How to Create and Share Engaging Content as a Fitness Business Owner
Now more than ever, it’s critical for your fitness business to distinguish your offerings from the tidal wave of new, free, online workouts. Don’t be tempted to give away your valuable expertise and services for free.
You can set yourself apart if you strategically create and share high-value, high-quality posts that illustrate you and your team’s professionalism, personality, empathy and enthusiasm.
The silver lining in today’s challenging times is that there is a captive audience of potential new and repeat customers working and schooling at home, frustrated and desperate to get fit and healthy. The key to social media marketing success for fitness business owners like you is to speak directly to them, and give them ways to quickly and easily click their way into your classes – whether virtual, hybrid or in-studio.
Put yourself in your ideal customer’s place. Imagine what it’s like to be trapped at home, bored and scrolling through an endless feed filled with selfies, photos of friend’s and family’s meals, cute pet pics and kids in holiday attire. (You probably don’t have to try too hard, because you’re in the same situation!)
Ask yourself, “what would make me stop, read or watch, and click?”
Maybe it’s a video loop of your favorite instructor looking lean and mean and doing a move you could do right now on the living room floor. Maybe you haven’t seen him or her in months, but you know he or she knows your name and would likely reply back to your comment or message. Seeing that friendly face doing a move of the day, motivates you to take them up on their invitation to click, and next thing you know you’re printing out their workout of the week (WOW) and pasting it to your fridge.
Even better, when you clicked through to the WOW’s web landing page, you saw a big banner letting you know that the neighborhood studio’s doors are now open for safe, small classes and you can book an appointment for next Wednesday! There’s even another link that you can click that gets you an updated class pass so you can reserve your spot immediately – which you do because fear of missing out (FOMO) is kicking in. (Good thing the gym has Punchpass to make it all happen seamlessly!)
Here are our 3 best tips for creating more engaging content like this for your fitness business:
1. Update Your Intro Offer and Post It Regularly
You have a unique opportunity to draw in new customers by featuring your fitness business’s introductory offer through platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Whether you go the organic route or opt to pay to promote these posts, here are a few key things to keep in mind. Use the image or video content to showcase your studio’s or classes’ personality – think photos or short video clips featuring you and your students or team members smiling, virtual high-fiving and having a great time sweating it out. Make your invitation to try it out conversational, friendly and light-hearted. The goal is to delight, inspire and have the new potential customer catching your vibe and falling in love before they get to the end of the post and your CTA (call to action) to click the link in bio (or in the post if you’re on Facebook) to buy that super discounted pass.
Make sure you’ve set up a compelling title and description for your intro offer in your Punchpass fitness business software platform. To add value and boost engagement, consider adding a link to a short, complimentary on-demand video workout or class in your Punchpass content library.
2. Build Trust, Professionalism and Engagement with MOD, WOD and WOW.
Take pics and videos of you and your instructors doing a move-of-the-day (MOD) and talk about how to best perform the move and include it in your workout-of-the-day (WOD) and workout-of-the-week (WOW).
To drive users to your business, include a link to a web landing page where you feature a downloadable (option to print) PDF of the move or pose with pro-tips, and the full workout – which you can do through the Punchpass content library feature. Bonus if you also include a link to a class or workout that’s either on-demand or open on your schedule for in-person, hybrid or live online registration.
Save time and energy by asking members of your teaching team to pick a day that their move will be featured, and have them generate the photo or video, post text, and downloads.
3. Create and Build Community with User Generated Content
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are perfectly designed to bring communities together to motivate and inspire each other. Your fitness business can build on this by asking loyal customers to share pics and videos of themselves doing their favorite moves and poses, and meeting and exceeding personal bests.
One of the simplest ways to do this is by creating a custom hashtag for your fitness business that encapsulates your brand’s personality and vision. Share the hashtag in all your posts and post messages asking your community to share their inspirational fitness moments with the hashtag.
An even better way to build your community and drive user engagement is to host a contest on Facebook or Instagram where you ask people to post their photos or videos and tag your business and make sure that they use your special hashtag in their posts. There are also online software providers that help you launch and manage social media contests if you’re willing to pay.
Finally, use that valuable social proof to build enthusiasm, motivation and FOMO for new and existing customers by featuring the posts – or your entire “feed” on your website. Most websites come with this capability, or you can add a free plugin that will allow you to surface the posts.
Most importantly, when using social media to grow your fitness business, remember that you are talking to real human beings. Keep your posts friendly, real, and fun, and let your unique personality shine through!
