7 Ways to Maximize Your Social Media Strategy for Fitness Businesses and Boost Your Search Rankings

By now, the secret is out. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the magic sauce for any digital marketing strategy. Case closed, right?

Not quite. Social media marketing for fitness industry companies plays a role in helping you get your brand in front of a larger audience. SEO and social media strategies go hand-in-hand—and you need to pay attention to both.

Making sense of social marketing

This may not jive with the information that’s out there—and it’s a confusing landscape. Some Googlers have said social signals like Twitter follower counts don’t impact search rankings, but experts like Hootsuite showed that social engagement could boost your ranking indirectly.

In addition, more people are using social media as a search engine. 83% of Instagram users say it helps them discover new products and services.

Determining where to focus can be challenging. So, how can you know where to focus? After all, the lines between your social media strategy and SEO can be blurry. However, both revolve around sharing valuable content, boosting trust, and enhancing brand recognition. As a result, it’s essential to understand how these two aspects work together to achieve your marketing goals.

People use social media platforms the same way they use search engines—to find information. If someone wanted to learn about your gym or fitness studio, they might not stop at Googling you. They could also check your Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, and Instagram accounts in the same session.

Why close any of those doors? Here’s how to capitalize on the ties between SEO and social media in seven simple steps.

1. Publish high-quality content and establish authority

Developing high-quality content is simple. It’s all about providing your audience with answers to their most common questions. 96% of leading marketers say good content helps build brand credibility.

Tools like Answer The Public, Semrush, Ubersuggest, and Ahref’s Keywords Explorer provide you with insights on what topics your target audience commonly searches.

Developing and sharing content that answers common search queries increases social media engagement for fitness studios. How? It helps boost your authority and creditability among potential studio members and with Google.

Google’s search quality raters guidelines highlight that human raters like comments and reshares play a role when ranking a website’s reliability. It’s the best way to generate sustained trust and authority.

Invest in content that sets you apart. This means aiming for quality instead of quantity. Do your homework and create in-depth, useful content, like blogs, podcasts, images and infographics, original videos, and unique re-shares from your clients and other fitness creators. Promote this content with strong social media captions to encourage more comments and re-shares.

Not sure where to start? Mind mapping is a powerful technique to help you brainstorm and identify topics that resonate with your target audience. Start by writing a central theme, then create branches from that idea that relate to your main topic. Some of the best mind mapping tools to help you with this process include Coggle, MindMesiter, and Ayoa.

2. Align your keyword research with social media

Your on-page SEO strategy is all about identifying your targeted keyword list—specific search terms you want to rank for. What many people forget is that keywords don’t just apply to search engines. They’re also vital on social media.

As you refine your SEO and social media strategy, build on your keyword research and utilize high-ranking terms and trending hashtags. Sprinkle these elements in your captions, profiles, post titles, and other content throughout your social media pages.

When compiling your social media targeted keyword list, keep the following in mind:

1. Utilize top keyword research tools: Select words and phrases with a low keyword density so it’s easier to achieve a high ranking. To help push you in the right direction and pinpoint the best keywords, try tools like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, Soovle, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends.
2. Conduct keyword search on social media: Discover new keyword opportunities for your profile, content, and social captions by following social listening trends. This allows you to keep track of what your clients and prospects are saying about your industry, services, instructors, products, and more. Consider powerful solutions for social listening and analytics like Sprout Social, Brandwatch, Buffer, or BuzzSumo.
3. Build a hashtag strategy: Develop a list of relevant hashtags related to your content, industry, current trends, and competitor research. Get hashtag ideas with tools like Display Purposes, Hashtagify, and RiteTag. Track your best-performing hashtags and analyze potential hashtag trends with apps like Keyhole, Socialert, and Talkwalker.

3. Boost social signals through sharable content and active engagement

As we mentioned above, social sharing impacts your SEO ranking indirectly. Google doesn’t index most social media pages, but it uses the social signals they generate. One study of 23 million social shares showed that the more people share your content on social media, the more it means people find your content useful.

Word of mouth is a powerful beast and sharing makes your content more discoverable. It can also make your content more evergreen and engaging, increasing your long-term marketing return on investment (ROI). A key indication that your content is engaging is whether it gets a lot of likes, shares, tags to friends, and comments. Remember, to continue that engagement by responding to comments with friendly conversation.

You need to make people want to share your social media posts. Here are some tips:

• Be relevant & offer real value: Post content that matches your target audience’s interests, educates on those relevant topics, presents a solution to client problems, and connects to them on an emotional level.
• Grab attention: How do you get your audience to engage with your post? Use appealing visuals, compelling headlines, and insightful captions. Bring something new to every conversation and social post.
• Reward engagement: Host social media giveaways that encourage comments, likes, and shares. Reward leads and clients with Amazon, Google, or Apple gift cards. In addition, if you have a built-in rewards program, clients can earn rewards points that they can redeem for additional prizes at your business.
• Ease sharing: Optimize your website and blog posts to feature social media integrations. People should be able to spread your content without having to copy and paste.
• Track your results: Monitor all your likes, shares, and comments, all in one place. Whether it’s Hootsuite Analytics, Google Analytics, Sprout Social, or Brandwatch, there are several tools on the market to help track the most important social media metrics.

