How To Start Your Fitness Training Business By Using Social Media

 It’s 2022, and if you haven’t heard by now, fitness has transformed immensely to go from in-person training and sessions to online. This shift in the industry was underway for several years but was propelled forward more recently when the pandemic hit and gyms and fitness centers shut down. Not only did clients find themselves struggling to maintain their physical fitness, but it opened up a new world of opportunity for trainers too.

So if you’d like to become a  certified exercise instructor, or you’re already certified and interested in starting your own business, here are some tips and insights on how to get started:

Start by building a brand for yourself

The first step to your online business, like any other, is that you need to build a brand for yourself. What that means is deciding on your public persona and role’s name, business name, logos, themes, designs, catchphrases, motto, and other tiny details that go into branding your content. It’s a simple enough step but can take a lot of fine-tuning and storyboarding to accomplish, so you should get to work on it before anything else. Once you have some brand content ready, you’re good to go.

Know who you’re marketing to

Additionally, you should also know who you’re marketing to and what your target audience looks like. This includes knowing who will be watching your content, who will benefit from it, and who you wish to attract as a potential client. The two may overlap, but in the world of social media, where you have viewers and clients both in the mix, it helps to form a distinction between both. This will give you a clearer direction in terms of your overall marketing strategy, goals, and content.

Think about what your goals will be

Speaking of goals, you should also set your goals for your social media business. Whether you’re planning to run a store with products, solely promote your classes and training sessions, or you’re using it to educate and empower viewers, having clear goals is imperative.

Once you set these goals, it’s also easier to follow through on them. For instance, your first goal may be hitting a certain number of subscribers, or attracting viewers from your intended audience, while another goal could be to convert those subscriptions into monetized services. It varies from trainer to trainer and business to business and should be something you work to develop on your own, keeping your business in mind. 

 

Use cross-platform posting to maximize reach

It may be overwhelming to do so, but becoming a successful social media business means having access to multiple platforms too. You can’t solely rely or settle on a singular platform such as Instagram or TikTok alone; having a cross-platform approach is key. Develop content that can be posted on multiple platforms to extend your audience engagement and create a more streamlined presence. Edit videos for TikTok and make Instagram reels out of them the same way, post-long-form content on these platforms’ own tools or others such as YouTube and Facebook. Some of the content can and should ideally be exclusive to paying customers and clients who get an edge.

The more diverse you are with your platforms, the better your chances are of reaching paying customers and clients to support you.

Share value-laden content with your audience

However, don’t just make content for the sake of it. Your social media presence reflects directly on your standing as a business, and you should remember that. Your audiences deserve to have content that is worth their time and provides them value. It can be informative, entertaining, humorous, insightful, or even promotional, so long as it gives something back to those who watch. Nobody wants to see the same transition reels of you changing from one sports outfit into another or dozens of gym selfies and workout videos. Convert that content into marketable, educational content and watch your business explode.

 

Know how to market your services and niche

One thing that many fitness trainers and businesses fail to cash in on has a niche. You should definitely share what your niche is with your clients and talk to them about what you can offer that is different from your competitors. Share your specialty, unique selling points, and niche offerings, whether it’s youth fitness, senior training, pre or post-natal training, or other services that set you apart from what’s already available.

This takes the bulk of your marketing off your shoulders as an individual and focuses on your qualifications, training abilities, and your own background and expertise, rather than more superficial factors such as your physique, how aesthetic your posts are, and who your celebrity clients are.

Stay consistent with your content and posts

Lastly, remember to also be consistent with your content and posting schedules. You need to follow a timeline and post regularly to ensure engagement and interest don’t drop and fizzle out, and clients are consistently interested in what you share. The more regularly you post, the more active your social media presence will be, and the likelier people are to trust you and give you business.

 

The right fitness trainer certifications and programs will also help you dive into the business side of things and help you lift your practice off the ground. Get in touch with WITS Education’ to know more about their lifestyle and wellness coaching certification, as well as their personal health trainer programs which are accredited and highly acclaimed.