I feel dirty writing the headline to this article.
I feel dirty because while social media plays an important part in today’s world, it’s often hyped up by marketers as being a bigger deal than it actually is.
You can definitely build a successful business without a single social media account. In fact sometimes they can just be a complete distraction from doing what your business is mean to do.
However, for a community based business like a bootcamp or this website, it is a fantastic business.
The best way to build your business into a community is during the workout sessions. You already have their attention so make the most of it.
But how do you keep that attention and keeping them thinking about you and interacting with each other between sessions?
Social Media.
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter don’t just get you in front of new people, they also give you a space where the discussion and friendship and camaraderie can continue after the workout is over.
I want to share with you an experiment I did on the Bootcamp Ideas Instagram account and at the end, I want to invite you to join me in running your own experiment.
The Experiment
Like a mad scientist I devised my plan for Instagram domination.
Instagram is one of the easiest social media platforms to use. For those who aren’t familiar with how it works here’s how:
You post a picture or short video and a caption to your account and people who choose to ‘Follow’ you will see it on their homepage. Their homepage has a list of recent updates from the people they follow.
People can then approve of or comment on your update and invite their friends to look at it.
I already had an Instagram account for Bootcamp Ideas but I only updated it sporadically. I wanted to improve my reach and use it as a way to interact with people everyday. I guess I could email you all everyday too but I know I wouldn’t like someone pummelling my inbox my email inbox like that.
Instagram is a nice, non-invasive way to stay in touch.
Posting new content every single day to Instagram for the rest of my life seemed a bit daunting though. So I decided that a goal of 30 days of posting everyday was long enough to build a habit and short enough that I could see an end point and stick with it.
Planning
I’m a planner so I started by mapping out what the 30 days would look like. I wanted a to share a variety of posts so I could see what you guys liked most.
I decided I would use the day of the week to determine the content. It looked like this:
Monday – Group drill
Tuesday – Exercise
Wednesday – Partner drill
Thursday – Exercise
Friday – Workout drill/concept
Saturday – Inspiration
Sunday – Community inspired post
I had this repeated in a list from 1 to 30.
Then each Sunday I would write down exactly what exercise/drill/quote I was going to post for the next 7 days. A sample week looked like this:
Monday – Group drill – Pick the cone/ball from the middle and then do work
Tuesday – Exercise – Bear crawl
Wednesday – Partner drill – partner 1 leg squats
Thursday – Exercise – yoga push up
Friday – Workout drill/concept – 4 steps to awesome workouts
Saturday – Inspiration – Blur the line between working & not – K.C.
Sunday – Community inspired post – Sarah Fina
Execution
Each day I would check my list and see what I had planned. I already had a lot of the pictures and videos from other projects so it was just a matter of typing out the explanation and posting.
A tip I learnt from Jen Hansard of Simple Green Smoothies was to edit my photos in an app called VSCOCam (iTunes, Google Play) to make them stand out on my followers Instagram feed.
I increased the exposure, contrast and sometimes the warmth and sharpness to make the picture vivid and interesting.
It seems like a lot of work but personally I enjoyed the process.
Some days I accidentally forgot to post an update, so I would just do two the following day. One in the morning and one in huge evening. I figured that somewhere in the world that was actually two different days.
Most Popular
In the end popularity of posts seemed less about the content and more about the time of day that I posted it. Something to keep in mind when putting your own stuff up.
That said, partner and group drills were slightly more popular than other posts.
Here are the 3 most popular from the 30 day experiment:
Join me and do your own 30 Day Instagram Challenge
Because it was so popular, I’m going to do another 30 day challange to post a new bootcamp idea once everyday.
I would like to invite you to join me in doing your own challenge. It takes only 5-20 minutes each day but the results may surprise you.
Just pop your email in below and I’ll send you a guide for planning out your challenge as well as weekly tips on selection of images and how to use hashtags effectively.
Note: This is free! No strings attached. No product to buy at the end. I’m not getting paid by Instagram. I just want you guys to get excited about this and some company on my next challenge!
We start on Monday, November 3rd so get ready and sign up below.
This will be the first of hopefully many free 30 day challenges I hope to run, all with the goal of to giving your bootcamp a boost in becoming more popular and successful.
Kyle Wood created Bootcamp Ideas in 2010 when he was hunting around on the internet for workout ideas. He ran a successful bootcamp in Victoria, Australia and spends his spare time managing this site, adventuring (or lazying) with his wife and find new ways to make bootcamps even better.
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