Businesses today need a planned, active social media presence that reflects their brand – and that keeps up with the latest trends, such as the use of video. Tom Godwin reports

One of the big challenges when it comes to social media is staying on – or, even better, ahead of – trend. Incorporating video is one such trend. So how should your gym, health club or other activity offering go about incorporating video into your social media streams?

First of all, it’s important to note the differences between live and pre-recorded video. Platforms that use pre-recorded video have an option to review – and in some cases edit – the content before it goes live to your followers. This normally allows for a higher quality video to be produced, branded and spread across different platforms.

Meanwhile, most live broadcast services – where the video stream is transmitted live to your followers – retain the live video for a set period of time to allow people to watch it back. This can be used to great effect to show the ‘on the go’ nature of the gym and show current events. However, it does have the pitfall of going straight out to the world – warts and all.

Harness your staff
A key aspect in the effective use of video – and also wider social media – is creating and nurturing an organisation with a focus on content generation. The ability to create content is literally at your fingertips nowadays, via your mobile phone – a powerful tool if harnessed well.

Some of the best social media accounts come from organisations that empower staff to generate content as and when they see it. However, this does require some management and processes to be put into place, to ensure all posts meet brand standards and correctly reflect the ethos of the organisation: most have a review process, with all content fed into a single person to review and post.

Once a system is in place, it’s important that your team understands what you’re looking for – not only in terms of types of content, but also style and how you wish to be represented. This can be done via a set of guidelines and perhaps a training session.

However, the most important thing is to encourage and reassure the team that content generation is a key part of their role, and that by generating content they’re helping to inform, entertain and engage both members and prospective members.

Content generation
So what sort of content should you be producing? It sounds obvious, but aim to create videos your followers will engage with. Bear in mind that this may differ from one social platform to the next, not least due to different user profiles – Facebook as a rule has older users, Snapchat younger.

An aspiration for many will be to create a video that goes viral, as this dramatically boosts the marketing value. A key way to improve engagement – and with it the likelihood of this happening – is to build regular calls to action in the video, asking viewers to share and comment.

There are many different types of videos you can make, but here are a handful of easy ones to start sharing…

‘How to’ videos: These can be very simple and useful to members, whether they’re used to promote good practice in the gym or to showcase new or underused equipment. The fitness team, and in particular the personal training team, can be enrolled to create this content, as this will allow them to showcase their skills.

Classes: Filming classes allows members or prospects to get an idea of the kinds of classes available before they attend. Driving member understanding of the various class formats will improve attendance.

Lectures: ‘Talk to camera’-style, information-based videos can help pass on some of the key messages of health and wellbeing to your members. It’s another way to showcase your services and personal training team.

Testimonials: These can be extremely powerful as a marketing tool, getting members to talk very genuinely to camera about their own fitness journeys and their experience of your facility. It can really resonate with potential members.

News and events: Sharing video footage of key events taking place in your facility allow the viewer to feel they’re part of the experience.

Consider your members
As well as using your team to generate content, members can be encouraged too. They have a very different perspective on your organisation, so prospective leads may in many cases see member-generated content to be less biased, potentially leading to higher levels of interaction.

Of course, the key issue with user-generated content – if not forwarded to be posted officially – is loss of control and editorial input. However, unhappy club members have free rein to post whatever they want on the web anyway, so as long as you choose your video posters wisely from among your member base, this can be a good vein to tap.

A key consideration should be the privacy and happiness of your members, staff and anyone else that you may catch in a video. It’s important to check that all those featured – even just in the background – are happy to be part of the video and are fully aware of how their image will be used. Featured members or staff should sign releases to this effect.

But all these caveats aside, the effective use of social video can add a great degree of interactivity to your social media stream. It’s generally perceived as more personal and easy to consume by your followers, and is well worth exploring if you aren’t already.