If we said you could have free advertising for your gym, with access to millions of viewers, would you take us up on it?
Well the good news is, you already do – it’s your Instagram!
The only thing that holds you back from fully utilising the power of your Instagram page is how you use it. We’ve already gone into how paid advertising on the Instagram and Facebook has been broken recently, but that doesn’t mean that you still can’t grow a successful and engaging community on Instagram.
There are so many recent changes to Instagram lately that you need to implement to maximise your reach. So keep reading and discover our 5 top tips to growing your gym’s instagram page without spending a penny.
Tip 1 – Start Using Instagram Reels
Instagram Reels are the new photo posts. More and more users cite that video is their preferred way to consume content on the internet.
Creating small 60 second videos and spreading your message is the new way forward on Instagram, to mix up your content beyond just images.
It should be no surprise that Instagram wants you to use its newest and most popular features, so Instagram actually pushes your reel posts much harder than normal posts. This gives you more chances to be seen by more people and therefore grow your follower count much quicker.
And the good news is, you don’t need to be super tech-savvy to create good content with Instagram Reels.
Here is a super quick tutorial on how to set up a reel:
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Go into the Reels creation screen and tap on the photo square in the bottom left corner of your screen. …
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Select one or more videos to create your Reel.
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Edit the length of each video, one by one until you have reached the 15 second maximum time.
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Then click the back arrow to watch the whole video.
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Add some music to it OR a voice over. A voice over feature is brilliant for gym tutorial videos. Get your staff and PTs involved and use their knowledge.
With just a few simple steps, you now have engaging content, which contains more of your club’s personality, reaching more people than ever before.
So experiment between your regular posts and your new Instagram reels and see which one brings you more attention.
Tip 2 – Switch To A ‘Business Account
If you don’t have one already, ensure you have a business account on Instagram.
Beyond just sounding more professional, a business account for your Instagram gives you access to more analytics which can help guide the kind of content you want to make.
You see everything from when your followers are active, so you can post strategically to get maximum views; All the way to the demographics who are watching your content, so you can post content which suits your members.
For example, if your gym has got 60% male following and you want to engage with more female followers, you can easily identify this and post more content that women relate to in the gym.
You can see these by clicking the ‘Insights’ button on your main menu.
Great social media is equal parts art and science (with a dash of consistency)
Tip 3 – Re-Share Your Customers Tags
When your members tag you in a story or post, try to re-share their posts to encourage more customers to share and tag you in their own content.
If you can make your members feel special and included in your community, then you can truly build a loyal customer base.
However, don’t get too re-share happy. Be mindful of re-sharing the same content too many times. Once is plenty, as there is nothing worse than seeing accounts re-share the re-shared post over and over to pretend like they have something to say.
Instagram is all about trying to widen your reach, and one of the main source of new followers will be from tags. To tag someone in a post or story type ‘@’ followed by the account name.
So give it a go, here’s just a few ways you could shout out your members:
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Shout out your members who have been signed up with you for the longest.
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Celebrate members who have hit their fitness goals and made the most improvement.
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Make it a routine of tagging every single new member to your gym and give them a warm welcome.
The possibilities for engaging with your audience are truly endless if you make it a part of your business’ philosophy!
Tip 4 – Use Old Content That Did Well
If creating new content is taking up too much time, well we have some good news for you: You can just recycle old content.
Don’t be afraid to re-post an old post that is already featured on your page.
Posts that did well before, did well for a reason. So don’t waste them!
Whenever you post, only a fraction of your audience will ever see that post, so it will always be fresh even when you share it again. Maybe some of your new followers will benefit from seeing it who weren’t around the first time as well!
It takes a long time to build trust in your service and brand. Consumers need to see your service multiple times to be convinced to sign up or buy what you are selling, so make sure to maximise value from every single post, so your brand is always at the forefront of your potential members’ minds when they’re looking for their next gym home.
Tip 5 – The 10k Followers Limit To Link In Your Stories Is Gone!
Recently IG has changed its restriction for smaller accounts to add links to their stories.
The traditional ‘swipe up’ feature is still only available to accounts with more than 10,000 followers but now any account can add a ‘link’ feature to a story.
This means that you can link this to your gym ‘Join online’ page, or a product like Personal Training.
So start creating a journey and plan to get your Instagram viewers over to your gym’s website. It’s time to turn your social media marketing into profit!
Instagram is at its peak…so don’t miss it!
It can be very easy to assume that a social media platform will be around forever and you can get round to making the most of it someday when you have more time.
But social medias change. Facebook was once seen as a goliath of social media, but it’s reporting a drop in user numbers for the first time ever. And it’s no surprise, that when a social media platform wants to maximise its profits, then it can quickly become a “pay to play” service, where you start having to spend a lot of money to get a basic reach to your audience.
Instagram has been around for a few years, but it’s still finding its feet and has so much potential.
Its audience numbers are growing, and most importantly, it’s still being used by a younger audience who haven’t abandoned it for the latest social media trend.
So take advantage of the moment and start experimenting with your Instagram’s business page. You never know, you might just discover the fun in your marketing again!
Get the notebook out and start brainstorming ideas with your team!
And we can help…
As you can see, we really get stuck into every aspect of helping gyms and clubs succeed. Our success is directly tied to the success of our partnered clubs, so we are always ensuring that we’re at the cutting edge when it comes to helping all of our gyms grow and market themselves effectively.
If you’d like to get in touch about how we can help your club succeed, then you can always book a demo with our sales director, Grant Harrison, who would love to show you how our full club management package can help you improve and grow every aspect of your business.