A central part of your gym’s marketing plan should be its social media strategy. Social media is highly effective, in part, because business accounts are free on most platforms and campaign results are easy to measure. Paid social media advertising is also cheaper than traditional print advertising.
Whether you’re posting about current fitness trends, discounts, healthy recipes or exercise tips, social media is a powerful tool for engagement & growth. Below are eight easy, yet highly effective, social media post ideas for gyms, fitness centers & personal trainers.
1. Social Media Polls
Social media polls are a practical way to engage your followers and get their opinions on a variety of things to improve your business. Sharing poll results and applying their insights shows that you value input from clients and followers.
Perhaps most importantly, social media poll results provide you with the foundations you’ll need for about every other kind of post on this list.
What kind of things can you poll your followers about?
- New class ideas
- New workouts
- Trending fitness challenges
- Recipes they’d like to see
- What inspires them the most
- Trending nutrition information
2. Contests & Challenges
Social media contests & challenges attract new leads, keep current clients interested and boost your brand awareness. They can also be tied to giveaways and other special deals.
You can really get as creative as you want with challenges and contests. Just be sure to have a method for keeping entrants faithful. Having them upload timestamped smartphone pics and videos is a start. The many (free) fitness apps available make it even easier.
The challenges you choose should be specific to your followers and clients. Some examples include:
- Monthly running, cycling or rowing challenges
- Bi-weekly weight loss or calorie burner challenges
- Weekly 10% lift increase challenges
- Eating fit challenges
- 30-day plank challenges
- 10 for 10 challenges
Whatever your contest is, the most essential element is the prize. The prize must be targeted to what your ideal client would want, whether that’s a pair of knee bracers or yoga blocks.
3. Client Stories
Instead of beating your own chest, promote other peoples’ stories, successes & achievements. Think about clients who have made transformations or have overcome adversity. These are real people whose stories will resonate with your audience.
Followers tend to share this content, especially if they know the person in the spotlight.
Simple subjects include:
- Member achievements
- Body & lifestyle transformations
- Inspirational client stories
4. Gym Reviews & Testimonials
According to data compiled by Qualtrics.com, 93% of consumers say that online reviews influenced their purchase decisions. Posting gym reviews & testimonials on Facebook, Instagram & elsewhere is a proactive way to bolster your online reputation.
Let’s break down their differences and how best to use each:
- Reviews: Reviews are trusted about as much as personal recommendations. Always encourage clients to leave sparkling reviews, but don’t ignore the less-than-stellar ones. Responding to negative reviews helps establish transparency and trust between you and your followers. Here’s a list of tips for responding to customer reviews.
- Testimonials: Testimonials are real client endorsements that usually focus on details of their experience, what you helped them most with and why they’d recommend you to others. Organic, unscripted video testimonials are particularly effective because they connect to viewers on a more emotional level.
5. Fitness Tips & Tutorials
If you’re an important source of knowledge for your clients, why not offer some of that expertise to your social media following? Posting fitness tips, tutorials & other instructional content gives you a chance to position yourself as a fitness expert.
These can be almost anything, including:
- Workout tips
- Micro workouts
- Form demonstrations (important for fitness challenges)
- Guest trainer segments
- Equipment hacks (better ways to use weights & machines)
It’s true that videos get more views than other forms of content, especially with regards to Instagram posts. However, whether you post videos, voiceover videos, infographics or swipe-through photos/graphics, your content should be short and easy to consume. Be sure, also, that what you post resonates with your target audience.
6. Nutrition Tips & Recipes
Abs are made in the kitchen, so they say. But the truth is that every other lean muscle depends on healthy eating. Posting nutrition advice and healthy recipes to your social media accounts makes you a source of (correct) nutrition info for your followers. At the same time, it reminds your clients to keep healthy eating habits.
Include content like:
- Nutrition-based quizzes
- A daily calorie calculator
- Best pre-workout power snacks, post-workout meals & recovery smoothies
- High-protein meal swaps (this, instead of that)
- TikToks of you preparing a healthy meal
- A “what I eat in a day” Instagram reel
Don’t worry–not every recipe or food photo has to be considered for a James Beard Award. Your nutrition tips & recipes should simply be quick suggestions that can make a meaningful impact. Just keep things well-lit and focused on the food when necessary.
Make sure to repost any videos you make (Instagram Reels & Stories, YouTube videos, TikToks) across all your channels.
7. Gym Photos
Think about the photos on your website. Professional, clean shots depicting your target clients, right? Apply this to your social media photos.
Remember, these photos don’t have to depict superhuman feats of fitness; they should highlight what clients can expect. Here are three simple kinds of photos you can post:
- Classes: Always photograph your most action-packed (Thursday Night HIIT & Run) or most technical (Core Pilates) classes.
- Training Sessions: Remember to mix photos of your most improved clients with those who are earlier on in their fitness journeys. Doing this illustrates where hardworking clients start and what they accomplish with your help.
- Before & After: Seeing a relatable person achieve impressive fitness goals is inspiring. Ask clients who have achieved body transformations if you can share their stories.
- Photos of Your Staff: These familiarize your audience with the people behind your gym. You can go a step further and profile team members and highlight their strengths.
There are many free photo editing apps out there that can help you polish and add different effects to your gym photos.
8. User-Generated Content
User-generated content is any content—text, posts, images, videos, reviews, etc.—created by individual people, published to a social network and retagged/reposted by you.
This content is relatable, authentic, fosters a sense of community & expands your reach by leveraging your followers’ networks.
Some examples include:
- Reposts from clients
- Inspiring pictures from Instagram accounts
- Stories about fitness triumphs
- Before & after pictures
For good reposts from clients and followers, simply search through the tags on Instagram and Facebook for examples that tell an empowering or funny story.
----
Effective social media posts should be helpful, educational, relatable, inspirational and/or humorous. Above all, they must provide value.
As with fitness itself, consistency is key with your fitness business’s social media strategy. You should aim to post about 4–6 times per day and pay attention to how many likes, shares and comments your posts are getting. The more engagement you have, the more professional you’ll appear.
Our last bit of advice? When sharing images or videos of specific classes or training sessions, always give clear calls to action (CTAs) with how your customers can book classes, sign up with a trainer or purchase a membership. Vagaro’s Booking Widgets make it possible for your followers to book straight from your Facebook & Instagram accounts, in addition to your websites and review sites, like Yelp.
Check out the other ways Vagaro’s booking & gym business management software can help grow your gym or personal training business.
