How would you like to create an unending supply of social proof, dozens of raving fans and create several referral leads with very little effort?
One of my top coaching clients has been doing something very effective with Facebook lately that I wanted to share with you. This works especially well for fitness boot camps and group personal training.
By now you may have heard of the "human billboard" concept of offering deep discounts to clients that can generate referrals for you; basically, foot soldiers for your business. Now we can take that a step further with Facebook. We all know just about everyone has a Facebook account, and if they are one of the rare few that don't, it's only a matter of time. What my coaching client is doing is having clients "tag" his studio in their comments. Each time someone tags his facility in a comment it will also show on his studio fanpage. This also makes it easy to hold your foot soldiers accountable.
So how does this help you? Well on average most people have 200 or more friends on Facebook, so every time they make a comment, that comment is shown multiple times on all of their friends' news feeds. The more interaction with those impressions, the more times it is shown; it's that simple. You can quickly see how you can suddenly have a third-party endorsement through this viral marketing that will span across hundreds of people in a very short time.
You can use this similar marketing concept in several different ways. You can offer referral challenges, ask people to tag your studio or your name in comments, set a goal for clients such as "the first person to comment on this specific day wins a prize," or the first person to make three unique comments and so on. You can get very creative to keep it interesting.
Important things to remember for Facebook postings:
1. Posts do not need to be (and likely shouldn't be) sales-oriented.
2. The best posts are just legitimate comments, like "My workout @PersonalTrainingRedDeer was amazing today!" or even better, "My trainer @PersonalTrainingRedDeer weighed me today, I've lost 20lbs!"
3. Facebook is about natural conversation, don't encourage spamming, people will just ignore it.
If you don't know how to set your page username go to www.facebook.com/username.
I hope you're able to use this simple tip that can go a long way for generating massive referrals and creating your tribe. The ideas are endless from referral contests, referral rewards, to fan building and much, much more. Use your imagination.
In less than four years Cabel McElderry went from solo personal trainer with 50 appointments per week to an entrepreneur employing a team now completing more than 28,000 appointments just last year. As the Profitable Personal Trainer he now coaches fitness professionals throughout North America on how to create business systems and effective marketing to achieve their own rapid growth. www.ProfitablePersonalTrainer.com
