Blog, Fitness Business and Marketing

Twitter: Building a Following

Twitter for Personal TrainersTwitter for Personal TrainersTwitter can be a powerful tool in building not only your own profile but also generating leads.  One of the key things that I like to warn against when looking at Twitter is getting tied up in the follower count.  More followers does not always translate to more income.  What is more important is the ability to engage and build a tribe of people who are engaged in what you are doing.  It is far more important to have an engaged tribe than a large one.

With this in mind these tips are all about engagement, about having people in your following who interact with you and feel that hey know you.  This is what then starts to translate into income. So here are my top ten tips to build an engaged Twitter following:-

  1. Make sure that your bio is complete, your bio is the first chance you have to try and peak your readers interest in what you have to say and who you are. The bio needs to inform the reader who you are, what you stand for and how to find out more about you.  Remember to get a link in there and if possible a call to action.
  2. Get out there and engage with your Twitter users. It is so important that you start to interact with those who are engaging with your tweets. A simple thing like hearting a retweet somebody has given you, thanking new followers and starting/continuing conversation is so important.  Twitter is a social media platform… if you are missing the social side it just does not work.
  3. Have a hit list. This is something that I was taught a number of years ago when it comes to network marketing.  You should have a list of 2-3 people who you would consider industry influencers, people who can help you grow.  You should work on developing a rapport with these people by liking, sharing and engaging with their content, over the course of a month.  This due to the law of reciprocity normally leads to promotion of your feed.
  4. Tweet regularly. People who only tweet once a month find it hard to gain a good following. If you are tweeting regularly you are giving yourself the chance to get more engagement and interaction from your followers.  Remember the twitter stream flows fast so re-posting within reason is an acceptable thing to do.
  5. Have a schedule. You should tweet regularly and if possible use scheduling software to help you post on a regular basis. It is entirely possible to be lost in Twitter for hours on end so any form of automation that does not detract from the personal side of using this platform can greatly help productivity.  Think about when your people are on-line and when you are going to post to have maximum exposure!
  6. The hashtag is a powerful tool, it can open up your stream to people out there who are searching for content. I would make sure your hashtags reflect the content, they are memorable and they are in line with what people are searching for.  An easy way to gain exposure is to engage in relevant trending topics.
  7. Promote! Don’t just set up a Twitter feed and wait for the followers to come rolling in, start to mention it to people you meet. Get it up on websites and even cross promote on other forms of social media.
  8. Go multimedia, as they say a picture says a thousand words… a video says a million! We are in an age of consumption of media and images over the written word, by including an image or video in your Tweets you are much more likely to get a higher engagement rate from your follows.
  9. Monitor, it is important to track how your are progressing. Twitter now has an analytics feature that is incredibly useful.  It shows you all kinds of data such as your growth in followers, number of tweets sent and the number of impressions.  Keeping an eye on this key data can help you track your progress!
  10. Be persistent, as they say Rome was not built in a day. It takes time and consistency to build a good following on any social media platform, so put the time in and the benefits will come.

I am setting this as an action point for you!  Go out and have a look at your Twitter account, do you do all the above, if not start to implement it!  If you have any questions or would like to discuss this article just Tweet me and as always if you like this article give me a share!

Tom has been involved in the fitness industry for nearly 20 years. He is a specialist in rehabilitation, exercise referral and helping other fitness professionals to improve their business. He is also involved with course development, teaching, assessing and IQA of a range of training courses. He is always willing to meet other professionals so please do contact him via social media with any questions or just to say hello.

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