If you’re interested in becoming a Fitness Influencer, then you’re not alone. The rise of Instagram and entrepreneurship both has led to a vast increase in the number of influencers.
The fitness industry is worth millions, and for some successful influencers, the lucrative opportunities are endless.
What Is a Fitness Influencer?
A fitness influencer is someone influential in online fitness circles. They are well known, liked, and trusted by fitness consumers, which means they carry a lot of weight in their opinion. They use their credibility to influence others, more often promoting products and services on behalf of brands.
Fitness Influencers promote an active, fit, and healthy lifestyle by providing advice and support to their followers or simply being a motivational figure to look up to.
Being a Fitness Influencer is not just about having the perfect body or well-sculpted abs; the message you convey and people and brands who trust your expertise is crucial for success.
If you’ve been hard at work as a fitness professional and want to be a social influencer, you must have a specific voice and passion for fitness, health, and wellness topics.
The guide below will help get you started on this fantastic journey.
To become an Influencer in this industry, you’ve to maintain a certain level of professionalism when running your social accounts and work with brands to promote their products and services.
Here’s an overview on how to be a fitness influencer on Instagram-
Choose a niche.
First, you’ve to choose a niche in the fitness industry. Why do you need a niche? To be an expert in anything, people need experience and some level of expertise. If you’re an expert at marathons, you’d have run some and will provide content that will be valuable to those who follow you.
Remember, to be successful; people need to trust your content, which can only happen if you add value or motive to their lives.
Choosing a specialty as a fitness influencer is one of the easiest ways to become an expert at what you do.
You can choose aerobics, yoga, bodybuilding, or provide information about your journey to becoming fit and healthy. Once you’ve chosen a specialty of your niche, keep posting regularly so that your viewers expect regular posts. And it’ll give you a chance to build credibility while testing your style.
The more content you post, which is valuable in your niche, the more people will start to see you as an authority.
Find your tone
Now that you’ve chosen your niche, the next step is to decide how you want your message to reach your followers. You can come across as motivational, sympathetic, or even a tough nut. It would help if you aimed for whatever works for your readers and followers.
Fitness celebrities are in the business of helping others do whatever they can. Your job is to help people overcome their fitness difficulties, so your tone and mindset should send the right message to your readers.
Above all, you must help your followers in achieving their goals.
Having a mindset of providing value, providing guidance, and credible support will go a long way in ensuring that brands & followers value your input.
Tell your story
When users first visit your social profile, what do they think of you as a Fitness Influencer?
Do they get the overview or the whole story just by looking at your posts?
Your profile should naturally be the storyboard of your fitness life. And people will respond well to your content because they can relate to you. People appreciate openness and willingness to give them a glimpse into your life. Sharing your story is also another way to promote brands and services. You can show creative pictures, videos and share stories of your real-life experiences while including some aspects in the story that will help in promoting your brands.
Keep telling your story irrespective of the brands you promote. And, by this, people will continue to trust that your opinions are independent of any promotional fees.
Engagement vs. followers
As a fitness expert, you’ve to decide what kind of influencer you want to be. Influencer marketing isn’t just for big names like the Kardashians; Even in small engagement, you can still be a successful and valuable social force.
According to stats, influencers with fewer followers have a higher engagement rate than influencers with millions of followers.
Of course, if you’ve 1 million followers, you’ll earn 11 times more from brand sponsorship, but your engagement rates may suffer.
If you’re working on increasing your numbers, you must maintain a competitive edge and make sure that your audience stays engaged as your numbers increase. Make sure your main appeal doesn’t get bogged down.
Build your audience
Without an audience, you won’t get any sponsorship. So, you must, first of all, build a follower base that will help you increase your credibility and income.
A great way to begin is to reach out and build rapport with other influencers in your niche. Show them support, share their content, mention them in your posts and network to gain visibility. Your audience will increase when you market yourself effectively.
Outreach to Sponsors & Advertisers
Once you’ve established your credibility, you can start reaching out to potential sponsors and advertisers. Build your brand, your audience, and what you can offer to companies to do this. Introduce yourself or your brand, summarize your expertise in the niche, and the type of company you want to partner with.
Audience
How many visitors and followers do you have? What engagement levels do you typically get? Break down their demographics.
Your offering– list what you can offer to brands, including pricing, e.g., sponsored blog posts, social media posts, email blasts, etc.
Next, make a hit list of the businesses you want to work with.
Build a relationship with them, firstly by following their social accounts and interacting with their posts. Then send them an email or DM. Follow them up a week later if you haven’t heard back. Once a brand has agreed to collaborate with you, it’s time for the next step.
Overdeliver & Track Results
This is the key to becoming an excellent Fitness Influencer. You have to do your best to make sponsored post a success. Promote social posts, pay for ads, go above and beyond to make sure the brand gets value for money.
You also need to reflects this value to your customer. Record all the statistics and results, then send them to the brand in a report form. This demonstrates their return on investment and ensures that brands understand precisely what they’ve got for their money.
This is important for several reasons-
- It increases customer satisfaction and reduces the number of refund requests.
- They may be more likely to work with you again and generates repeat business.
- You can also use these stats to convince other brands to work with you.
- Your reports should include statistics on reach, engagement, click-throughs, sentiment (positive comments), and the total time people spend consuming branded content. But if you’re beginning and don’t have the budget, collate it manually.
So, now you know precisely how to become an Instagram fitness influencer and make the venture a success. By following these steps, you can become a successful influencer in the field of fitness.
