It’s no secret that social media should be an important aspect to any health club’s marketing strategy. But when it comes to social media, what’s more important? Volume, such as how many followers your gym has — or engagement, such as how many comments your posts receive?
Recently, media executives from a broad cross section of industries sat down at the FOLIO Show to discuss this very topic and emphasize the importance of brands building more meaningful engagements on social.
“Scale for scale’s sake, especially on social, is not the way to go anymore,” said Amanda Wolfe, the senior content director of health and parenting for Meredith Corporation.
Following is a summary of key insights from Wolfe and other media publishers on social media engagement you may want to consider implementing within your health club’s social strategy.
Hayley Saltzman, Director of Social Media, Bustle Digital Group
- When you’re trying to grow a brand, you want to do so in an engaged way. An unengaged audience is pretty much useless on social media.
- To further that point, engagement establishes authenticity. Engagement creates a two-way dialogue with audiences and allows brands to connect with them in new ways. Lastly, engagement leads to traffic and visibility.
- Pro tip: Instagram Stories create easy moments of engagement. Using Instagram Stories to create polls, ask questions in a quick and easy way.
- Before you post to social media, ask the following questions: Is it relatable? Is it entertaining or inspirational? Is it attention grabbing? Does it follow the format we’ve seen working recently?
Amanda Wolfe, Senior Content Director of Health and Parenting, Meredith Corporation
- Get vulnerable and real in your captions. People love authenticity.
- Although video is often emphasized, people still love gifs/memes and they can be really effective for audience engagement.
- When you can find a way to combine entertainment and utility, that’s where your sweet spot is.
- Although Facebook and Instagram are the biggest platforms, some people are leaning back into Twitter. And Twitter is looking for well-crafted moments to promote.
- Pinterest is really the gift that can keep on giving. A post that does well on Pinterest can do so for the long-haul. It’s the long game. This is contrary to Facebook, which is really one and done.
- People really want to feel that local identity. How can you create posts that are specific to your local communities?
Dan Ghosh-Roy, Senior Vice President of Audience Development, Complex Networks
- Although platforms like Facebook are pushing video, pictures can still be very engaging and resonate with audiences. The same goes for Twitter. So don’t leave photos behind.
- Authenticity is key to engagement — if you’re not an expert in a subject matter, don’t post about it.
- Identify key metrics from the start. What internal engagement metrics will be used to measure how successfully you’re engaging your audience?
- A great way to engage your audience is to ask questions on social media. People love to share their thoughts/feedback.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
