How Can a Personal Trainer Stand Out on Instagram

On todays episode we talk about: 

• Videos
• Niches
• Using hashtags
• Instagram Stories

Christian: [00:00:16] Todaywe are going to talk about how can a personal trainer stand out on Instagram.We're going talk about videos. We're going to talk about hashtags. We're goingto talk about Instagram stories. Yeah, we have a lot of good stuff here, butbefore we get started, make sure that you subscribe if you haven't subscribedyet, and leave us a review. Let us know how we're doing.

Franklin: [00:00:36] Dude.This is probably one of my favorite things to actually follow on Instagram. I'msemi-obsessed with the fitness world on Instagram. That's where fitness isliving right now. I think this is going to be really good.

Christian: [00:00:49] Agreed.

Franklin: [00:00:49] So.

Christian: [00:00:51] LikeI said earlier, I like following people like that, but I love looking at beforeand afters. Like those success stories. Love reading about those.

Aaron: [00:01:00] Iwas going to say and this is a great episode just because we all love thefitness world on Instagram, but it's so saturated. So how do you stand out?Which is the opposite of the topics for today.

Christian: [00:01:11] Exactly.So number one, videos.

Franklin: [00:01:16] Exactly.Instagram is like actually the place where photos actually like- I guess thephotography world kind of like blew up, but like specifically with the fitnessworld, I really feel like videos is where it's at. Specifically, because youcan show actual proper form. You can show proper, like actual, like, workoutsand how to actually do it. You can actually even give, like, a full blown, likeI guess you could say, workout session to people over video, and they don'thave to leave their phone. They can take the phone to the gym with them, andhm. What was X's workout regimen for today?

Aaron: [00:01:58] Right.So I know I- actually I know two people personally. One person I run with shewatches it for running specific workout, and then Brianna, she'll pull out- Imean, she has so many people that she follows for fitness that she'll pull offworkouts and, like, combinations of other things, and it's all from the videos.From a marketing standpoint, just to explain this to you guys, people watchvideos on Instagram about 20 percent longer than Facebook. So that's anotherthing, and another reason that videos are good is because most people do postpictures. So if you post a video, you already have people's attention that youstand out just a little bit.

Christian: [00:02:31] Exactly.And I mean another great thing about the videos that you can do is, you know,show new moves. It doesn't have to be a full work out, but I think we have oryou have a friend who you.

Aaron: [00:02:43] He'spointing at Aaron.

Christian: [00:02:44] Yeah.I'm sorry. I'm pointing at Aaron. Aaron has a friend on Instagram, and I thinkyou sort of consulted with him when he started and you told him to start doingvideos. And he does a lot of things with this hammer looking thing.

Franklin: [00:02:58] Allkettlebell. All kettlebell. I watch him. He does a lot of cool stuff with that kettlebell,dude.

Aaron: [00:03:03] Okay,so you guys are following him?

Christian: [00:03:04] Yeah,but no. But he has a hammer thing is that still called a- it's like a legitlike long thing with a-

Aaron: [00:03:10] Yes,and it's got weight to it, and he swings around.

Christian: [00:03:12] Andhe swings it around and stuff.

Aaron: [00:03:14] Sothis is a shout out to Jamie Thayer. This is Thayer Fit on Instagram. So gocheck him out.

Christian: [00:03:19] Yeah,for sure. Like he's doing some cool stuff. That's what I'm saying like to mehe's standing out because I haven't seen anyone use a freakin' hammer, youknow, and swing it around as a workout. Like, that's unique. To me, that's justreally unique.

Franklin: [00:03:33] Right.So wait a minute. Neither one of you have ever done like hammer throws on thetire as part of a workout ever?

Christian: [00:03:41] No,that's different. That's the thing. OK.

Aaron: [00:03:43] No.We'll have to show you after the episode. It's completely different.

Christian: [00:03:47] Yeah.

Franklin: [00:03:47] Nice.Cool. All right. So what's the next thing that- so along with the video- I'msorry. I keep on interrupting you.

Aaron: [00:03:55] Goahead.

Franklin: [00:03:58] OK.Well, the next thing that goes along with the video, even if they have video,like what should they be doing with the video? And how can they, like I guessyou can say, narrow it down?

Aaron: [00:04:08] Onething that I would say about the videos first- kind of what you're saying thereis you have the ability to choose a cover photo and a lot of people don't knowthis, but choose a really good screenshot of your video because that's thefirst image that people see. You don't have to have the one that's all likeblurry and everything like that. So when you're doing the videos, make sure youchoose a cover photo or yeah, cover photo or thumbnail image before the video.

Christian: [00:04:32] Yeah,I agreed. But I think I mean we already touched on this, and what you were talkingabout is like niche down. And you know, you can be a personal trainer, but youdon't have to be a general, you know.

