Health & Fitness Social Media FAQ's

In a saturated online landscape, cutting through the noise requires clearly conveying why your health and fitness brand stands out.

The best way to do this is by defining your brand’s unique value proposition. Pinpoint your unique selling point (USP) and shape the image you want to project. Highlight what sets you apart and showcase what your brand brings to the table that others can’t match. Consistently communicate your USP through social media content and messaging. 

Here are some examples of how you can do this:

• Share visually compelling stories of client success that resonate emotionally and build credibility. 
• Spotlight transformations, results, and testimonials.
• Partner and collaborate with influencers and experts whose values align with your brand, creating content that is both informative and inspirational.
• Prioritise quality over quantity in your posts and narrow your focus to one or two platforms where you can forge meaningful connections with your niche target audience.

Your goal is to be recognised as a top authority in your health and wellness space.

Instagram’s visual nature makes it the ideal platform to showcase your fitness brand personality. You should use it in the following ways:

• Post stunning, high-quality photos and videos of workouts, healthy recipes, inspirational quotes, or lifestyle snapshots. 
• Use Instagram Stories for more casual and authentic content, including behind-the-scenes footage, Q&A’s, and polls to boost audience engagement.
• Go live or use IGTV for more immersive content like full-length workouts or in-depth health advice. 
• Leverage niche hashtags and geographic tags to connect with your target local audience. 
• Share user-generated content when followers tag you. 
• Collaborate with brand ambassadors and micro influencers aligned to your niche to co-create content and expand your reach. 

Beyond growing your Instagram presence and content cache, ensure you actively engage by responding to all comments and direct messages with thoughtful, value-adding and personal replies. The Insta-savvy modern audience expects real connections and conversations. Use the platform’s interactive features to build an authentic and approachable brand personality that feels relatable at a human level.

While a large fanbase is great, what matters more is having an engaged, targeted audience. 1,000 highly engaged followers often drive better results than 1 million passive followers. Focus on sharing quality content, interacting, and building relationships rather than just driving follower counts.

TikTok is an engaging platform, especially for health and fitness brands looking to creatively boost brand awareness. Some of the best performing content types include:

• Short, simple workout tutorials or challenges: Given TikTok’s short format, concise 15 to 60 second workout clips showcasing popular moves or a targeted challenge tend to thrive and get shared. Boost visibility by using viral and trending sounds.
• Brand storytelling through vlogs: Offer a sneak peak with behind the scenes footage of your business. Share an inside look at the brand journey – how and why it started, overcoming obstacles, goal setting advice. Build authenticity and connection with the audience.
• Client testimonials or ambassador spotlights: Profile client success stories or brand ambassadors sharing their health journeys and fitness results. Show real transformation snippets through motivational reels or shots contrasting starting points versus now after using your programs or products.
• Trend-related challenges and duets: Stay in tune with TikTok trends by putting your own brand spin like starting a custom dance or fitness tradition. Encourage audience participation through hash tagged challenges or brand-specific sounds inviting collaboration. Engaging with trending audios and hashtags expands reach and discovery.

The key is providing bite-sized value tailored for the platform while encouraging creativity and community. Share your expertise and passion while inviting audience co-creation and participation to cut through the dense landscape. Add strong CTAs to channel interest towards lead gen and sales.

As a professional social network, LinkedIn presents ample opportunities for health and fitness brands to assert their thought leadership and industry expertise. Some specific best practices include:

• Joining and actively participating in LinkedIn groups related to your niche like fitness professionals, gym owners, trainers, health coaches etc. Share advice, health and fitness tips and industry insights in discussions.
• Publishing regular LinkedIn articles that provide in-depth analysis into latest fitness research, share key trends in the health space, provide actionable tips for professionals or delve into case studies from your business. Position yourself as a trusted authority.
• Connecting with fitness influencers, health bloggers, gym owners, physical therapists and other professionals in your target network. Offer value by commenting on their posts, providing feedback and partnering on initiatives.
• Following relevant companies in the wellness industry and amplifying their content through likes, shares and commentary. Increase your visibility organically.
• Promoting health and fitness related conferences, seminars, and events through posts and LinkedIn events features. Attend in-person events to grow your professional network.
• Participating in – or better yet hosting – LinkedIn Live videos or podcast interviews to discuss fitness best practices, answer common client questions, highlight a product launch etc.
• Encouraging clients, partners and colleagues to provide recommendations showcasing your subject matter expertise and trustworthiness.

