an expert social media specialist
1. Create Social Media Posts Regularly
Content is still king. No big difference here. That’s the golden rule to make it on social media.
You must consistently share new content on a regular basis to stay on top of the feeds. Posting regularly also makes social media algorithms favor your content over competitors. So it’s a must-do if you’re pursuing a successful social media campaign.
If you have a hard time figuring out how to plan your content, you can make use of a social media management tool like SocialBee. Thanks to the features it has, you can not only schedule posts for a regular content calendar, but also easily manage your profiles. You will also get insightful data regarding your statistics on social media.
However, you shouldn’t post too frequently. It can be a bit overkill for many social media users. On top of that, algorithms don’t seem to like it.
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In short, you should find a sweet spot of frequency based on the platform you use and your account’s analytics. Use that frequency to regularly post content, and you’re golden.
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2. Highlight Your Customers’ Personal Stories with Your Brand
Trust is the key to generating more sales. To establish trust, you should give your audience a valid reason. That is where the personal success stories of your customers come in.
For example, you can implement this by creating a series of video content showcasing how a customer of yours achieved incredible results while following a personal training session with you.
Other people seeing this will empathize with that customer, as they were in the same shoes before. Therefore, your leads are more likely to trust you as a personal trainer and buy your products or services.
Take a look at how this personal trainer showcases the results of his clients:
Stories are a very effective way to create impact and improve engagement. They also evoke emotions in us, which is a crucial element for brand awareness. Leverage that to level up your brand.
3. Find Your Brand Voice
Your brand image plays a huge part in establishing trust in your customers’ minds. To create an impressive image, you need to have a brand voice, and social media digital marketing can help you get one. Now, hold on a second—what even is a brand voice?
Brand voice is the personality of your brand. Whether you are an influencer or a company, you can find your personality and present it to your potential customers on social media. Finding your voice and reflecting on your personality is essential to establish your brand awareness.
There are many successful examples of branding in the fitness industry, both for companies and influencers.
Gymshark is a perfect example in the company category. A fitness apparel seller targeting young people.
Gymshark’s approach to marketing mostly relies on influencers, both on TikTok and on other social media channels. They work with young content creators whose followers are their target audience. Gymshark’s approach to social media is a successful one as well, with youthful, friendly content aimed at its potential customers.
As they are consistent in their tone and marketing efforts in general, their brand is now a very popular one. That’s why young fitness enthusiasts directly think of Gymshark when they hear the motto “Stay humble.”
As we mentioned before, finding a brand voice is not only for companies. Influencers can build their own personal brand, as well.
Think of Noel Deyzel if you will, for instance. His personal brand consists of certain elements highlighted in the way he chose to create content. He shows his sincerity, helpfulness, and unique sense of humor in each of his videos, where he educates people on essential topics for fitness.
We observe quite a consistent tone and style in his content, which establishes his personal brand. Otherwise, his iconic catchphrase, “Let me explain.” wouldn’t be so catchy.
So, whether you’re trying to be an influencer or just marketing your company, you should adopt a consistent style and tone in order to create engaging content. This approach can help you build your brand’s personality.
4. Share Educational Content to Establish Your Authority
Social media can be a handy tool to establish your brand as an expert in the field. This does not only apply to the fitness business.
According to Semrush, 57% of brands use content marketing to improve their reputation. Why shouldn’t you?
You can do that by posting educational content related to your niche, which is fitness in our case. And, more importantly, these posts are evergreen content, so, even in a couple of months, you can repurpose them and generate more meaningful interactions.
These are some examples of educational content you can post on your business accounts:
- Health tips
- Fitness tips
- Video interviews with other fitness professionals
- Workout routines
- Easy-to-make and healthy recipes
As people see your know-how and how experienced you are in the industry, thanks to the quality content you create, you develop an expert image for your brand. This image returns to your brand as more credibility, which in turn leads to more sales.
Not only that, but you also provide people value with educational content, which is a great way to keep them loyal.
Look at how Men’s Health Magazine creates educational fitness content:
Long story short, you can increase your brand’s authority and your customers’ loyalty by sharing educational content.
5. Work with an Expert Social Media Specialist
Are you too busy to implement all those strategies for your social media channels, or simply lack the know-how to do so? At the same time, you don’t afford to hire a social media manager? Well, there is nothing to worry about. Countless social media external parties can help you to do what’s right.
While choosing an expert to work with, you must make sure they are familiar with your industry. If you’re building a fitness brand, you should go with a sports marketing agency instead of a one-fits-all solution. Needless to say, this holds true for any other super niche brand.
Each social media specialist offers a different experience to its customers. Some options are more experienced in content marketing, while others focus on e-commerce solutions. Each one differs in scale, as well. You need to do your research well and find one that suits your needs to get the best results.
With the help of a social media specialist, you can connect with your audience, but you can also increase awareness about your brand on every social media platform.
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It’s Time to Promote Your Fitness Business on Social Media Platforms!
Although the fitness industry took a hard hit in 2020 because of the pandemic, the revenue it generates is now back at the pre-pandemic levels. On top of that, experts predict the industry to continue its consistent growth in the following years.
That is why you should focus on building your brand in the fitness industry now. Using an effective strategy to grow on social media is certainly a great way to do it. We hope that these tips will help you through your journey on fitness social media.
In the meantime, you can create, schedule, and post your engaging content on all your social media channels with the help of SocialBee. Start your 14-day free trial now!
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About the author: Gizem Tas is a writer, editor, and translator. Experienced in blogging for marketing, translation, localization, and foreign languages with a degree focused in English Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University.