5 min
Do you have to spend a ton of money to generate new leads or keep existing members ? Not necessarily. Social media can tip the scales as to whether a business will be successful or displaced. And to be successful, you don’t need a big budget.
In public transport, waiting rooms or on a night out; social media is everywhere. Social media is how you reach people today. It is how you can attract people. And, this is how you get new members to your gym. TV spots, newspaper advertisements, and other marketing campaigns can quickly inflate your marketing spend.
However, when you consider the price-performance ratio these tactics aren’t always the most efficient way. Read here what’s the best social media strategy for fitness business!
Why Social Media is Essential in Fitness Marketing
It’s simple:
2,1 billion people are active on social media . Why not take advantage of that?
Who wants to be fit? Everybody. Some would like to impress the other gender, some do it for their health and physical fitness and others love to exercise. And you can reach them all via social media: 9 out of 10 young adults and 1 in 3 pensioners use social media.
As more than 50% of adults use at least 2 social media sites, it is also a virtual necessity to build a social community across various platforms, while prioritizing the networks where your core audience is most likely to be active.
How to Start Optimizing Your Social Media Marketing
Start with optimizing your social profile.
- If you have a blog, add social sharing buttons to all your content
- Set up guidelines for customer care on social media: value every member of your community
- Make sure you have a company page on Facebook , which is always a must-have, and set up profiles on secondary channels
- Set up consistent channel monitoring: if anyone mentions you, jump on it and interact!
Hand-Picked Related Content: How to Increase the Online Visibility of Your Fitness Business
Each business has similar goals like client acquisition, client retention, and client motivation and engagement. Social media can help you improve all of these metrics. So let’s talk about how to attract new members and to satisfy your recent members by using social media.
Boost Member Acquisition With Social Media
1. Set up referral programs for new members
To attract new customers, referral programs are always a solid tactic. A prospective gym member gets an invitation from a community member to join the social media group. So far, so good. When they sign on, be sure to reward both the existing and the new member.
2. Sharing is caring
Focus your efforts on creating shareable content. Special offers like a lottery for a free membership will attract attention. Similarly, posting competitions that focus on member contributions can draw people in as well. As long as everyone who contributes or shares has a chance at winning.
In a similar vein, consider using apps that track training sessions with the option to share workouts on social media platforms. These shared workouts are bound to draw the attention of your members’ friends, leading them straight to your gym.
How to Keep Members Happy Using Social Media
3. Introduce a point system
Why not show love for your members via social media? Introduce a point system, for example. Likes, tags, posts and so on can be rewarded with points. These points are used to earn protein bars, etc.
Let’s assume a member shares one post, likes two others and posts a positive review on Yelp. This could result in 10 points which could afterwards be redeemed for a sauna or solarium session.
4. Post progress pictures of your members
Create individual posts about your gym members. You can post progressions, transformation pictures but also congratulate your members on personal records. This generates multiple benefits. Your recent members feel valued and proud. As a result, they will share and like your posts on their own timeline. Afterwards, their friends might become interested in your gym and start thinking about getting the same results.
5. Let People Take Part of Decisions
People are influenced by psychological task-reward principles. Why not let people vote for the “gym member of the week/month”? The ones who want to win will make sure that enough people will participate by telling their friends to vote. Alternatively, introduce a vote for an event of the month. Let people vote for activities they want to have at your gym. BBQ? Yogurt breakfasts? Or a new type of boot camp?
How to Improve your Client Motivation and Engagement?
6. Publish Success Stories and Give Incentives
Keeping your members motivated and engaged is a must. Inspire other members by publishing success stories of your hardest working members, start discussions about training theories, and give tips and post motivational pictures.
7. Motivate by Visualising Goals
Finding an idol is always important. Share a variety of motivating visuals, from the perfect beach body to runners bolting towards the finish line. Or what about fit grandparents simply being able to enjoy playing with their grandchildren? Or people being able to take walks without joint pain. A variety of motivation will increase your reach and help _all y_our members visualize the goals they want to achieve.
Conclusion
All things considered, you don’t want to (or rather you can’t afford to) miss one of the most important marketing tools these days - social media. Involve your members to create a relationship and a feeling of togetherness in your gym. Form a community to inspire, motivate and help your members. Make your members feel valued and share their success stories. Motivate constantly with images and quotes that will give you the right mindset for both, your nutrition and exercising. Market your gym in such an engaging way, that members share your posts and promote your gym independently!
