5 Steps For Growing Your Personal Training Business on Facebook (without paid ads)

We all know how much impact social networks have had on different industries over the last few years, and this is especially true of the world's largest social network: Facebook. That’s because there are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users (Facebook MAUs) and it has a 17% increase year over year.

In this article, I will review the most important activities to grow your business on Facebook, using a Facebook page. Later on, these strategies can be converted to target visitors on your personal training blog, you email subscribers, and your existing clients.

For this particular article, I performed some tests using a friend's fan page and website. The test took place from 04/04/2017 to 04/17/2017, and the page I used is for a business that promotes health and beauty tips.

Here are the details before we ran the test:

• This website had received 12,821 unique visitors and 23,197 pageviews from 03/04/2017 to 03/17/2017
• There were 122,035 Facebook followers for the fan page.
• A total of 6,300 email subscribers.

Here are the results we obtained:

• 31,307 new visitors and 54,290 pageviews.
• 154,389 Facebook Followers. From 04/04 until 04/17, we were able to gain 32,354 new followers.
• 2,149 new email subscribers.
• US$120 on revenue from AdSense.

Not only did we see a substantial increase in follower count and email subscribers, but we also received messages from many customers who proactively wanted to complete a purchase.

At this point, you must be wondering...

How the heck did you get such amazing results???

Let me show you the 5 simple steps:

1. Everything Starts with a Fan Page

Using this type of strategy to grow your business on Facebook means having an already defined content strategy.

The first step for any small business is to create a fan page because this is the type of page that Facebook recommends for business.

If you are unfamiliar with this, you can check How to Create a Facebook Business Page.

2. Create Valuable, Shareable Content

First of all, we made sure to post content that made people engage and share. This is the most powerful resource that you can make use of in social networks.

Identify the type of content your audience is interested in and has the potential to be widely shared. Some of the best ways to do this is in the form of photos and videos.

And don't be afraid to get creative!​

Share different kinds of videos for your audience, such as one of your "special workout routine for ripped abs." Share success stories that appeal to people's emotions and make them feel noticed: "This is how Ashley was able to lose 15 pounds in just 3 weeks, and you can do it too.”

Native Facebook videos have demonstrated to be most shareable. According to socialbakers.com, videos can promote a 135% increase in organic reach. Based on these numbers, we focused on sharing videos more than anything else.

3. Sharing Content on Facebook Groups

This technique might be considered as spammy to some people, but the way I look at it, it's not spamming at all.

Let's imagine that you have created a very nice email list, but you start sending out low-quality emails with low-quality content. Is that spam?

Absolutely. It's spam because you're not sending valuable content that people would be interested in.

Based on the same principle, if you are creating useful training videos that you can share with Facebook groups about weight loss, home workout, bodybuilders, etc., then you are contributing to their interest, which is not spamming.

So, find groups that will help you grow your business on Facebook. You might start searching for groups using words like; "workout," "weight loss," "Fitness," " BodyBuilding," etc.

You can also create your own group allowing people to share their experiences, recommendations, ways to use your product, and create engagement within your audience.

But first, verify that there are no already-existing, similar groups. If one does exist, you should assess whether it's worthwhile to create your own group.

In any case, sharing in these Facebook groups can make your content viral, very quickly.

4. Use Facebook Social Widgets and Share Buttons

Facebook social widgets show your visitors the activity you have on Facebook.

There are several types of widgets: one of them is the "like button," which you already know and love. Secondly, there is a new "send" option that allows a users to send content to groups of users on Facebook.

These buttons have a lot of value, and I strongly recommend integrating them into your blog because they make it easier for people to share your content.

Social widgets here at TotalCoaching.com

Social proof widgets at shoutmeloud.com

The third widget that I want to recommend is the comments thread. This allows people to leave comments on your blog posts using their Facebook profile, which automatically sends out a notification to their friends.

Many commenters find this less hassle than logging into a WordPress or other third-party commenting platform. Everyone is already on Facebook, so it just makes sense to use Facebook for your blog comments.​

5. Convert your fans into subscribers

Have you ever heard the phrase "The money is in the list"?

If you have, then you'll probably understand why I consider this to be one of the most important points in this guide.

Facebook fans are somewhat volatile. Every fan is a person who is just a simple step away from not having any contact with you and, even being your fan, they may only see 7% of your posts.

That's a very sad statistic, isn't it?

For this reason, you should try to carry as much traffic as possible from your Facebook page to your blog or website.

Once there, you must convert your fans into email subscribers so you can contact them whenever and however you want.

48% of consumers say that email is the way they prefer communication with brands

You can’t just sit down and wait for your followers to visit your website and subscribe.

You have to take action by creating links to special deals and offers that will be irresistible to your audience (a.ka. create lead magnets). You should already know them, so you know exactly what to give them.

Also, keep these key strategies in mind; they’ve already proven to work in many other industries:

• Don't ask people for their email address, give them something they'd like in exchange and they'll subscribe.
• Give out thigs like a Free eBook, Diet Program, or Workout Routine. All they need to do is to give you an email address where you are going to send this to.
• Create contests in which you give out great rewards, such as a special workout routine personalized for the winners, and then ask people to share your content with their friends. This way you'll definitely maximize the number of subscribers you'll get.

Take Action

As can see in the results that I shared at the beginning of this article, these 5 simple steps can definitely help you increase the number of visitors you get to your business website and can also increase your sales and revenue.

To summarize:

1. Create a Facebook page.
2. Create very shareable content.
3. Share your content through relevant Facebook groups.
4. Use the right widgets to make your content even more shareable.
5. Convert your website traffic (coming from Facebook) into email subscribers.

Best of all, you don't need to invest anything on ads. It just takes some trial and error as well as consistency. Do this and watch your business grow!

And... feel free to implement these tips with any other social network such as Twitter or Instagram. Pick one, master it, rinse and repeat!

​How do you use Facebook to grow your fitness business? Tell us below, and share this article with others!