There’s a large market for fitness influencers and a lot of people want to listen to those in the know about health and exercise. So, how do you succeed as a fitness influencer – we take a look below.
Researching your niche
You should research more about the niche you are going to post about because the last thing is to get started with the process blind.
- A good way to do this is to check out successful fitness influencers in your niche. You should also check out fitness brands because you can learn a lot about them.
- See the content these influencers and brands are posting. See how they engage with the audience.
- What type of content is the audience hooked to?
- Which types of influencers and brands collaborate with?
- When you get the information from researching, you can improve on it.
Defining Your Goals and Developing a Strategy
It is important to be clear about your objectives because it helps a lot.
- Are you doing this because you want people to be interested in a given sport? Are you doing it to encourage people to choose a vegan lifestyle?
- What type of people are you targeting?
- How many followers do you want to gain both in the short and long term?
When you answer the above questions, it will go a long way in helping you define and streamline your goals. There is a higher chance of failure for those without goals because they don’t have anything guiding them.
When you define your goals, you can start developing a strategy to reach them. You can’t achieve your goals if you don’t have a strategy in place. Some of the things to be covered in the strategy include the time you should post, how many times to post, which platforms to use, getting brand partnerships, and building engagements.
Choosing a Social Media Platform
With many social media platforms out there, it is not a good idea to focus on many of them. Begin with one or two platforms and put all of your efforts there.
It is hard to create content for all of the social media platforms when getting started. You can then scale your content to other platforms after some time.
You will see faster growth when you focus on creating content for a given audience on a single platform.
Some of the most popular platforms include Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter.
Finding Your Tone/Voice
If you want to become a fitness influencer, you need to find your own voice.
You should ask yourself what is the first impression of you someone is going to have when they visit your profile.
The impression they get when they come across your profile is going to determine whether they follow you or not. Your main job as a fitness influencer is helping people who have fitness challenges. You need to have a tone that reflects that. It is important to be consistent with your voice because that is what helps in building a trustworthy brand.
Posting High-Quality Videos and Images
This sounds like an obvious thing, but you need to keep it in mind. The content you share needs to be high-quality no matter the platform you have chosen. Followers are going to appreciate it when you share high-quality content. Don’t share low-quality content because many will skip them. High-quality content increases the chances of someone following you. Ensuring you’ve lots of YouTube subscribers and YouTube likes helps with this according to Social Plus.
You can improve the quality of your picture by investing in good lighting.
Building and Interacting with Your Audience
Your success is going to depend on your audience. You should have as many engaged followers as possible because it will determine whether you succeed or fail as a fitness influencer. If you want to have engaged followers, you need to interact with them. See your audience as friends.
Run polls, ask questions, or respond to their replies. You can expect to get higher pay when you have a high follower count, but brands are interested a lot in engagement. This makes it important to engage with your followers even if they aren’t as many as you would like. Your followers will increase with time.
Building Credibility and Becoming an Authority
This is an important step and it works hand in hand with the above steps. Fitness influencers need to be known as the authority on a fitness niche because that is how followers are going to trust them. If you want to give fitness and health advice, then you need to become an authority in that niche.
Many fitness influencers have gotten certified as fitness instructors and nutrition coaches because they want to be seen as an authority in their field. There are some who gain credibility by writing for fitness and supplement companies. You should look for ways of building your credibility and becoming an authority in that niche. Make sure you stay up-to-date with the latest news. Always take full advantage when someone asks you a question related to the niche.
Being Consistent
The same way fitness need consistency is the same case when it comes to being a paid fitness influencer. Make sure you are consistent with posts because being inconsistent can easily lose followers.
Brands love working with influencers that have a consistent mode of operation.
You need to come up with a social media schedule because it lets you plan when and what to post. You can find tools that will help in scheduling your post so you don’t have to stress yourself too much. All you have to do is upload the content and then it will handle the rest when it reaches that time.
Building your Brand
You need to treat your brand like a business even though a social media profile is what determines whether you are an influencer or not. Make sure you have a business email, consistent branding, and a website. There are all sorts of grants and schemes to do so if you’re short of money – google your locality and grants to see what’s available to you
You need to see it as a personal brand so that brand managers can approach you. It is also possible to expand your brand so it includes fitness apparel or custom workouts.
Reaching out to Sponsors
Once you have a following and a brand, you can reach out to potential sponsors and brands. Create a media kit summing up your brand, offerings, and audience before you reach out to them. Make a list of companies you might be interested in working with. Before sending out a media kit to a brand, try engaging with their posts.
If you send them out and you get no reply, don’t stress. Follow up with them. When you get a rejection, take any feedback you can get so you can improve in the next one. The media kit evolves as the brand grows.
Tracking Results
Data is important for any influencer because it tells the truth. You should track your performance from reach to profile visits, engagement, new followers, and link clicks.
When you get a sponsored post, try your best to make it successful. Make sure you record all the results and stats which you will send out as a report for the brand.
This lets the brands know what they paid for. Tracking results helps because it increases the probability of repeat business and enhances customer satisfaction. The growth trends can also be added to your media kit so you can attract more brands.