Aaron: [00:04:45] Wereally advise against that actually.

Christian: [00:04:46] Yeahexactly. Try to, you know, dive a little bit deeper into, you know, a specialtyinside of being a personal trainer, and I mean, there's countless of thingsthat you could do. And I mean, the hammer thing is- you know, that's a niche,and like nobody else is doing that. At least that I've seen. So definitely dosomething that nobody else is doing. You know, inside of personal trainers youcould, you know, just go into yoga or go into some hip training, or inside ofpersonal trainer just also sort of like I said- I keep wanting to say healers,but the-

Franklin: [00:05:21] Physicaltherapist.

Christian: [00:05:22] Physicaltherapist. Thank you. That's who-

Aaron: [00:05:24] Theyare healers.

Christian: [00:05:26] Butthat could also fall under, you know, a personal trainer category of nutrition.It's also a huge thing about, you know, exercising and doing workouts is havingproper nutrition. So you can definitely niche down and figure out, you know,some specialty within the personal trainer in order to stand out.

Aaron: [00:05:45] Ithink that that's probably all we're going to say about niching, but just hearme when I say this, if you're driving in your car, stop and think about niche.Think about something that you really stand out and you love to do becausethere is more than enough competition and everything else. So if you don'tniche down, you probably won't stand out.

Christian: [00:06:03] Yeah.And I think Aaron was joking about earlier like doing llama yoga. Is that whatyou said?

Aaron: [00:06:08] No,it's real in Dallas. There's 40 to 50 people every day doing llama yoga.They're laying down doing yoga, and llamas are like walking on them.

Christian: [00:06:16] OK.So.

Aaron: [00:06:17] Orgoats. Sorry. It's goats.

Christian: [00:06:18] Yeah.It's goats. Yeah. Because yeah, I remember seeing something on Instagram aboutgoat yoga, and yeah, the goats like to, you know, climb and step on people.

Aaron: [00:06:29] Maybetheir hooves feel good. I don't know, but llamas are probably a little tooheavy.

Christian: [00:06:34] Yeah.Yeah.

Franklin: [00:06:37] What?

Christian: [00:06:37] Franklinis just perplexed.

Franklin: [00:06:39] Yes.If you could see my face right now, like.

Christian: [00:06:42] No,I saw a post on Instagram about that. Yeah.

Aaron: [00:06:45] No,I have a friend who saw it, and she's like- she saw it on Instagram of a yogateacher saying she was doing goat yoga in Dallas, and then she posted a videothe next morning saying she drove 30 minutes to go do yoga with a goat.

Christian: [00:06:58] Seethat's what we're talking about niching down. That's it.

Franklin: [00:07:02] Ohmy god.

Christian: [00:07:03] Wow.

Aaron: [00:07:04] Andit was a huge class. There were so many goats and- so many goats. So manypeople doing yoga. Like, how can you- anyway, we digress. Let's get back to-let's get back.

Franklin: [00:07:16] Butyou know, that would have been a great thing to put on what we have next whichis Instagram stories. Like if you could have imagined, like, to actually seethe coverage of a bunch of people, like, on the ground with their phones. Iknow they're supposed to be concentrating while they're doing yoga, but like,if someone were to sneak in while the goat was standing on their back whilethey're recording the story. And just like, you see this lady laying on theground, and then above her, you see this goat just right there. Like that's howyou see in the background, but use the Instagram stories to tell the actualstory of what's going on in the daily life of your particular type of personaltraining with your clients, interviewing your clients, letting your clientsshare, like, how they feel about working out with you or the meal plan that yougave them or the motivation that you've giving them in the week. How, like,that would actually help them with the Instagram story.

Christian: [00:08:13] Yeah.And I mean going back to the go yoga. Like, literally you know I saw a pictureon Instagram. Like it would have been great to see a video inside of Instagramstories, you know, watching these little goats step on people and stuff.

Aaron: [00:08:28] Andsomething that- we're recording this in August of 2017, but something that'sbig right now is Instagram live videos are actually being put into stories, andthey kind of get precedence or like first choice online. So you're doing a livevideo of live goat yoga. You're going to get a bunch of views from that.

Christian: [00:08:46] Forsure. For sure. And something that we didn't talk about but is using thehashtags and that niche, niche, niche?

Aaron: [00:08:58] Niche.

Christian: [00:08:58] Niche.

Franklin: [00:08:58] Niche.

