Being A Successful Personal Trainer These Days Is Like Running For President In The U.S…. You Can Talk A Whole Lot Of Shit But If You Have A Big Social Following You Will Win!
It never ceases to amaze me how many self professed fitness gurus, fat loss experts and muscle icons have been created on the back of an Instagram or Facebook page! I mean, you don’t even have to know what you’re talking about to get people to follow you or “Like” your page and pay you money for a generic program or meal plan.
These insta-legends or Facebook Icons literally have millions of followers all waiting for a status update from their pseudo-god(ess) for some direction on what to train or eat for lunch.
Seems that to be successful and make some money, all you really have to do is take your shirt off or show lots of skin and all of a sudden you have broken the code to making squillions!
But this isn’t going to be a blog to fight the natural order of things, you know what they say… “If you can’t beat them , JOIN THEM!”
So, to build a great personal training business you need a social media presence as we know. Which platform you choose will really depend on what kind of niche you’re targeting specifically. But in saying that, it is really hard to beat Facebook for the P2P (person to person) engagement of what it provides!
A good Facebook page will act as your personal website, and even better than a website because is it’s ALIVE!
Once upon a time having a website was what you needed, but a website is somewhat dead due to it’s inability to create engagement whereas a Facebook fan page is living and breathing page that allows you to connect with your followers and lead them to the next step of signing up with you.
The level of interaction you can have on their with your current clients and potential clients is unmatched by any other platform.
Successful personal trainers leverage off this by posting up regular content via blogs, pictures, “Live” feeds, Q&A’s, training videos, motivational quotes etc to get people to engage with them. This creates some kind of relationship with your followers and builds trust.
I’m going to give you 3 basic tips that you can use to help you get your Facebook fan page growing fast(er)…
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Start building your personal Facebook profile up to 5,000 friends!
“Hang on! You were going to tell me how to build my business fan page up!” Yes, but guess what? It’s easier to get 5,000 friends on Facebook first than getting 5,000 followers! Once you have capped out your friends list, you will have 5,000 people that will be able to see you posts from your fan page. It’s a ninja trick to get more people to organically see your content.
If you are using your Facebook profile for personal purposes, you may need to reassess your priorities. Personally, if friends want to know more about me they can call me… I’m shifting my focus for social media for creation v’s consuming content for personal purposes.
The minute you make this mindset shift, you’re now thinking like a fit-preneur (fitness business owner).
Obviously you can also then invite these people or friends to “Like” your fan page. This just exposes your page to more people. The key though is not just to add anyone, it’s to add people that look like your perfect client and live close to where you work.
Best way to do this is look up other pages and add people that you believe look like your perfect client. Just get networking.
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Go “Live” regularly
The key to any social media platform is to be noticed and make noise. Obscurity is your ONLY enemy. Going “Live” is exactly that, it’s meant to be raw, unadulterated T.V. basically. The real deal and unscripted.
Just think about how many shows today are reality T.V.! This is what people want to watch. Don’t be paralysed by the fear of not being perfect. Perfect is boring.
Going “Live” is the best way at the moment to pop up in the news feed of your followers or friends. It’s also a great way to create conversation. The more of this you do the more reach you will get.
If you’re shy, get over it.
You will not be able to build a following without talking on camera. My suggestion would be to have a clear theme or topic that you want to talk about, have it written down somewhere that only you can see so that you don’t get lost in the topic.
Stay congruent with your message for your business and that page and only post or talk about what is relevant and what those people follow you for on that page.
In other words, stay in theme!
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Be authentic
The BIGGEST mistake you could make is to try and copy the tone or style of someone else these days. Your followers will smell the bullshit from a mile away.
I see so often people that are trying to get engagement online by trying to put on attitude or a style across the camera that looks fake by copying others. Be you. You are good enough. Own that shit and you watch people gravitate towards you and be interested in what YOU have to say.
When you talk about what you are PASSIONATE about, you don’t need to copy anyone. Why? Because the passion will come through on camera and will make your content enjoyable and inspiring. This is what attracts people. Be you and let the passion come through.
There are a million other tips and strategies that you could use for your social media, but just start with these if you’re getting started.
At Miyagi, our internship coaches get help and training in how to build their fan pages. We also have guest speakers present at our Miyagi University events on social media subjects to help them learn NINJA tricks to building a great social media presence.
If you would like to find out how Miyagi could help you build a 6 figure business whilst learning the fine art of personal training, visit www.miyagi.fitness/career/ and APPLY to join our growing team in Sydney’s most elite gyms and facilities.
