Gym Owner’s Best Practices for Social Media

Are you winning with your gym’s social media? Are you keeping score? 

As a gym owner, social media can be a powerful tool to promote your business, connect with your members, and attract new leads. But only if you give yourself a fighting chance by adopting some basic best practices and fundamentals.  

None of this has to be too onerous, but if you want to put social media to work in your business you need to get the foundation right. Here are the five key steps to building a solid one: 

1.  Keep your profiles updated. 

Not everyone is going to go to visit your website to get information. Often, members and potential members simply search for you on their favorite social platform. If your profile isn’t up to date with your gym’s current information and branding, it’s an opportunity lost.  

Even if you don’t actively use the channel, you never know when someone might happen by. Picture social media like a shop front. If someone walks past, and you’re closed, can they easily see how to reach you?   

Keep your bios and ‘about’ pages up to date with your current hours and contact details, and be sure to add any current promotions. If I prefer to pick up the phone to speak to someone, can I contact you? What about email?  

Another way to think about your profile is as a billboard on a highway. You wouldn’t have old or missing contact information on that, would you?  

2.  Create a content strategy and plan. 

The first step to social media success is to create a content strategy.  Again, this can sound like a big job, but it really doesn’t have to be. Just start by making a rough plan for some content ahead of time, and make sure it aligns with your business goals, brand and promotions schedule.  

That plan could include a post every day, or once a week, or even once a month. The frequency is less important than every post having a good, clear reason for existing. An intentional content feed will make your business look more professional, and give your followers a reason to stay.  

Need some inspiration? Your content strategy could include a mix of: 

• Fitness tips 
• Motivational quotes 
• Nutrition advice 
• Behind-the-scenes glimpses into your gym 
• User generated content (more on this later)  

By creating a steady and consistent stream of content, you can keep your followers continually engaged with the story you want to tell about your club and services. 

3. Engage with your followers. 

This might sound obvious, but the importance of it cannot be overstated. It’s called ‘social’ media for a reason, yet it’s one of the things most businesses do a really poor job of. Get this right, and you’ll already be a step up. 

Social media is a two-way conversation. Your followers aren’t there to have you throw content at them and then walk away, so find ways to interact with them!. Respond to comments and messages promptly, and ask questions to encourage responses back. By being active other members, and most importantly potential members, can see that You’re an engaged, available, interested business owner. 

. Oh, and make sure that engagement extends to any negative comments, too. It can feel scary, but having open, honest conversations with someone who is disappointed (for whatever reason) is a powerful way to build trust with your audience. 

4.  Encourage User Generated Content 

What’s better than making your own content? Having someone else make it for you 💁 And, by the way, it might just turn out to be better and more effective content. 

Encourage your followers to share pictures and videos of themselves working out at your gym. This will help create a sense of community and social proof, and give potential members some real-life insight into the feeling inside your gym. This is a simple but powerful way to attract the right kind of customers for your business.  There is nothing more authentic and powerful than a testimonial from a client. 

Encourage your members to share their fitness journeys and tag your gym in their posts. Then, with their permission, re-share them to your feed. By building a community around your gym, you can create a sense of belonging that keeps your members coming back and new ones signing up. 

5.  Monitor your analytics 

To win the game, you must know the score.  

So, to measure the success of your social media efforts, it’s important to check your analytics. Keep track of your social media metrics to understand what content resonates with your audience. Did a particular post seem to resonate more than others? Why? Can you create more like it? 

Did a series of posts you thought would go great just…fall flat? Try and understand why, and how you could make them connect better with your community. 

It sounds simple, but doing this is an easy way to make data-driven decisions for marketing your gym. By tracking your social media metrics, you can ensure your efforts are paying off in terms of engagement, leads, and conversions. 

Social media is a powerful tool for gym owners to promote their business, connect with their members, and capture new leads. But before you can get too fancy and complicated, and before you’ll start seeing it work for you, you have to start with the right foundation. 

Are you ready to spend the time building it? 

 

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