7 STEPS TO BUILDING A FITNESS FOLLOWING ON INSTAGRAM
If you're a fitness enthusiast, trainer, or wellness coach, creating and curating your fitness journey on Instagram is a great way to keep yourself motivated, track your progress, and build a fitness brand with other people in the fitness community. Instagram has long been a resource for people trying to increase their strength, lose weight, change their diets, and feel inspired along the way.
If you’ve been thinking about building your fitness journey on Instagram, we’ve got some tips on ways you can get started...
Step 1: Create An Account.
If you don’t have a dedicated Instagram account, you’ll need to create one that focuses primarily on your fitness and wellness journey. Some choose to have separate Instagram accounts for their everyday life and for their online fitness journey. In order to achieve maximum engagement and stay on brand, we recommend having a dedicated account just for your fitness related posts.
The online fitness community is super supportive and they love to support other fitness enthusiasts. Focus on fitness, but share personal touches that may include working out with family or friends, and sharing healthy recipes, walking your dog, or posing in your favorite gym attire.
Step 2: Update Profile Details.
First impressions are important, so you’ll want to spend some time optimizing your account with the following:
A clear profile picture: Fitness instagramming is all about connecting with other people, so make sure your Instagram profile picture is clear.
Profile description: The description of your account is important. What journey are you taking? What are your goals? Where are you located? Including personal details in your profile will help you connect with a larger audience.
Make your account public: To connect with the larger fitness community, you need to make sure your account is public. This will allow you to be found in search results and hashtag groups.
Step 3: Build Your Content.
Gone are the days where you will be judged for taking selfies or videos of yourself at the gym. Ask your gym buddy to take pictures and videos of you from several angles. You can also set up a tripod (that's in a safe location) or use your surroundings to record your routines. You’ll be able to use this footage in before-and-after photos, as short videos of you working out, or to help you track your progress.
Ensure you engage your audience by remaining open and transparent about your journey. What are you struggling with? What have you grown to love about working out? Doing this helps to build trust between you and your audience, which will likely make them want to stay with you throughout your entire journey (a Utilize engagement in your captions, stories, reels, etc. in a way that makes your audience want to comment on your posts. Like and reply to every comment and make sure to @tag people when you reply to them.
Step 4: Use Hashtags.
The fitness Instagram world is OBSESSED with hashtags. Spend some time exploring popular fitness accounts that you admire and pay close attention to the hashtags they use. Make a list of all the hashtags you find and add any niche related or commonly used searched hashtags that would make your page easy to find. Begin to tag your photo captions with these hashtags where they make sense. Focus on using your hashtags strategically and switching them up often to attract new groups of followers.
Step 5: Follow Accounts that Inspire and Align.
Follow accounts that motivate you, inspire you, and that you align with. This will help you connect with people who are on the same journey as you and ensure to keep you abreast of new ideas and trends.
Step 6: Engage!
Social media is all about being social! Like and Comment on the accounts you follow as well as the accounts that follow you! This helps you increase engagement and build community.
Step 7: Share Your Journey
The best way to build your community following is to be consistent. You should aim to post daily (at least 3-5 times per day) and consistently. Posting a lot means you show up in more hashtag searches, the explore page, and on your feed more often.
Remember that this fitness journey is about YOU. The steps you take toward building a happier, healthier version of you will not only benefit you, but inspire other. If you need additional ideas on content, check out our done for you fitness and wellness content. Feel free to drop your fitness page and or website in the comments! We want to follow and support!
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