Instagram is no man’s land. Nobody will ask you for your resumé before you are allowed to sign up on the platform and the number of followers any profile can gain is unlimited. No wonder many brands are now finding a spot to pitch their tent on the more than 500 million daily active users.
Instagram Users Growth
As a health and fitness brand, before choosing any platform to promote your business, the first question you need to ask is, is it worth it?
For Instagram, it is important to join. 60 percent of its users are actively in search of a new product while more than 80 percent follows a brand account. Need more reasons? Over 200 million of its users are likely to visit a brand profile in a day.
Jen is a perfect example. Her profile went viral when she introduced a booty-based workout. Today, she has more than 12 million followers and has partnered with several health and beauty brands like Rebels Refinery.
Joe became popular with his Lean in 15 cookbook series. His followers seem to be increasing daily.
Michelle was once a Venezuela clinic employee, now has her line of supplements and apps ― Fitplan and Mealplan which her followers love.
Lauren decided to become a WBFF Bodybuilding Pro in 2013. Ever since then, she has been sharing workout tips and advice through her Instagram page.
Planning Your Instagram for Health & Fitness Content Strategy
The first step in making your health and fitness Instagram profile compatible with content strategy marketing is to treat yourself or brand as a business.
If you want your profile to be viewed as a company, switch your account to business account.
Lululemon profile as can be seen in the screenshot below does not promote anybody but portrays itself as a company.
But if you want to remain the face of your brand, switch to the new Instagram Creator account. An account like that of Jay T. Maryniak is a perfect fit for an Instagram Creator Account.
The business and creator accounts offer you tools that can be used to track your account engagement such as the number of impressions and demographics of followers.
Once you have created a suitable Instagram account for your brand, it is important to continually upload helpful posts to increase your followers and reputation.
As you can see below, Jay T. Maryniak shared some tips his followers could try out in the gym themselves to build bigger arms.
The Types of Content Every Health & Fitness Brand Should be Posting
Rule number 1 for promoting your brand on Instagram is by posting content that resonates with your audience. Rule number 2 is never to forget rule number 1. Here are some content categories all health & fitness brand needs to be posting.
Inspirational Content
Many people want to be fit and healthy but only a few are ready to make the sacrifice. Inspire your followers to take the first step and keep to it. If your brand focuses on health mainly, show pictures of yourself using the products you are advertising. As a fitness brand, upload videos of clients or yourself working out to inspire your followers to do the same.
Crunchgym can be seen in the Instagram screenshot below to be inspiring its audience to try out the Man Makers exercise.
Lifestyle Content
Your followers want to know what you do with your spare time. Show them your brand is controlled by a human being(s) and not a robot. You can post a photo of your recent adventures such as skiing or a video detailing such an event.
Product Features
Share health beneficial products and fitness materials that will help your followers. This content should be shared minimally as having too much on your page could piss off your followers. You can apply the 80/20 marketing rule. Share about 80 percent of helpful contents and 20 percent promotional posts.
Lululemon product feature post describes its functions and the best way to use it.
Testimonial & Appreciation Content
Show people what you are promoting really works. When you see a user commenting on how great your health and fitness product is performing, ask their permission to share it on your Instagram page. As an appreciation, say something good about their determination to commit to a healthy lifestyle and do not forget to tag them.
Kayla is one of the most popular health and fitness Instagram influencers that are fond of frequently uploading this kind of content.
Gossip Content
Everyone loves gossip ― it is the main reason a lot of people can’t do without social media. Make your audience gossip about you. Not in the bad way thou. Upload content of you and your partner or family on vacation for instance.
Always be the first one to break news about yourself instead of them reading it from another blog.
Sam Asghari a health and fitness influencer shares the pictures of him and his girlfriend first before another blogger might catch the wind and make it an exclusive story.
Quotes and Text-Based Content
In case you are short of post ideas and need to keep your followers engaged, quotes and text-based content will come to your rescue. What you share in this case does not really need to be related to your industry but to avoid being odd, it should be something your followers can relate with.
Below is a screenshot from the Instagram page of the self-acclaimed “Queen of Workout”, Alexia Clark.
The “Sweat Trainer”, Kayla Itsines Instagram page also has some share of this category of content.
Using Instagram’s Shoppable Features to Drive More Sales
Instagram (nicknamed “Photo-sharing”) platform is constantly innovating its platform to be brand and sales friendly. Since the inclusion of these features, more than 30% of Instagram users have made a purchase after first seeing the product on the platform.
Some of the shoppable features implemented by the platform so far include:
- Shoppable Stories
- Shopping tab on business accounts
- Native payments
- Product tags
- Shoppable Explore feed
To generate drive more sales, link your product website to your Instagram stories just as Simeon Panda did with his account. He linked a magazine cover featuring him to his eCommerce website.
When you swipe up the story, a new tab linking to his product site will open. Below is a screenshot at the time of writing.
How to Create Engaging Instagram Content Feed for Health & Fitness Brands
Your brand profile needs to always engage followers to remain relevant. The content you post should not only captivate your audience; it should also spark a conversation. You may do this by sharing experiences or directly asking them a humorous question.
Below are some of the things successful health and fitness brands do to engage their followers.
