This is a question that I get asked all the time: How to grow a fitness page on Instagram?
By “grow”, I will just assume that you want to have a big number of followers and a decent engagement in every single post, let me tell you, it’s possible and very easy to do so.
Instagram plays a crucial role in the fitness industry.
Recently, this social media platform has become the go-to site for ‘’fitspiration’’. It is also an open channel for fitness models to flaunt their expertise and market their brand.
To cut the long story short, Instagram provides an opportunity for someone to convey a single message to a very broad audience.
Let’s start…
How to grow a fitness page on Instagram?
In this article, I am going to show you ways through which you can grow your fitness page on Instagram.
From a professional point of view, Instagram can really help you grow your business if the marketing is done the right way.
1- Hashtag intentionally
You need to be strategic here. It may be the most obvious thing but you need to strategize your way of getting the best out of it.
The good thing with Instagram is that it allows you to add up to 30 hashtags; that’s 30 different places in which your post will be available for others to see.
You need to do research on the keywords that are relevant to your own page or you can also see what your competitors are using and get inspired by them.
Luckily for you, we have you covered. See our selection of the best Fitness hashtags on Instagram to copy and paste them anytime you want.
We have made sure they are all Fitness related, so if you want to give them your own personal taste, just delete some, and add the ones that people usually know you for.
2- Create an awesome profile
You now have an objective and you have to create something that people will come across and understand all your intentions from the first glance.
An awesome profile will help you get noticed easily.
This is the first thing that people see and hence it should be creatively drafted.
What are some things to remember?
- Use a professional logo on your profile picture if you are more business related
- Use a high-quality professional photo of yourself if you are building a personal brand
- Provide others a link to what you do; for example, your blog, your YouTube channel, or even your Shopify store
- On your bio, ensure you include some of the keywords that you think are the most searched in this industry and the ones that you want others to know you for
Why is all this important?
Having your main keyword in your name is some that a lot of people are missing on.
For example, let’s take a look at our Google search for the keyword “fitness Instagram”:
As you can see @fitnessgirlsmotivation is showing up as the second result for this query; this gets Googled about 22,200 times a month.
That means this Instagram account is getting organic traffic from Google every single month, and they don’t have to do a thing.
They are already big, but they won’t stop growing anytime soon.
Disclaimer: Ranking on Google is not as easy as simply putting your main keyword as your name, there are way many other things that play a big role in this. We are just showing you that is possible, not that’s easy.
3- On Instagram, content matter
Instagram is unique and hence you need to be familiar with some of the strategies that don’t go the same way as with other social media sites.
Here, you need to focus more on the content of your posts rather than the brand sometimes.
“But I thought I just needed to comment irrelevant things on everybody’s photos”, you may say.
Wrong, don’t be that type of a marketer or user who comments on everybody’s account just for the sake of it. This is annoying and you can end up getting blocked, and even worse, banned.
This method may be effective if you want to get noticed for one second, but it is the worst for getting followers. You need to remember that you are on Instagram to create and show the best of you.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVq5FHFrnZ/?taken-by=fitnessfaqs
In the post above by @fitnessfaqs, you can see that they don’t only have a high-quality photo, but they are also willing to give more value by answering other people’s questions.
You need to invest a lot of time into researching and building your content and make it interesting and helpful for others, that’s what will get you, REAL followers.
4- Develop content for your ideal follower
If you create content that will be attractive and professional, you are likely to get a huge following.
When the time to create your content comes, create mouthwatering images, captions, and hashtags.
You have to think about what will appeal to your clients or potential followers.
Ensure that your feeds have a cohesive theme.
For example, let’s go back to @fitnessfaqs:
As you can see their videos and photos all have about the same lighting and style, and when you scroll down, nothing seems out of place.
That’s what we are talking about here, people like seeing this type of pages; they will easily hit the follow button.
5- Provide value to your followers
You may feel that you need to keep on posting something to get high engagement or bombard Instagram with low-quality photos. The classic “quantity over quality”.
However, this is not the truth, you have to post something useful to your followers and something that will make them take an action (comment, like, or follow). What this means is that you must produce things that people actually want to see on their timeline.
If you think that value is sharing your ‘’yoga moves selfie’’ time to them on Instagram, then you are not doing it right. Take time but ensure you give your followers something they want to see.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnWfziMBmv2/?taken-by=motivation
For example:
- A post sharing your journey and how you thought of giving up, but never did.
- How you lost 30 pounds in two months.
- What are your secrets to having a 6-pack abs
- What keeps you motivated every morning
6- Always post high-quality photos
Just like we talked about before.
Don’t spend a lot of your time posting blurry photos because it is not going to work.
Blurry photos are not going to look aesthetically appealing to someone who just landed on your page.
The reality of this is that the more beautifully curated your photos are, the more attractive they are going to be and the more followers you will get. You can invest in taking original photos and videos with a high-quality camera.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnUDm0ThdaC/?taken-by=gymshark
You should as well post your photos followed by a professional and valuable caption.
Note: Just at the same time, we know that the message and lesson of your content are way more important than “how good your lighting is”, for example. So, don’t get caught up in this. It is just that, sadly, first impressions are everything, and humans tend to criticize things by how they look rather than what they provide.
7-Have a style
You need to emulate a fitness brand that has really hit it in this industry.
Research around and follow some brands or fitness professionals (don’t’ copy them, get inspired). There are some brands that choose one filter and stick with it throughout their entire feed.
There are those others that stick to a certain color and some others just post a certain type of photo. You need to find what works for you and grow it.
