How to Create a Facebook Tribe for Your Clients
Hey there, Callie Durbrow here and I’m excited to be writing this blog post for Georgette. I’ve been following her stuff for a long time, she’s a legend in the industry and always giving amazing content so I wanted to help out her readers with something cool that I do in my business.
These days everyone is on Facebook. I think I have a few stray clients that are not, but for the most part it’s how we all communicate lately. This is pretty awesome when it comes to your training clients.
We all know that everyone wants to feel a part of something. When you create your fitness business you need to strive for this every day. People go through their days feeling unappreciated at work, by their spouses, kids, friends and whoever else. You want to be someone that can pump them up and make them feel great about themselves.
If you can do that and also create an amazing environment where you make ALL your clients feel like this, well that’s a pretty cool place to be.
Facebook can help you with this big time. You want to have happy people who will tell their friends about you. Using Facebook to pump up your clients and create a tribe is super easy. Here are some simple strategies that you can use to kick start Facebook in your training business.
- Be sure to “Friend” all of your clients. Besides being a great way to communicate, this allows your clients to get to know you on a more personal level. Yes we need to be professional, but we also need to be real and approachable. After their first session once they are all signed up, be sure to friend them up. If you want your trainers to friend them as well, that’s okay. It’s totally up to you, just make sure that trainer isn’t going to post sketchy things that might get you in trouble.
- Create a private Facebook group just for your clients. This goes back to feeling like a part of something. Create this group and keep it private and add only your clients. Every time you get a new client be sure to put them in. This is a great place for everyone to interact, ask questions, post recipes, announcements and workouts. People are more likely to interact in a smaller setting rather than on your page, especially if they have a question.
- Tag and welcome new clients. This is a really easy but “feel good” strategy. When you get a new client simply give them a welcome shout out in the private group. I always say something like “Jen Smith, welcome to the family and great workout last night!” Be sure to use the tag feature so people can get to know each other. All your other clients will start leaving comments and Likes and it makes that new person feel awesome.
- Shout outs for accomplishments. I try to do this a few times each week and recognize clients who have done cool things. This can be something as simple as doing their first push up on their toes. I also do it when people have had a great measurement result or really kicked butt in a training session. Whatever you want it to be, just recognize them for doing a great job. Be sure to use the tag feature for this as well. You can do this on your personal page or in the group.
- Post pictures and videos. Posting pictures and videos of your training session is a great way for people to show off what they do to their friends. Be sure to get permission before you tag them, but people love when their friends can see them rocking a tough workout. This is just one more thing to make people feel good and feel appreciated.
Give these Facebook tactics a try with your training business. Along the way be sure to just be cool to your clients and truly appreciate them. You can’t fake this kind of stuff so be genuine and really care about each person in your program.
Callie Durbrow is the owner of Durbrow Performance Training in Cambridge, MA
Check out the NEW FREE Video series Callie just put up on How to get
clients to pay, stay and refer..and how to train small groups at http://tinyurl.com/grouptrain