Using organic social media is very much a long game. It’s a great way to nurture potential clients and build credibility, but it’s also:
- unpredictable
- bound to whatever is trending on the algorithm at the time
- not something you can predictably drive sales with
So, how do you make the best use of organic social media, while minimising the time and attention you dedicate to it?
To become a profitable online fitness coach, you’ll want to focus on the key things that will help drive you forward.
While paid advertising is a better way to attract prospective clients, having a bank of organic content is a great way to maintain relationships with existing clients and convert people who are interested in your content.
But rather than just spending hours of your time on TikTok, make sure that you’re using organic content in a way that works for you. Find out how below 👇🏻
Get a scheduling app
All social media platforms are designed to be addictive – not just for the user, but also for you as the creator.
It’s not sustainable to dip in and out of social media platforms three times a day to manually post content. And you’re likely to become distracted.
It makes you feel good to have likes and comments on something you created. And the platforms rely on this; they need creators as much as they need consumers.
Try to separate out the act of creating content from the act of posting as much as possible.
Getting a scheduling app will really help with this.
We use Publer to schedule our posts, which is the best social media scheduling tool we’ve come across – really smooth to use and includes all sorts of social media platforms. You can use this link to try out the free version.
We also use a tool called Hypefury, which also schedules posts but is specific to Twitter.
Know the difference between feed-based and search-based content
It’s much slower to gain traction with search-based content. But it has a much longer life.
With feed-based content, you get a more noticeable burst of traffic. And you have just as much chance of going viral as a large account. But there can be a drop in activity just a few hours after the initial peak you get from a successful post.
Compare that to our podcast, which we’ve been adding to over several years.
Every day, there are engaged, active people listening to content we produced years ago.
Whether you’re creating search-based content or feed-based content, the end-goal is this:
To get people off that platform and onto your mailing list.
Pick the medium of content that matches your temperament
Think about what you enjoy doing most, and are good at. Then pick a medium that’s a good fit.
- Do you like talking to the camera? Pick YouTube.
- If you’re a good writer and you prefer this medium, go with Twitter and blogging.
- If you’re great at getting good shots of your clients, lean into that by using Instagram.
There is no format that’s the best way of doing things. It really comes down to what works for you.
And don’t copy what everyone else is doing.
If you’re trying to replicate other people’s posts to go viral, remember that gaining more followers doesn’t equate to growing your business.
You’ll look far more authentic (and stand out more) by doing your own thing.
Have a testing framework
Share micro-versions of your content to see what gets the best response.
- If you use Twitter, you can use it to share short excerpts of longer pieces of writing
- If you use YouTube, share shorter clips of some of your video content
This will help tell you what sort of content you should share more of with your audience.
Gary Vee says that the best content creators are the ones who can say the same thing 80,000 different ways.
This might feel like you’re repeating yourself, but remember that not everyone is watching all of your content.
And your content is among hundreds of other things that people see online.
The more specific your message is, and the more you repeat it, the clearer it is to leads and clients.
Find your niche
Find your niche and be clear about how you’re going to get clients to their desired destination. This is what will help you figure out the themes of each week’s content.
Your content should cover:
- The main topic and problems associated with it
- The benefits of reaching a solution to these problems
- Your personal experiences of reaching the same goals your client is aiming for
Basically, content that convinces people that you can help them get results.
Understand the different “flavours” of content
You can see content as having different “flavours”:
Authenticity content: stuff that gives insight into your work (like a “day in the life” vlog)
Growth content: stuff that has potential to go viral or increase reach (this won’t necessarily convert sales)
Authority content: stuff that might convert sales, but doesn’t have viral growth potential
Combining these is what will help you get the results you want.
For example:
- Authority and growth will generate a lot of sales
- Authority and authenticity will generate loyalty
- Growth and authenticity will generate engagement
All three together will give you real leverage. But it’s quite hard to combine all of this in one go. Which is why you should rotate between these combinations to create powerful sales content.
Bulk-post as much as you can
However you’re communicating with clients, whether that’s on social media or by email, post in bulk whenever you can.
Record or write over time to generate loads of clips or pieces of writing you can use. If you’ve been storing information in your second brain, use ideas and notes from here to create the foundations for content.
All of this will ensure things function well when you’re not online.
There are couple of modules in our programme about how to create a conveyor belt of content ideas. You can get in touch to have an informal chat about our programme, and how we can help you grow your online business.
To give you an example of how bulk-posting can benefit your personal training business:
Imagine you have a question from a client about a specific problem.
- You then send an email to your email list, responding to the question
- This leads to a sale
- You then turn the email into a Tweet thread
- The Tweet thread becomes a podcast
- The podcast becomes a YouTube video
- You share clips from the video on TikTok and Instagram
And just like that, you are resonating back to the market what it said to you. And the best thing is, you can automate all of it.
This leads nicely onto our next piece of advice…
Repurpose the shit out of content
Repurpose any piece of long-form content.
Once we’ve recorded our podcast, we’ll chop it into five-minute clips and put it onto YouTube. We’ll then cut it down again for shorter videos on Instagram and TikTok.
Each piece of content will serve different audiences.
Think of content creation as a production line that stems from customers, consumers and the market asking questions and producing the content for us.
Find a way to attribute sales
Finally, it’s so important to know where your sales are coming from. This way, you’ll know you’re focusing your efforts on the right things, and not wasting your time.
Look out for more content on sales attribution in our future videos. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
Find out more about how you can grow your online personal training business
You can book in some time with us if you’d like to have an informal chat with us about how we can help you build your online business.
If you’d like to learn more about our process, what we teach and how our system works, you can grab an overview video here. You can also subscribe to our podcast for more business content.
