Technology
Creating an Online Community
Group fitness is the heartbeat of the facility, but not because of the blaring music or sweaty bodies. People exercise in groups for the motivation, accountability and energy it brings them. Wouldn’t it be great to capture this energy outside the studio? As instructors, we’ve tried almost every trick in the book to influence more end users, get more bodies in classes and help educate members. Despite this, we’re still reaching only a handful of people.
Virtual Fitness Research Roundup
As fitness video game technology continues to improve, more researchers are looking into its health benefits. Two recent studies have determined that “virtual gyms” and “virtual exercise partners” can help participants shed excess weight and improve fitness levels. In the first study, done at Michigan State University, subjects completed a side-by-side 12-week weight loss program. One group exercised in the “real” world, while the other participated in a Second Life interactive weight loss community. Both groups exercised 4 hours per week.
The Group Advantage
Given the sheer number of people using sites like Facebook and services like Groupon, fitness professionals are investing their advertising dollars in spaces where they can influence local groups and social networks. With better research into consumer insight (thanks to profile pages), personal trainers can identify their audiences and target their digital ad campaigns more effectively.
Staying in the Fitness Game
How do you succeed in the fitness profession? Whether you’ve just gotten certified, you’re returning to a fitness career or you’re an experienced pro who wants to develop new skills, the answer is the same: keep learning. Continuing education is a career necessity that becomes increasingly important as the fitness industry grows more sophisticated, diverse, specialized and evidence-based.
Managing Your Online Reputation
Most personal trainers recognize the impact that social media investments can have on their business. By actively improving your online presence with blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube videos and/or Twitter updates, you can increase your opportunities to enhance client-trainer relationships, multiply promotional efforts and gain authority on a topic (Alsac 2010). But this article is not about creating a social media strategy. It is about course-correcting the one you already have—to ensure that you are being portrayed in a positive light.
Business Development and Marketing
In this article series we have covered a wealth of information to help you create and maintain a business edge so that you stand out from other trainers, coaches and fitness centers. I have enjoyed thinking through the elements that I believe have given my personal training and coaching business, Cross Coaching & Wellness, a business edge in my local community and in the fitness and wellness professional world as a whole. Writing these articles has also motivated me to stay on track with my own advice while I am sharing it with you.
Google Places and Other Online Business Directories
What if someone wants to find information about boot camps in your area? A quick keyword search for boot camps on Google Maps returns a list of businesses and personal trainers who specialize in that service, from baby boot camps to bridal ones.
Fitness E-Books
Fitness professionals who publish their own works can gain an extra reputation boost and, in turn, see significant business increases. From traditional printed publications (journals and books) to the digital press (blogs and e-zines), what format you publish has come to be as important as what you publish. The newest format to see a significant increase in popularity is electronic books, or e-books. E-books combine the best of both the printed world and the digital world.
All the Power Points to Webinars
Fitness professionals often speak on topics related to exercise and wellness, whether at a seminar at the local health club or at an industry convention workshop. Sharing your expertise with others can both build your professional reputation and indirectly market your services to new audiences. But when the opportunities to present are limited in your community or when they conflict with your business schedule, it may be time to consider the digital alternative: webinars.
Maximizing your social media investment
In the last decade, the social media revolution has transformed the online landscape by changing the way fitness professionals communicate and engage with colleagues and clients. The functionality of popular social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has opened the doors to new business-marketing strategies in the digital age.
Social Circles: Market Your Department
Many fitness facilities have built a social media marketing presence, and some are doing a good job of keeping their “real estate” current and dynamic. But not many facilities can claim a multilevel, departmental approach. Why not establish a separate page on your website for the personal training department?
Create Quality Online Videos
Online, user-generated video portals, such as YouTube, can offer fitness professionals an inexpensive way to increase exposure and attract customers. Eric Beard, MS, fitness director and master trainer for the Longfellow Sports Club in Natick, Massachusetts, explains that “online videos are an excellent way to drive traffic to your website, advertise your product or service, and even network.” Beard—a regular poster of online videos—adds that videos can boost confidence in consumers who are shopping for training services.
food journals go viral
Experts agree that recording what you eat each day makes people more aware of their calorie intake, which in turn can help expedite and even maintain weight loss. Advise your tech-savvy clients to e-mail themselves real-world descriptions of what they ate at each meal.
Widget You Like to Know
For trainers trying to maintain their online social media presence through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, keeping content current and engaging is often a challenge. Whether it is as simple as updating your Twitter status or as involved as writing new blog posts every week, these efforts accumulate and can displace the time needed for clients. This article will explain how you can streamline these efforts and significantly improve the look of your site by incorporating “widgets” on blogs and websites.
Creating an Adwords Campaign to Build Your Practice
In this article you’ll learn how to use Google’s Sponsored Link advertising to build your personal training practice.
Sponsored Links are advertisements that appear when you do a Google search. The ads contain content that
is pertinent to the keywords used in
the Google search. Figure 1 shows the Sponsored Link ads that appeared when I searched the keywords personal trainer troy mi.
Podcast Yourself
6 Inspirational
Power Points
Let Failure Guide
You to Success
9 Training for Growth
Seasonal Change:
Winter Doldrums
12 Internet Marketing
Creating an Adwords® Campaign to Build
Your PracticePersonal trainers acquire a wealth of information and fitness experiences over their careers. Most are willing to share their expertise if they know it might help enlighten a colleague or motivate a gym member.
Brain Fitness Center Offers Interactive Computer Training
The Brain Emporium, a brain exercise center founded and directed by T.J. McCallum, associate professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, opened at the Fairhill Center in Cleveland in March 2009. The Brain Emporium is another example of the growing popularity of computer-based mental fitness games.
What types of social networking do you use, and why?
We choose social networking vehicles based on what is popular with our mainstream target market. Right now this includes Facebook, a little bit of Twitter (but we are not big fans) and LinkedIn®. We think MySpace is dead, so we just do not use that site anymore.
We use online social networking to create awareness of our presence as professionals in our community, as well as to educate clients and potential clients about our philosophy and the benefits of what we call the “continuous modification of functional exercise.”
Twitter Me This, Twitter Me That
Imagine sending a short, preworkout motivational note to a client without seeing, texting or calling him. What if you could find new boot-camp ideas from top trainers around the world without ever doing a keyword search on Google? Imagine developing genuine relationships with industry colleagues, having never met or e-mailed them. Now envision doing all of these simultaneously on a free, Web-based platform in no more than 140 characters.
Technological Advances & the Mind-Body Connection
Ten reports presented in the International Journal of Psychophysiology highlight how technological improvements are enabling more detailed measurement of mind-body interactions.