Tag: engagement

11 fitness content ideas you can use today

If you’re responsible for marketing a fitness brand in any way, it might be challenging at times to think of creative fitness content that not only tells your brand story but also attracts and retains clients.

The goal is to produce high-quality fitness content that’s consistent.

The COVID-19 pandemic reduced the fitness industry’s market size by about 16 percent, so it’s more important than ever to invest at least more time and effort into the effectiveness of your fitness content.

Of course, you’re always going to want to keep your target audience in mind with all content that you produce and publish.

Keep in mind that about 81 percent of Millennials exercise or would like to, compared with only 61 percent of Boomers. So, if you’re not considering Millennials as a group you should target with your fitness content, think again.

The following are 11 fitness content ideas that you can start using today to engage with your audience and grow your fitness business.

Offer tips and advice

You are an expert in your field, so what bits of advice can you highlight in your fitness content? For example, three ways to get more steps in per day or explaining when to stretch (before or after a workout).

You can easily brainstorm ideas by starting with the topics that you get asked most about. 

Then, it’s all about considering where you want specific pieces of content to go. For example, you can dive into a topic with a blog article, but a vibrant infographic would do well on Instagram and so on. 

Share your story

Whether you’re representing an entire gym or acting as an individual fitness trainer, it’s important to share who you are and what drives you.

Perhaps you have a fitness journey to share, or maybe it’s more about you as a gym owner. You could create a video interview diving into your story as a whole and/or post little snippets on different platforms. 

The key is that clients and potential clients have an opportunity to relate to you and form a bond with you.

Of course, if you’re more than a team of one, you’ll want to share the stories of your gym employees as well.

Share client stories

Client testimonials are a powerful form of social proof. Essentially, you’re highlighting different people who are happy with your brand for whatever reason (their results, your customer service, etc.) so that others can see the value of your fitness brand firsthand. 

A simple way to go about this is sharing a photo of the client with a quote, either on the image or in the caption (or both). This could even include before-and-after photo collages. But you could also expand this into short video clips across platforms. 

Check out these five reasons why your business should be creating more videos.

Create workout videos

Now, we’re not referring to a full-on Jane Fonda-style workout video. But you have the built-in opportunity to create and share video clips from before, during or after a workout that be used to inspire viewers and show them a tiny piece of what your fitness brand is about. 

There can be a lot of apprehension for a newcomer when arriving at a gym for the first time. Giving them a peek at what they can expect can be helpful and reassuring. 

You also can focus on breaking down a single exercise and talking through good form and modification options. This also adds to your credibility as a brand.

Offer healthy recipes

Nutrition is a big piece of anyone’s fitness journey, and there is no shortage of healthy recipes that you can highlight and share with your target audience.

Consider making the recipe a graphic image on social media platforms. You can even take it a step further and do a cooking video on YouTube.

Share fitness articles

All content does not have to come directly and uniquely from you. Lean on curated content and share relevant fitness and industry-related articles that you think your audience would appreciate.

The fitness industry is full of evolving trends and research that can be very engaging fitness content. Leveraging it also shows you to be an industry leader.

Just make sure that whatever articles you’re sharing are from a credible source.

Check out our four tips for finding curated content to share on social media.

Show your personality

Consumers don’t just want to connect to a business. They want to connect with the human behind the business. While you want to ensure that your branding offers its own sense of personality, you shouldn’t be afraid to share your own as well.

Clients want to trust you. They’re putting very important personal goals in your hands, so your authenticity is important. 

But a “great personality” can be subjective. Focus on being you, and check out these seven traits of online fitness personalities.

Dive deeper with our five steps to determine your brand personality.

Post inspiring quotes

When thinking about creating engaging fitness content, was inspiring quotes your first thought?

It’s a popular go-to because it really can work. Just make sure that you are:

  • Picking relevant quotes for your audience.
  • Designing the quotes in a graphic illustration so that they’re shareable on social media.
  • Not over-posting quotes. Mix them in but don’t let a majority of your fitness content ride on quotes. Your engagement can trail off without a good mix of content.

Lead a Q&A

Q&As are popular with many audiences, and they give you the opportunity to be the expert in an engaging way.

There are a number of different ways to structure your Q&A based on the platform you decide to use, but just keep in mind that you want to promote your Q&A in advance, accept questions in advance (to fill any gaps or holes during the Q&A itself) and set an engaging topic that drills into what many of your target clients must deal with or face.

In case you’re interested, check out these seven tips for marketing on Quora and other Q&A websites.

Explore promotions

First things first, you should aim to have a majority of your fitness content be organic and non-promotional. But promotions are key to moving the needle toward your goals, especially when done in an engaging way.

Promotions include:

  • Discounts and coupons
  • Contests and giveaways
  • Freebies (otherwise known as premium content), such as workout guide, healthy eating plans and more

Check out our tips for keeping your giveaways legal.

Collaborate with other brands or influencers

Brand or influencer collaboration is a great way to not only reach a new audience but to develop creative content inspired by your partnership.

Of course, you don’t want to dive in with just any brand or influencer. It’s important to do your research on their:

  • Company mission (if it’s a brand)
  • Branding
  • Audience

Then, you can decide if everything that they are and have to offer meshes with your fitness brand. From there, you decide what your partnership will look like and commit to a plan.

Check out our seven tips to know before starting your first influencer marketing campaign.

In conclusion

Ideally, you’re planning regular brainstorms to generate as many fitness content ideas as possible that you can pull from along the way. To stay organized and ensure a great content mix, consider using a content calendar.

While you’re working on creating and sharing the most engaging fitness content, consider DailyStory. Our digital marketing platform integrates with MindBody and Rhinofit to better serve fitness studios and gyms and offers such features as SMS text message marketing, email marketing, automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

10 tips for creating engaging content

While anyone can create content, the key is creating engaging content that helps your brand achieve your goals on social media and beyond.

