Digital Media Puts a Human Face On Business

Here’s an ironic fact: Digital media can actually add a human touch to your gym! In this day and age it’s absolutely imperative that, as a business owner, you take full advantage of the low-cost high-impact resources that you can find online, in social media, blogging and video blogging. If you’re a bit more ambitious, even podcasting can be a great way to promote your gym.

The subject of social media is vast and rapidly changing. I’m just going to put this out there as an idea. It’s just a quick overview, an attempt to say that this is something that’s worth looking in to. In fact, there is probably no way to avoid it! So you need to start coming to terms and trying to make an impact with your own particular fitness brand.

Secrets of Social Posting

Why do you need a social media presence? Because that is the way that you reach the audience that has the most interest in becoming your future membership. It also lines readers up to enter your sales funnel with very little effort on your part, beyond the initial effort of publishing the content in the first place. Once it’s out there and you’ve fine-tuned your approach it will do the work for you as a passive source of business. Once you set it up it does all of the work for you. You can use social media and other online resources as a personal knowledge base and as a way to attract and support your membership.

All too often, content creators jump in with huge enthusiasm and then fail to keep up with it. This is worse than useless because it’s like parking an old car in your driveway that you intend to fix up "someday". It sends exactly the wrong message, whether it’s that rusty hulk or the abandoned Facebook page. There is a little secret to posting on social media of all descriptions that is so obvious that most content creators just never realize it: Be consistent in your rate of posting.

The key to this secret is that production of content at even a slow but steady rate will add up. An archive of the content that you’ve posted over the past year or two can turn into a real asset that draws an audience and increases your credibility over time. A volume of work, produced at a steady rate is also the sort of behavior pattern that the search engines will recognize as high-value content. It’s what they are looking for that will eventually make it to the front page of search listings.

Where and What To Post

Decide where you want to be active. It might be one of the big social sites like Facebook or Twitter or a specialized gym related community but try not to spread your efforts too thinly across too many networks. Make time each week to do whatever kind of writing you feel comfortable with. Recruit any of your team who has sufficient enthusiasm to write as much as they’re willing. Keep an eye open for responses and comments and make sure you reply appropriately. You’re looking to kick-start a conversation. One suggestion that I’ve made before is to try using YouTube to create visual content such as short tours, how-to guides and demos of your gym.

And On The Extreme End

If you have much to say and the time and resources to do it then perhaps you might wish to record a weekly podcast. It’s easy to start and get reasonable results with little or no investment. If you want to go big then look up podcasting, there are plenty of examples and experts who want to tell you how to do it right. But when it comes to the content it’s up to you, what you have to say and who you are able to rope into having a recorded discussion. If you pitch it as a way to reach a committed audience then you can attract personalities and people who want to reach out to your niche for whatever reason.

Social posting requires the same sort of discipline that goes into physical fitness. The rewards are equally satisfying, as commitment and dedication will build an audience that, in time, will become a community and a supporting network for your brand. A little social media can go a long way and, after all, this is where people are really spending their social time these days; to be left behind in the digital realm is to be left out in the cold, missing the largest and most readily available market from which to build your membership.

Over to you…

Do you have a consistent social posting schedule?

If so, where and when do you post?