It’s important to remember that there are two sides to social media. All personal trainers should be using social media to boost their business, but there are ways and means to do this. An important thing to keep in mind is that your ultimate goal is to boost your profits, not to simply gain an impressive following.
Any personal trainer’s aim should be to build relationships with current and potential clients through the responsible use of various social media platforms. You can build up your image and reputation as an authority in your niche. Increased credibility will lead to an increase in your hourly rates, an increase in the number of trainers working for you and, ultimately, an increase in profits.
The key is to combine your personality with expert knowledge and market your business through great articles, posts, tweets, podcasts, videos, etc. Effective use of social media involves the combination of several components:
- Providing lead generation
- Testing what your current clients like
- Testing what your prospective clients want
- Building loyalty and retaining clients
- Developing your unique brand
- Showing people what you offer
- Generating a buzz
So, what’s the best way to do that? Following is our top tips for making your social media efforts a success, as well as things you should avoid.
The DOs of Social Media
- Let people know who you are. Any profile should include a photo and a description of who you are and what you do. Posts, tweets, etc. give your followers additional insight into your personality.
- Interact! Allow clients to comment, provide testimonials, sign up, download your app, etc. The most important thing is that you respond to their comments. Respond to common questions with blog posts and videos.
- Be wise. All of your contributions should be valuable, not rash comments that could backfire on you.
- Provide consistent updates. Make sure you have fresh content for regular posts and tweets. You can plan ahead and write great status updates and posts and then schedule them to be published at regular intervals.
- .. Add a blog to your website and ensure that it updates your Facebook and Twitter accounts with each post. Make sure people can share your content easily. Post regularly and honestly.
- Tune in. If you want to post videos, create a YouTube channel.
- Create a Facebook Fan Page and register the page name to reflect the name of your business.
- Add an ad. Direct adverts to your target audience via platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
The DON’Ts of Social Media
- Avoid overt ads. The focus of your tweets, videos, etc. should be useful information, not just marketing and promotions.
- Follow the leader. Your overall number of followers isn’t important—it’s whether they are genuinely interested in the information you have to share that actually counts. Keep this in mind when you choose to follow others—only follow those people whose knowledge you are genuinely interested in.
- Keep it professional. Your profiles and updates should be fun and approachable, but not too personal.
- Don’t ignore your followers. Respond as promptly as possible to all comments, questions and concerns. By making yourself available, you will attract more clients in the long run.
Brad Sheppard and Jason Urbanowicz look at these topics in more detail in their fantastic book A Personal Trainer’s Guide to Wealth Creation. Contact them directly if you’d like to know more info@createptwealth.com.au.
Jason Urbanowicz is a Director and presenter at Create PT Wealth with business partner, and Australia’s highest paid Personal Trainer, Brad Sheppard. Create PT Wealth is the fitness industry’s most sought after coaching and mentoring company, renown for providing fitness professionals with the education, resources and support required to develop a profitable fitness business.
From 2008 to 2014, they educated over 6,500 personal trainers via their two-day business building seminars, and each year, around 120 students undertake their mentoring programs. They are the Authors of a number 1 best selling book, “A Personal Trainer’s Guide To Wealth Creation”. Both Jason and Brad started in the fitness industry in 1995 and have a wealth of knowledge of what it takes to build a highly profitable business. www.createptwealth.com.au