4. Encourage backlinks to increase visibility

Backlinks are links from one website to another. For instance, if a yoga blogger links to your studio’s website, you’ve received a backlink from them.

Backlinks have a time-honored role in improving your SEO. They increase your digital footprint, raising the chances people will discover you. Most search engines also consider them to be a dependable ranking factor.

Social media platforms don’t produce backlinks alone. But they do raise visibility, earning you backlinks from other pages that share your content. Links to your social media profiles, bios, and other posts also drive traffic to your website. When your clients and leads share your great social content, it increases the chances they will include a link to your website from their social profile.

5. Build personalized, local SEO and optimize your social profiles

Search engines are increasingly personalizing search results based on the social media activity of your leads and clients. For instance, if your audience follows and interacts with your fitness business on social media, your website may be more likely to appear at the top of search results when a prospect is searching for a local studio or gym near them.

This is where local SEO comes in. Local SEO means optimizing your website to target a specific region or area. It’s vital if you’re a small—or growing—business with a physical address.

Optimized local profiles are vital to social media marketing for the fitness industry. You can’t afford to focus on a single profile either—they all help you rank in search engines. Here’s how to develop a comprehensive strategy for local SEO and social media:

• Keep EVERY profile current: Mismatches to your Google and other social profiles can hurt search rankings. Check your business’s name, address, phone number (NAP), and other contact info. Do they match what’s on your website?
• Target your audience: Your Google and social media profiles must target your audience with the right message and keywords/phrases that reflect your business and brand voice.
• Showcase who you are: Use clear, full-body images of your instructors and other staff members to best reflect your business while creating trustworthy profiles.
• Don’t skimp on information: Add a detailed business description of your business, including facts about your offerings and backlinks to your website for people to learn more.

6. Increase brand awareness and positive mentions

Social media can help build brand awareness and the overall perception of your brand through positive, social mentions. If you didn’t know, a positive mention is when someone mentions your brand online.

Positive mentions help you build reliability and raise brand awareness—which boosts SEO ranking. Pros at social media marketing for the fitness industry care about customer journeys. Former clients can and will talk about their experiences with your services and products in their social media posts.

How do you gain more brand mentions? Here are a few quick tips:

• Share client reviews/testimonials: Your clients are likely to share your content and mention your brand every time you share their reviews and testimonials.
• Encourage social sharing: Celebrate your clients when they hit a milestone and tag them at a class or event, triggering them to re-share your post and mention your brand.
• Deliver top-notch customer service: It’s up to you to deliver a positive client experience at your studio or gym. You can’t avoid every negative experience—so how you handle interactions matters. Check out these tips on how to manage your clients with unforgettable service and experiences.
• Monitor brand mentions: How do you know when and where your brand is being mentioned? Options of tools that help include Sprout Social, Brand24, and BrandMentions.

7. Build partnerships

Working with influencers, brand advocates, and strategic partners goes a long way. Partnerships boost positive buzz, especially when done well.

Imagine an Instagram workout guru with an army of followers who had used your branded equipment on their daily livestream. This would put your branding in front of more people than you’d reach otherwise. It would also associate you with a trusted name, earning you social credit.

Other SEO and social media boosting partnership ideas include:

• Getting featured in case studies on reliable review sites.
• Participating in webinars as in-domain experts.
• Posting in reputable fitness publications and blogs.
• Commenting on partners’ social posts—and receiving comments on yours.
• Creating valuable content that thought leaders re-share.
• Tagging fitness influencers and your business partners.

Start making your social media and SEO efforts pay off

Social media marketing for the fitness industry isn’t impossible—but it does take diligent work. You need to know how to build a social media strategy that covers all your bases, allowing you to:

1. Publish high-quality content that builds trust and authority.
2. Align your keyword research with your social media strategy.
3. Boost social signals through sharable content and active engagement.
4. Encourage backlinks to increase visibility.
5. Build personalized and local SEO efforts with optimized profiles.
6. Spread brand awareness to promote positive mentions.
7. Build strong partnerships.

This can seem like a lot, but there’s a trick to it: Staying organized. SEO doesn’t stop with your social media strategy. Using the right business management software makes it easier to handle the rest.

With WellnessLiving, you can do more in less time with social media channels and search engines. Use Reserve with Google to build a Google Business Profile that attracts more clients. Work with our full-service website agency, Presence, to expand your digital footprint. Try our SEO audit tool to master built-in SEO, blogging, and other integrations that help you flourish.

WellnessLiving lets you drive traffic and excel. Grow your business by scheduling a free, no-pressure demo.