The goal is to engage in consistent value sharing through multiple avenues on LinkedIn. By establishing your credibility and thought leadership, you organically expand visibility and nurture leads for your health and fitness brand.

Influencer marketing is a powerful tactic for health and fitness brands to rapidly expand reach. But simply having influencers passively selling your products will lack authenticity. For meaningful collaborations, identify influencers who genuinely embody your brand ethos around wellness and could personally advocate your programs or products. Some best practices include:

• Research potential brand ambassadors and nano-influencers on Instagram or TikTok hovering around 10K followers with high engagement rates who create fitness or nutrition content aligned to your niche. These grassroots influencers often resonate better with target customers compared to celebrities or high-profile influencers.
• Invite shortlisted influencers to personally sample and test your offerings – perhaps going through a fitness programme or trying supplements. Have them document and share their honest experiences organically through their own channels.
• Co-design a creative influencer campaign, perhaps through customised discount codes or live events. Brief them on key messages or narrative themes but ultimately, encourage influencers to showcase content in their unique voice to ensure authenticity.
• Share their user generated content featuring your brand across your website, product listing pages or reposting on your social channels.

Strategically selecting respected influencers as genuine brand advocates will boost your brand’s credibility, while sending targeted traffic to your digital channels.

Influencer marketing starts with identifying the right brand allies who can organically promote your health and fitness offering to an aligned audience. You want to evaluate beyond vanity metrics and truly gauge influence. Use a multi-pronged approach:

• Search Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube using relevant hashtags and keywords related to your niche. Scout fitness influencers talking about topics related to the health and fitness industry, like gym life, workouts, nutrition etc.
• Leverage influencer marketing platforms like Upfluence to search by demographic filters like age, gender and interest areas. 
• Screen shortlisted influencer accounts assessing content quality, consistency and alignment with your brand vibes. Do their posts seem authentic and creative?
• Analyse engagement metrics like follower count growth rate, views, likes, comments, save rates. Are people genuinely connecting?
• Evaluate audience demographics and inbound traffic to assess relevance. A big following and large engagement will mean nothing if the people they’re reaching won’t be interested in your offers. It’s better to choose an influencer that is reaching a smaller audience if that audience contains a high proportion of your ideal clients.
• Weigh micro vs macro sizing based on campaign goals. Micro influencers with 1K to 100K followers will foster community while big names will expand brand awareness.
• Verify logistics – Do they create branded content? What are typical fees or existing sponsorship deals?

Finalise options and directly pitch collaborations personalised to how the influencers themselves could benefit. Propose a partnership that allows influencers to creatively integrate your brand into their content.

Generating fresh social media content consistently can be challenging. A smart workaround is to maximise assets you’ve already created like blog articles, videos or podcasts. The key lies in repackaging existing long-form content into new bite-sized formats tailored for different platforms.

Here are some ideas on how to repurpose content for health and fitness brands:

• Share short 60 second video clips from IGTV or Youtube workout tutorials or wellness advice to share natively on TikTok or Instagram Reels. Add trending music and sound effects to boost reach.
• Screengrab infographics or key visuals from blog posts or eBooks to create engaging photo or carousel posts highlighting insights without needing to rewrite summaries.
• Transcribe small snippets or key quotes from podcast interviews into short shareable video clips using generated subtitles and branding.
• Record a new intro or outro from a podcast episode to feature on Youtube Shorts or as condensed clips teasing back to full audio for streaming platforms.
• Promote a free chapter preview from a fitness guide or sample recipe from a cookbook through link-in-bio or swipe up Instagram Stories.
• Create an audiogram by overlaying podcast audio with relevant imagery in Canva to publish on Twitter or LinkedIn. Add captions for accessibility.