In the example above, @gymshark has been publishing photos with natural lighting and as you can see, they all fit in together very well.
8- Create a schedule but feel free to break the monotony
As a good marketer, you must know the importance of having a schedule.
You can create a schedule of the different types of photos and content that you are going to share at a specific time; this will save you the agony of posting the same thing twice or making your followers feel uncertain of what you are all about.
For example:
- On Mondays, you can share a motivational quote and use a good hashtag such as #motivationalmoday.
- On Friday you can post a workout tip that you think is good and helpful to your followers.
- On Sunday, you can share one great post from a follower and have a short comment celebrating their success.
- And for the rest, just post something about your brand and overall message.
See the screenshot above of @iptamarbella’s feed.
As you can see they have a pattern in which they post a quote and then four other different photos before posting a quote again.
Their followers already know and expect that, so that’s a good thing to make them feel sure about the content that you are really putting out
Note: Is kind of like YouTube, in which you tell your subscribers when you will be putting out a video, and then on that said time, you already know that everyone will be waiting for you to upload.
9- Find the best apps for editing
If you want to add something to your photo or even to make them more attractive, you can look for an external photo editing app; editing your photos before throwing them to Instagram can be a good thing and could potentially make your low-quality photos look much better.
Some of the best editing apps today include; Snapseed, Afterlight, and VSCO.
VSCO is by far one of the most popular, and the one we use.
I encourage you to watch this video by ConnorFranta in which he talks about how he usually edit his pictures before posting them to Instagram, might be of great help to some of you.
10- Show before and after photos
This one is the best marketing strategy for a fitness account.
Before and after photos are one of those secrets to growing a Fitness account that almost nobody really thinks about and pays attention to.
You can use the new slideshow feature to show your ‘’before and after’’’ photos, or edit two pictures in one.
For more engagement, including a quote or the story behind it, that will make others want to comment and share their personal thoughts with you.
Usually, big accounts like to re-post “before and after” photos; it’s free marketing for your page, and if it goes viral, your exposure can be really huge.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmb3To-jDA_/?taken-by=fitness
They will, for the most part, tag you in the captions or picture, which will make it easy for others to know who you are.
11- Get clear on your objectives; pick a small niche
You need to sit down and start figuring out why you are on Instagram in the first place.
This is marketing and hence clear objectives are crucial. This step will influence the type of content you post. Just repurpose your ambitions and be specific on what you want to promote.
Are you advertising and promoting post-pregnancy programs or just promoting anti-aging programs?
Will you focus on just abs, chest, arms?
For example, just so you see that it is possible to be successful with a small niche, @abs has, at the time of writing this, 1.3M followers.
Once you are clear on this, tailor your profile picture accordingly, and just make sure you make your message as clear as possible.
Note: You can always expand your niche once you already have a big following.
12- Tag people
If you are a personal account, you can tag others, especially re-post accounts whenever you publish something.
Tag them on the actual photo and also the caption if you want.
On the other side, if you are a brand or business, you can get influencers and at the same time get their permission to share their photos.
Make sure you tag them too.
You can get an influencer or any other person who has a big following in the fitness industry to share and give you a shoutout.
Just like that, maybe tag other brands and big accounts.
For example, @inmort.ali.ty tagged @nike in one of their photos:
Just for that reason, that same picture is available to see on @nike’s official account tag section.
That’s 80.2M potential people that can see your picture or video.
13- Follow and interact
If you want people to notice you, you need to follow and interact with them on other pages that are targeting the same audience.
Note: Don’t follow and then unfollow, you won’t go anywhere like that and people will see your real intentions from a mile away.
Follow brands that target the same audience and are actively liking and sharing content.
I hope you get me right, I don’t mean that you are supposed to comment asking people for a follow, you are supposed to do it leaving genuine comments and ideas.
Don’t be like:
Dope pic, *emojis*, follow my fitness account.
Instead, say something useful:
Wow, the same happened to me. *share your personal opinion about the post*, I do the same on my page, you can feel free to check it out.
14- Use Instagram stories
Instagram stories have got their start.
They foster a better channel to interact with your audience.
Photos cannot capture your personality and hence Instagram stories will give your audience a glimpse of what they cannot capture.
There’s a row of Instagram stories at the top of the page where you can post your daily life stories.
The other thing is that Instagram will show you a pool of stories that are trending or the ones that are liked by many people.
What this means is that by following these stories, you will have an idea of what your followers might like and what they are actually looking for.
Pro Tip: Sometimes your stories can get lost in this row of other stories. A simple trick is to go live and leave your live video up for 24 hours. Instagram will rank your stories first that way. Shh, don’t tell too many people about this.
After you are done, just simply put share and mark the blue button to the right.
15- Rinse, repeat and scale what is working for you
You need to look at what has been working and double on those efforts.
Spend some time reviewing your Instagram profile and posts. Evaluate what has worked well for your brand and also put a note on what you should improve on.
You can search for the stories that went viral.
Also, pay attention to which post people liked the most, and maybe the hashtags that really worked well.
Note: If you have a business account on Instagram, you will be provided with your profile’s insights, for free. This will tell you everything that is working and everything that is not. It will also say the age, location, and gender of your followers.
Once you have noted what is performing well and what needs some improvement, then focus all your efforts on those for the next 30 days. This is imperative especially on ensuring that your account continues to grow rather than hitting a plateau.
Before you go
Our website is all about giving you the best hashtags for Instagram out there.
See our selection of the best Fitness hashtags for example.
If you like what we do, bookmark our homepage so you can easily access our content everytime you want.
Thank you for your time, and for being here,
The Hashtagie Team