Upload High-Quality Photos
Instagram is known as a photo-sharing for a reason. Top health and fitness brands understand this and always ensure their pictures are eye-catching. Moreover, fitness is best displayed visually.
Mix the Format of Uploads
Do not limit your post to photos alone. Upload GIFs and videos too. Most brands such as anytimefitness combine the use of photos and videos.
Tag Followers Showing Them Using Promoted Product(s)
Show Some Fun Personality
Top fitness brands post pictures showing someone having fun.
Post Before and After Photos
Instagram influencers post before and after pictures of loyal followers that are proving what they are promoting is working.
Upload Life Actions Shots
Show followers some behind the scene. A photo during training is perfect.
Repost contents from other brands
Share related content from other brands.
Offer Discounts on Sales
Post pictures of your store or products with discount offers.
Post Some Memes
Audiences like funny content.
Use text pictures
Text sometimes speak volumes more than pictures.
12 Tips for Creating Instagram Stories for Health & Fitness Brands
Stories is another feature you can leverage as a brand to promote yourself on Instagram. To maximize this feature:
- Be consistent with your stories. 8-12 stories in a day is okay.
- Mix the format of the story. You can make it 60 percent photos, 25 percent videos, and other formats. Do not post them at once, allow some hours interval.
- Do not link all the stories such as using the SWIPE feature. It may get your followers bored.
- Shoot your videos and photos with the best camera you can get.
- Thoroughly edit your content and make sure they are of the best quality before posting. Use tools like Photoshop, Filmora and Adobe Premiere Clip.
- Align your stories with the brand. Stories should be related to your niche and may incorporate your brand color and logo fond.
- Encourage engagement by mentioning followers or other brands.
- Ask questions to encourage audience comment
- Include music and animation.
- Use #hashtags
- Do some live stories
- Always make your first post attractive. It encourages the audience to check the rest.
Using Instagram Stories Highlights to Showcase Your Health & Fitness Brand
Instagram stories highlights are similar to regular stories but they don’t vanish after 24 hours.
You can use it to segment your post so that your audience will know where to click for specific posts. Stories highlights can be tagged with your preferred title such as Nutrition, Apparel, Diets or any name you prefer.
They are used to link to brand products and other posts in your feed.
P.E Nation has four stories highlights: P.E X PARED, NEW SEASON, SUSTAINABILITY, and #JOINTHENATION.
Nike Women decided to have lots of stories highlights named after different women athletes such as Yuka Momiki.
Athleta decided to use Hike and other titles for its highlights.
How Health & Fitness Brands are Using IGTV
Prior to the introduction of IGTV, Instagram video only allows 60-second recordings. IGTV is just like a YouTube for Instagram and allows you to upload up to 60 minutes of video.
The videos will not only show up on your page but will also appear in the suggested video segment of users that are not your followers. There is also a special app for videos where users only watch content from different brands. A caveat, videos are only in vertical format.
The IGTV tab appears as in the screenshot below:
Cellucor has lots of IGTV to share with Instagram users.
New Balance uses its IGTV channel to share life stories.
Where to Go to Monetize Your Instagram Audience
As an influencer, your number of Instagram followers can be a reliable source of income for you.
To get a brand to partner with, check any of these three platforms:
To promote a brand on your page, you will need to use #hashtags to boost their rank on Instagram’s search page.
These are some of the high-value Health & Fitness hashtags you can borrow or use to curate more engaging ones:
- #fitfam
- #fitnessjourney
- #Health
- #inspireothers
- #Workout
- #fintessmotivation
- #gymlife
- #getfit
- #dreambig
- #furtherfasterforever
- #whstrong
- #teamself
- #shapesquad
- #healthyeating
- #fitnessblogger
- #fitmomlife
- #bodypositive
- #fitmom
- #thefitlife
- #strongisthenewsexy
- #sweateveryday
- #strongnotskinny
- #marathon
- #halfmarathon
- #runner
- #crosscountry
- #instarunners
- #seenonmyrun
- #trailrunning
- #womensrunningcommunity
- #rundisney
- #runitfast
- #runchat
- #marathontips
- #swoleoclock
Measuring the Results of Your Instagram Marketing Strategy
The measure of the result of an Instagram marketing strategy is dependent on the purpose of the promotion itself. If you are looking at creating awareness for your brand, the Instagram business and creator accounts offer analytic tools that can be used to assess your post engagement.
There are also third-party tools you can use for measuring your marketing success such as SimplyMeasured.
According to Statista, there are about 55 million people that belong to a health or fitness club. Instagram stands out among other social media platform for any health and fitness brand to engage its audience.
Upload relevant content, leverage the stories highlight and IGTV to continually engage this audience. If you are an influencer looking to partner with a brand to make some cash, the three platforms discussed in the article are great places to start.
As a brand on Instagram, gaining more followers is great but constantly engaging your followers is more important.
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Great insights on leveraging Instagram for health and fitness brands! Social media indeed plays a crucial role in connecting with a wellness-focused audience. As we delve into the holistic approach of promoting well-being, it’s worth considering specialized resources like Calmerry: https://calmerry.com/ocd-therapy/ for those dealing with specific challenges such as OCD. Integrating mental health support into the narrative of fitness journeys can contribute to a more comprehensive and empathetic brand image. Keep up the fantastic work in promoting overall health and vitality through diverse channels!