Repurposing should be strategic rather than spammy. Use platform appropriate formats to direct traffic from short snappy teasers back to in-depth evergreen assets. This ultimately extends content shelf life and mileage.

Actively engaging with your audience is essential to ensure that you’re not just broadcasting content into the void. Social media facilitates two-way conversations where followers expect personal connections with real humans behind brands.

Ways to meaningfully interact include:

• Responding to every comment on your posts – answer questions, provide guidance when asked, express gratitude for appreciation.
• Following back followers and liking their content.
• Hosting regularly scheduled Live Q&As and real-time workouts builds rapport when directly addressing fans.
• Sharing user generated content or running campaigns spotlighting clients makes them feel valued.
• Messaging those who tagged or mentioned your business thanking them for the exposure.
• Conducting polls and contests encourages lighthearted participation.
• Joining Facebook Groups or Subreddits related to your niche to answer industry questions and offer input demonstrates expertise.
• Set notifications when mentioned and dedicate 15-20 min daily to proactively engaging. 

Social media facilitates genuine two-way communication between brands and communities passionate about health, wellness and fitness. Be just as excited to listen as you are to share your own content!

An integrated approach combining email marketing and social media can powerfully amplify your health and fitness brand reach. Follow these best practices:

• Strategically cross-promote content across the platforms – share your latest email newsletter issue or guide on social media to boost visibility while teasing access to exclusive content or contests for email list members only to incentivise sign-ups.
• Run social media giveaways or lead magnets offering free trials of your fitness programs or eCookbooks in exchange for email sign-ups building your subscriber list.
• Personalise email newsletter content for subscribers based on their social media interactions with your brand – this shows you pay attention at an individual level.
• Tag and showcase your most engaged email subscribers on social media as a loyalty perk.
• Make it easy for email recipients to further spread your content by adding social sharing buttons and integrating email sign up forms seamlessly on socials.
• Analyse cross-channel data from your social media audience and email list subscribers to identify common demographics, content preferences and peak engagement times for both to synchronise marketing.
• Continually track links between channels measuring email click to open rates against social media traffic referrals and follower growth to optimise integrated efforts.

By coordinating social media and email touchpoints across the customer journey, you create memorable omnichannel brand experiences and mutually reinforce exposure and subscriber actions.

User-generated content (UGC) reflecting real customer stories and brand love plays a hugely valuable role in social media marketing for health and fitness brands. This authentic third-party advocacy and creative participation makes for compelling social proof.

Best practices for effectively using UGC include:

• Run contests and hashtag campaigns prompting users to share their journeys – whether that’s showcasing before-after pics, favourite healthy recipes from your cookbooks, workout successes or even branded product unboxing videos. Incentivise users to create UGC by resharing their content on your platforms.
• Make it easy for followers to tag your brand in their posts through dedicated geo and brand hashtags. Proactively trace and engage with reviewers.
• Reshare UGC showcasing transformations or creatively aligned content to your brand feed rather than just stories. 
• Seek customers’ consent beforehand to potentially republish UGC in marketing materials like testimonials and product listings.

Encouraging UGC makes audiences feel valued as co-creators vs just passive viewers. The organic advocacy also lends credibility as your health products or programmes are seen to be working for real people.

As attention spans shrink across crowded social feeds, ensuring your health and fitness brand instantly stands out on first glance and continues to resonate during deeper interaction requires strict adherence to brand guidelines.