Engaging content is all about getting results, such as:

  • Click-throughs to your website
  • Overall increase in website traffic
  • Social media mentions, likes, comments and/or shares
  • Opt-ins
  • Conversions
  • Sales

Ask yourself what you want your target audience to do when they consume your content. The extra effort to put out great (rather than just good) content is worth it.

About 69 percent of Twitter users have bought something because of a tweet, but about 65 percent of marketers find it difficult to produce engaging content.

The following are 10 tips for creating engaging content that will drive results for your brand.

Strive for originality

Easier said than done, right? Keep in mind that even though someone else could be talking about the same thing or using a similar image, but it’s all about your unique voice and spin.

Consider leveraging your personal experiences or even customer experiences, depending on what makes sense for your brand. Those are truly unique to you and your brand.

And lean on what makes your brand itself original. Not sure what that is? Check out our nine tips that can be considered a branding walk-through.

Think actionable

When engaging content translates into results, what action do you want your audience to take? 

Consider your goals.

For example, let’s say that you want to promote a new product you’re launching. A salesy blog about the product probably won’t do the trick. Instead, think about creating an “unboxing” video, formatted differently for each social media platform, that can generate interest with a call to action directing consumers to your website to find out more (or offering a discount code to save on purchasing) is a more engaging way to go. 

Of course, there is not a one-size-fits-all single piece of content (no matter how engaging) that will work. Think of every piece of content as simply a drop in the bucket that you can keep adding to in different ways with different angles.

But always keep the point of your content in mind. Draw their attention in and show them the next step that you want them to take. Just keep it simple.

Use (accurate) data

Numbers and statistics can be incredibly engaging in your content. An interesting fact (whether stataed or visually displayed) can catch internet users’ attention. But make sure that whatever data you’re using is accurate and up to date.

Anyone can post anything on the internet essentially. So, double check that you’re pulling your data from a trustworthy source.

Then, use relevant statistics wherever it makes sense to do so. What you use can easily inspire an infographic or a topic for a Facebook or Instagram Live conversation.

Explore storytelling opportunities

While numbers are great, stories are even more compelling.

Storytelling can help you connect with your target audience and boost your authority on a topic, depending.

Be sure to speak or write in a way that’s relatable to your audience, maintaining a conversational tone. Depending on the nature of the story, you want to spur emotions, such as joy or sadness.

Consider a fitness blog. Would you as a consumer want to know the fitness trainer’s list of certifications, or the backstory that inspired that person to get certified in the first place? The two are not exclusive. It’s just about the angle that the content creator takes to engage you. The list of certifications is not going to engage you, but that story might (and you can still see the list, too).

Think about real-time engaging content

The more you know and understand your target audience, the easier it is to identify their interests and plan your content accordingly. Consider asking:

  • What events are they interested in?
  • Which television shows or movies are they watching?
  • What holidays are significant?
  • Are there any special times of year for them (such as summer vacations, tax season or school exam periods)?

Creating content around and related to these real-time events and interests will be that much more engaging for your audience.

Provoke thought

Simply put, you want to make your audience think. Many topics that are related to your industry and brand might fall into a gray zone, where opinions reighn supreme. The idea is to ask the right open-ended questions in your engaging content to spark discussion.

For example, a baby supplies brand could ask its audience what the top tip is that every new mom should know. This can be presented a simple graphically designed image post on a social media platform with the goal of a robust comment thread.

Explore humor

Humor is an excellent way to engage with your audience. Making people laugh forms a stronger bond with your brand.

This can involve sharing a meme, celebrating an unusual holiday or just asking silly questions. Just make sure that what you think is funny is actually funny and not inappropriate, confusing or even offensive.

Humor can definitely go wrong, so tread carefully and stay true to your brand. Check out whether humor is right for your digital marketing.

Involve your followers

About 85 percent of consumers think that visual user-generated content (UGC) is more persuasive than branded photos or videos.

UGC is unpaid or unsponsored social media posts that consumers share about a product or service. Essentially, it’s content created by your audience that you then are resharing with that audience. Not only is it engaging, but it takes some of the burden off of you to create every piece of content from scratch.

Check out our 10 tips to encourage more user-generated content.

Visuals are a must

In this era of digital marketing, your visuals are everything. Images and especially videos are the most engaging types of content online.

Half of social media users prefer video over other types of content, and users share video content with others twice as much as any other type of content.

Take and use original photos as much as you can, and embrace video. Just keep in mind that a vast majority of videos (particularly on Facebook) are watched without sound.

Consider the 10 types of videos you can use in your digital marketing, and check out these 18 video-editing apps that you should know about.

And when photos or videos aren’t an option, consider infographics and other graphic images that you can use. We found these 11 free graphic design tools for the non-designer.

Plus, the right visuals can even increase your email conversions.

Mix up your content

Hold yourself accountable for keeping a fresh mix of content publishing from your brand. The same thing over and over is going to lose your audience’s interest and lose engagement.

Mix in videos with blog shares, polls with photo galleries, whatever makes sense for your brand.

A content calendar can help you stay organized with all your planning and ensure that you’re not overlooking the overall mix of your content. Check out our eight tips to create an effective content calendar.

In conclusion

Creating engaging content takes work, but that work is worth it. Remember your goals every time you plan and execute a new piece of content. Make sure that you’re not just sticking with “good” content but that you’re striving for “great” content.

See our seven tips to level up your content marketing.

As you create more and more engaging content, consider optimizing your digital marketing process, such as automation, audience segmentation and enhanced email marketing capabilities, to name a few. DailyStory can help. Schedule your free demo with us today.