What formats work best on Instagram for a personal trainer?
A personal trainer's Instagram has to be their best cover letter, but we're sure you'll wonder why. Well, this network has become the favorite of more than 1 billion people around the world and this figure, every year, continues to increase. According to a current study by Statista, in Spain, Instagram has 20 million users, representing a growth of 25% compared to 2019. Following this line, 56% of Spaniards say they use the aforementioned social platform several times a day, while 25% use it once a day. This shows us that Instagram, for a personal trainer, is the best means of entertainment and information to impact their target audience. So if you are also a nutritionist, yoga instructor, crossfit instructor, in short, a fitness professional, you should integrate Instagram into your customer acquisition and loyalty strategy. And now you will surely wonder... But what benefits can using Instagram give me if I'm a personal trainer?Very easy... to help you develop and boost your personal brand. Instagram, for a personal trainer, is a window, a place close and accessible to anyone, that helps to establish direct and pleasant relationships with clients.
Let's look at the 10 Instagram basics that every personal trainer should use to boost their fitness business.
#1 Instagram Stories
Instagram shows the feed in order of relevance and not chronologically, so if we wanted to look at the most recent of a specific user, we'll have to go to their stories. Let's quickly see how the Instagram algorithm does its thing to show (or not) our content:
- Because of the relationship: The algorithm assumes that if there are people who interact with your account, it means that they will then be interested in each new content you publish. Here you'll have to see if they follow each other, if they search for you by name, if they tag you, comment on you, and even if they save your posts.
- For the present: Assume that the most recent posts are the most desired by users. This means that you should be aware of posting at the times when your audience is online.
- Out of interest: The algorithm is as cool as you are as a personal trainer. He knows perfectly well who to assign the Cristiano and Messi memes, the videos of cute animals (to us, heh) and of course, the fitness content to those who dedicate themselves to it or lead a healthy life. So you know how it works... it gives each user what they want to see (or what they think they want to see).
We recommend that you share stories about your clients and their evolution (with their consent), about you working on their training programs or even about your lifestyle and holidays (food, things you do for entertainment or to disconnect). Those stories that you consider to be relevant information for your followers, highlight them in your profile! This will allow you to improve your relationship with your customers, making them feel like they are part of your daily life. In the end, we all like to see real people behind our favorite brands.
#2 Reels
The reels are here to stay. This functionality (not too old) will help you increase your engagement and increase the visibility of your brand, that is, improve your commitment or relationship with your potential customers. Let's get to the point... What you can do with Reels:
- Create short videos of up to 15 seconds.
- Add creative filters and effects from a pre-designed collection.
- Add music that already exists or created by you.
- Increase or decrease the speed of a video.
- Post your video in the Stories section or feed, or send it to another user as a direct message.
- See the most popular videos in the Top Reels section.
#3 Carousel of simple yet attractive images
Instagram has this wonderful format that allows you to upload up to 10 contents at once as if it were a story or photo album. You can plan the content of the different images in this way:
- First: headline.
- Second: introduction.
- Photo 3-7: offers the solution to the problem to capture their attention.
- Photo 8-9: Show results to awaken desire.
- Last image: ask and invite to share or save the post.
Even if you want your post not to go unnoticed in the feed, you can use the 1080 x 1350 measure, which occupies the entire screen and therefore generates greater attraction and interaction.
#4 Lives
Instagram live will be your salvation if you are looking to connect and make yourself known with your followers, launch a product or service or even conduct interviews with leaders in the area. Now, let's see what you can do with it:
- Stream videos in real time.
- Engage with your audience during the session.
- Include guests who support or strengthen the message you're conveying.
- Set comments that are important or relevant to the topic of conversation.
- Save the session as IGTV so that other people can visit it whenever they want.
Basically, the key is to share experiences with your followers and make them live them firsthand.
#5 Videos instead of images with long texts
The videos report amazing results in many ways:
- They help you increase engagement.
- They are ideal for creating promotional content.
- They get people to stop and see what your content is about.
- They convey the values of your brand.
Here we refer to the importance of knowing how to write persuasively and having a customer acquisition strategy that is effective to apply to your content. When we talk about not using long texts, it's precisely to prevent people who find your post in the feed from going through it because they have to read so much while trying to watch the video. Let's be honest, nobody likes a bunch of words.
#6 Personalized messages
As your number of followers grows, the task of speaking directly to a type of client becomes more and more complicated. But this should be a concern for no one, especially for a personal trainer. Instagram has a great feature so you don't have any excuse to respond to your customers or followers on time, either by direct message or post comments.And this magic function is... Instagram ✨ automatic repliesWith it, you can generate automatic responses based on filters that you'll have to pre-configure (don't be scared, it's very easy and intuitive). In addition, it offers the option of choosing if you want to reply to all messages automatically, or to a few. Let's see how you can create them:
- Go to the Direct Messages section.
- Open any conversation.
- Tap the “+” icon.
- Click the three dots icon.
- There you start typing the name of the category and the full message.
#7 Hashtags
Hashtags on Instagram help users find or discover content of interest. If you don't know what hashtags to use, research what other personal trainers are doing or what the big brands in the fitness sector are using. Not long ago it was recommended to use 30 hashtags per post to position your posts correctly, but rumors now say that Instagram will better position those posts that use no more than 3. As this information is not confirmed, we will tell you what will really work for you regardless of the number of Hashtags you want to use... place them in the comments. That's where the key is. Do you want to test if this is true? Do this:
- Publish any post.
- Place the Hashtags in the comments immediately.
- Tap one of the Hashtags placed to direct you to those grouped with that tag.
- Select the part that says “recent”.
- That's where your post has to be.
- PS: If it doesn't appear, you probably have a shadow ban (a “punishment” that Instagram applies to those who abuse the platform).
#8 Links
This point will be very brief. Placing links in your Instagram profile biography can help you with a lot of things. One of them is to receive more visits to your website if that is your objective, although you can also place a link to other things: products or services you offer, special content that you want them to see, a course, the management platform for personal trainers the one you work with, etc.
#9 IGTV
As the name suggests, it works like a television channel within Instagram. Basically, it will allow you to view and upload videos in vertical format with a duration of up to 1 hour. Let's say it's the perfect alternative to YouTube. Unlike the reels or videos we mentioned in the previous points, this format will allow you to upload attractive, full-length videos. It's a very useful function, especially for saving your Lives, This prevents information as important as the one you commented on in that session from being lost. Let's take a look at some of its advantages in detail:
- You can add links to your videos that take people directly to your website or online store, to get qualified leads (that is, users that you can consider as sales opportunities).
- Promote your business with video marketing. It allows you to present everything you offer in an attractive and original way, differentiating yourself from other fitness professionals.
- Increase your followers thanks to the channels: The channels you generate, when followed by users, automatically add a follower to your profile. So notifications for likes and comments will appear directly in your notification center.
#10 Tags
To the point. With labels you have two very important things to do:
- The main thing: If a customer shares a photo mentioning you, do it Repost or mention it back in one of your stories, for example.
- If you upload content using or mentioning a product that you usually use or recommend (for example), tag the brand or responsible person. This will help your customers know where they can buy what their personal trainer is promoting or sharing. Even the other person or brand could do it to you repost, or that would make you even more visible.
All right. So far we've come up with the basics of Instagram for fitness CRACKS (like you)
) .But wait! To stand out from other personal trainers, you'll need to have a tool capable of saving you time and effort in management that they don't let you dedicate yourself 100% to your customers. And guess what? We have it too!