Define distinct brand pillars around persona, visual identity, logo usage, typography and colour palettes right from launch. Create an easily referenced style guide specifying what is on-brand across:

• Photos: Style, filters, lighting, imagery types aligned to your niche
• Videos: Length, editing, captions, music, aspect ratio
• Copy: Formatting, tense, banned words, tone of voice
• Graphics: Filter types, iconography, illustration style, accents
• Colour scheme: Primary, secondary and accent shades with exact hex codes
• Typography: Branded font styles and hierarchy for headlines/body

Implement asset libraries and permission controls in channel management tools. Conduct initial brand workshops and refresher training for all cross functional teams including in-house creators, influencers, collaborating trainers etc to ensure consistency.

Branding consistency is essential as every post shapes cumulative brand perception and disconnected content dilutes equity built over time. Beyond aesthetics, strict guidelines signal credibility and boost brand recognition across multiple platforms.

Instagram Feed:

• High-Quality Photos & Videos: Invest time into professional lighting, composition, editing aligned to polished brand guidelines. 

• Evergreen & Educational Content: Blog article excerpts, trainer tips, stretch tutorials, recipe snippets. Aim to inform and inspire rather than hard selling.

• Goal-Oriented CTAs: Promote high-intent offers clearly like your 6-week challenge enrollment, product launches, programme discounts etc. 

• Thought Leadership: Spotlight media features, awards won, and PR announcements to reinforce industry authority.

Instagram Stories:

• Raw Behind-the-Scenes: Share videos of company retreats, new product brainstorms and event setups.

• Announcements: Share new blog posts, fitness class schedule updates, or new equipment in your gym.

• Audience Engagement: Use poll sticker questions, emoji slider feedback requests, Add Yours photo + video prompts.

• UGC & Reviews: Reshare user-generated event pics/videos, testimonials and reviews. 

Balance nurturing your polished brand image on your main Instagram feed while bringing out the relatable human personality behind it on Stories. 

Launching a successful social media ad campaign requires nailing down a few key strategies tailored to the health and fitness niche:

• Define your target audience precisely based on demographics, interests, behaviours and intent signals.
• Create attention-grabbing visuals and succinct ad copy with a clear call-to-action.
• Implement pixel tracking and custom audiences to retarget warm leads.
• Shift your budget to high performing ad placements and creative to optimise the impact of ad spend.
• Boost posts that showcase transformation stories and client testimonials to add authenticity and relatability to your campaign.
• Collaborate with influencers in the health space to tap into their engaged audience and expand your reach.
• Continuously analyse performance data – return on ad spend, cost per lead, and overall conversions
• Optimise targeting over time based on demographic and behavioural data to ensure your ads reach the most receptive audience.
• Conduct A/B tests on ad creative, offers, and messaging to identify the most effective combinations for your audience.
• Iterate quickly based on the insights gathered to maintain momentum in your campaign.

When allocating a paid social media budget, begin by clarifying your key performance indicators – are you prioritising brand awareness, lead generation via contest sign-ups, ebook downloads, website traffic or return on ad spend? Define the audience targeting tactics and engagement goals per platform like video views on Facebook or impressions on Instagram. These metrics will guide your spending.

As a general guideline, health and fitness brands should plan to dedicate at least £500 per month to paid ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. This provides a reasonable starting budget to begin testing and optimising campaign performance.

For brands focused exclusively on paid ads without an organic social media presence, a monthly paid ad budget closer to £1000 is advisable to stand out and achieve results. With the higher budget, you gain access to more advanced targeting options and improved visibility.

For brands that have invested in building an organic social media following through valuable free content and engagement, a paid ad budget around £500 per month to promote that content can be effective. The existing audience base will supplement paid post promotion. 

Long term, you want to aim for a viable customer acquisition cost through paid social channels. Benchmark against industry standards. Continually assess returns on ad spend based on conversions, and scale back if you’re seeing diminishing returns. Reinvest gains into testing new offerings, fitness programmes or products.