Former Apprentice candidate Katie Bulmer-Cooke gives her tips on making social media work for you

Social media is the most powerful tool we have at our disposal when it comes to spreading our business’s message and engaging with current and potential customers – and one of the best things about it is it’s incredibly cost-effective. It’s certainly had a dramatic impact on my fitness business, helping me take my operation from a local, Sunderland-based business to a company with customers in 12 countries around the world. 

When used correctly, anything is possible and there really are no boundaries to the success and revenue it can generate. With that in mind, here are my top tips for making social media work for your business.

1. Real-life testimonials
If you really want to engage the inactive and the overweight who are yet to step foot in your facility, stop using images of body beautiful women without a drop of sweat on their foreheads. Such photographs will not encourage Mrs Jones – with three kids and whose last workout is a very distant memory – to step foot in your health club. In fact, it will do the opposite.

Use images of real-life members who non-users can identify with. Better still, get some video interviews from your more down-to-earth members and share them on social media. In the video, ask what made them apprehensive about joining, what their barriers were, how they’ve been helped to overcome them and how they feel now. This is an extremely powerful tool in encouraging non-members to take that first step through the door. 

2. It’s good to talk
Stop simply tweeting and posting Facebook statuses about your services and what’s happening in your club, and instead interact with members and potential members and start to build a relationship. Make your social media feed something people follow to be both entertained and listened to – it’s great for customer feedback and market research too. There are some great ways to do this:

• Twitter chats
This involves publicising, on all of your platforms, that you will be hosting a Twitter chat on certain day at a certain time and on a certain topic – it could be nutrition, training, gym fears or anything that’s relevant to your customer demographic. Then choose a hashtag – for example, I could use #AskKatie.

Then, at the given time on the given day, followers simply tweet their questions and include the predetermined hashtag. But whatever happens, don’t forget the golden rule of Twitter chats: you must reply, and quickly, in order to create conversation and therefore build trust. After all, why would someone buy from you if they can’t rely on you or trust you?

• Twitter polls
This is a fairly new tool offered by Twitter and allows you to very simply ask the opinion of your followers, whereby you pose a question with several possible responses. I use this tool a lot to learn more about what my followers want from me – in terms of both content and products – as well as to gain an insight into other areas of their lifestyles.

• Periscope
This is one of my favourites and was a big hit in 2015, but is still massively under-used by the fitness industry – mainly because people worry too much about being on video. We need to get over this inhibition, and fast, because this is a big opportunity.

Periscope offers live video streaming via Twitter and is a godsend for clubs that want to recruit new members. Put yourself in the shoes of the apprehensive, inactive Mrs Jones for a second. She wants to come to the gym but fears the unknown. She doesn’t know what to expect – the layout, how the machines work or what goes on behind the dreaded studio door.

All of these aspects, and many more, are putting people like Mrs Jones off taking the giant step of just coming for a look around your facility.

Periscope can help you break down these barriers instantly, by taking the phone into the studio, interviewing members, doing machine demos and meeting the staff. It’s quick, real and free!

While we’re on the topic of interaction, it’s very important that not only are we thinking about new content and methods of interaction, but also the words we use. We need to be choosing language that is non-intimidating if we want to engage the non-user. I can tell you for a fact that Mrs Jones isn’t engaged with terminology such as ‘smashing it’, ‘nailing it’, ‘killing that workout’ and ‘turning on beast mode’, so let’s stop using these cult-like phrases.

Stand out from the crowd
Social feeds move very quickly, so it’s important to stand out from other accounts. Rather than checking what your competitors are doing and then taking inspiration from them, instead check them out then do the exact opposite.

As an example, last year, while everyone else was churning out Black Friday promotional offers and campaigns, we did Yellow Thursday. This allowed us to stand out in a sea of black infographics in the feed and also gave us the opportunity to get in there first. It had a significant impact on online sales – almost double that of the Black Friday promo from the previous year. 

Social media has so much potential, all we have to do is grab the opportunity with both hands – and of course a smartphone! Here’s to your social success, gaining new followers who become fans and then fanatical customers.