In the modern day and age, the importance of an organisation’s social media presence cannot be underestimated or undervalued. An industry which has great opportunities to utilise these different platforms to its benefits, is the fitness industry. Timeline’s are inundated with pictures and videos of personal trainers and fitness models posting almost hourly updates of either themselves or clients, with followers frantically double tapping posts made by their favourite ‘fitspirations’.
***DISCLAIMER*** FITNESS RELATED PUNS TO FOLLOW
So,what exactly needs to be done in order to streamline (or as we’re talking fitness, lean line) your social media presence in the fitness industry? This post will aim to break down a social media audit into 6 steps and in turn step up, (another fitness related pun, see disclaimer) your social media presence.
Step 1: Create a social media spreadsheet
In excel or equivalent, list all of the current social media pages that are currently active under the selected company (you can also use social media pages associated with independent personal trainers or fitness influencers) When you have completed that, you will also need to list any information those platforms such as usernames, follower numbers, URL links and number of posts.
Another very important piece of information to put into the spreadsheet would what page on search engines such as Google your organisation’s social media pages appear on. At this point it may also be worth checking if there are any rogue or fake accounts imitating your accounts.
Template for social media audit spreadsheet
Step 2: Look through your social media platforms
Essential to using social media effectively in any industry, not exclusively the fitness industry, is consistency. The language used across different platforms should be consistent and relative to the type of message you want to convey to your audience.
A major part of this language on your social media is the use of #HASHTAGS which should align throughout your digital platforms. An example of this would be PureGym, who are the largest gym company in the UK in terms of number of gyms, and their use of #ImPureGymMotivated when reposting members posts on Instagram or Twitter when tagged. Additionally, other #HASHTAGS such as #MondayMotivation which are more industry wide. (see below)
Example Instagram post using #mondaymotivation from @jackfalahee
Use the above hashtag and you could win a FREE month membership! Show us what motivates you! #PureGym #Hednesford #Cannock #Fitness #Gym #Motivation #Healthy #Diet #Cardio #Nutrition #Sweat #Weights #GirlsWhoLift #Stafford #Rugeley pic.twitter.com/aDg49LTts0
— Pure Gym Hednesford (@PGHednesford) November 27, 2017
Example Tweet using #ImPureGymMotivated from PureGym account @PGHednesford
Step 3: Use analytics tools to view engagement on platforms and pages
After viewing your social media pages, it is time to analyse your organisation’s performance. Four social media platforms which could be used in the fitness industry as an example, could be Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
There are many different analytical tools which can be used for all of these platforms, with some offering in built analytics such as Facebook insights or YouTube analytics. For social media platforms apps are available to link to accounts such as “Instagram Insights”.
Step 4: Choose what metrics to analyse and look for include.
Below are a few of the metrics which could be analysed when looking at your social media performance:
- Number of impressions on posts
- Engagements with posts
- Top performing posts
- Demographics and location of audience
- Reach of posts
- Views on posts
- Digital platform content being viewed on
Step 5: Choose the audience you want to target
After using different analytical tools to look at a range (of movement, fitness pun number 3) of different metrics on your social media platforms, it is then a good idea to compare your main audience demographics regarding age, gender and location of the people engaging in posts. It is important to do this to ensure that the posts on your social media platforms are relevant and specific to your audience, this in time should help lead to enhanced engagement on your platforms.
Step 6: Review objectives and goals
Finally, your social media post media audit is nearly completed (exhausting I know). It is time to look at your social media performance, so an example of a goal or objective which may need to be changed after a social media audit could be to increase the number of video posts made on your Instagram page. So for instance, after looking at your organisation’s Instagram analytics you see you averaged two video posts a week and they were some of your top posts in terms of likes and engagement, you may want to increase the amount of video posts to at least five a week.
Summary
Hopefully, this post has helped you understand how to carry out an effective social media audit in the fitness industry and I would like to think if you or your organisation follow these steps, it will ABSo-GLUTEly enhance your social media performance and engagement. (Had to finish with a pun!)
References
(Reference for statistic for PureGym)
https://twitter.com/PGHednesford/status/935193432171171840
(tweet)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcArO8FA-dW/?hl=en&tagged=mondaymotivation
(instagram post)