Christian: [00:08:59] Andthen engage. So Aaron was the one who came up with this, and you know, what youwant to do is find those hash tags that select very few people are using. Sofor example, for us something like marketing is too generic. You want to findsomething in your niche that people are using the hashtag and go search for thehashtag and then go look at other people's posts, engage with them, talk tothem. Be authentic. Don't do the general, wow, that's great. Yeah. Awesome,awesome post. Yeah, that doesn't help.

Franklin: [00:09:34] Yeah.Give some value in your comment whenever you're actually commenting with them.If you see something that they're doing wrong, like, actually give them thatfeedback, or if you see that they're doing something great say, hey.

Aaron: [00:09:46] LikeI really like that goat in your picture. Like that's a cool goat.

Franklin: [00:09:50] Exactly.His coat looks great.

Christian: [00:09:53] Yeah.I mean, the best thing is really to either ask questions. I mean, that justrequires them to answer you and keep the conversation going.

Franklin: [00:10:02] Exactly.

Christian: [00:10:03] Soyou can start with a question. You know, that's great.

Franklin: [00:10:06] Exactly.

Aaron: [00:10:07] Allright, and then this is- again these may be just like obvious, but be yourself.You're going to stand out anyway because you're different. We're all unique anddifferent. So be yourself. Whether it's like you love to. Gosh dangit. They'redoing funny things behind the microphone, guys, so I apologize. I can't keep astraight face.

Christian: [00:10:27] We'retrying to be ourselves over here.

Aaron: [00:10:29] They'rebeing theirselves. But anyway, so for example like, Christian is Puerto Ricanand Franklin is, you know, Louisianan, and he talks like a Louisianan guy. Somaybe that's going to work for him on working out. I don't know. But it may notwork for somebody else. So don't try to copy somebody else. Just be authentic.Be yourself, and now help you stand out especially you get down into a niche.So we're kind of like- if I can paint this visual, of we like going to thejourney of the center of the earth kind of thing. We just keep going deeper anddeeper.

Franklin: [00:10:58] Right.And guess what?

Christian: [00:11:03] What?

Franklin: [00:11:03] We'renot going to be- this is not inappropriate. I promise.

Aaron: [00:11:07] Sogive us some context, and then what do you mean?

Franklin: [00:11:09] OK.So I'm just going to say is it. OK if I just say it? Show more skin. That's notto be like- that's not me being like sexual or anything like that. It's more orless so we can actually see the progress. What most people would do is say theydo a Transformation Tuesday or Transformation Thursday, and being able toactually see the parts of the body where the person came from, where theystarted, and where they ended, where you can actually visually see theprogress. Make sure that it is done tastefully. Make sure that you are likesports bras for women and proper, like, workout shorts for women so you canactually see the definition from where they started and where they ended. Andguys can wear basketball shorts to where they can see the proper parts of theupper body because that's where guys work out most, like abs, chest, shoulders,arms. For ladies, they want me to be flat. That's what they want, and niceshoulders. They don't want.

Aaron: [00:12:13] Andthey want it in five days too.

Franklin: [00:12:15] Yes.And make sure that you tell the story inside that Transformation Tuesday toactually tell who the person is, say what was ailing them, what caused them toactually get to the point where they are, and what motivated them to get to thepoint to where they are today.

Aaron: [00:12:34] Andwe didn't really talk about this and this is just like a side note, but don'tuse some kind of Paint or like some kind of weird tool to like write before andafter on there. Just try to keep it as clean as possible, and don't try todoctor it up. If you're not a photographer, you don't need to do that, but justdon't try to go over the top. I see a lot of people who take great pictures andthen they just try to- man, they're just need to hire their own graphic designor something. So don't try to do too much with that.

Franklin: [00:13:01] Right.Just keep it simple.

Christian: [00:13:03] Yes.All right. So just recap here. How can a personal trainer stand out onInstagram? We talked about doing videos. We talked about niching down, doingsome goat yoga, using hashtags and different niche, and engaging with peopleusing Instagram stories, telling real stories and driving traffic back toactual posts and videos on your timeline. We talked about being yourself, andwe talked about showing more skin.

Aaron: [00:13:32] Andwe're going to be doing these podcast, breaking these down into small videos,but eventually. And one thing I would love to do is have us all go do some goatyoga and do like a two minute recap of what some goat yoga was like because Ithink that'd get some good attention.

Christian: [00:13:46] Iwould be down to do some goat yoga.

Aaron: [00:13:48] Let'sdo some go yoga. So while you're thinking about us doing goat yoga, go aheadand share this with your favorite personal trainer, or if you're trying to getinto the fitness industry, please leave us a comment and review. Make sure yousubscribe, and the easiest way is click those three buttons in the right handcorner and share this episode with somebody you care about. And we will see youguys- we won't see you. We'll talk to you next week.

Christian: [00:14:12] Yes,we will.

Franklin: [00:14:14] Later.