Social Media - Gym Momentum

5 Free Marketing Tools ANY Small Business Can’t Afford To Ignore

November 2, 2016 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

Although it usually takes money to make money, these 5 no-cost marketing tools can actually help generate business in your gym without straining your bottom line.

Source: 5 Free Marketing Tools Small Businesses Can’t Afford To Ignore

Think that it takes lots of money to market your business effectively? Nope. There are a number of online marketing tools now available to help you attract and sell to more customers without costing you a dime.

Here are five of the most effective marketing tools your business should be already using:

Facebook groups

Facebook groups are free, they’re easy to create, and they provide a way for you to talk directly to your biggest fans – your customers. Facebook groups are communities, unlike Facebook pages, which are essentially public bulletin boards. Since you can control who is allowed in your group, you can monitor the information that is shared and set the tone for discussions. Groups are a very cost-effective way to inform prospects and customers about your business and to start building a relationship with them.

You can use your group to share news of the latest inventory to come in, as NTY Clothing Exchange does with their videos of designer purses now available. Share photos of holiday decorations you’ve set up, to entice shoppers to stop by and see them. Or start conversations that help you better serve your customers, such as through polls or fun prompts. Clothing retailer LuLaRoe uses Facebook groups as a sales channel, supplemented with Facebook Live video chats.

YouTube

While some business owners may be reluctant to jump on the video bandwagon because they don’t like seeing themselves on camera, statistics show that consumers are rabid for video content. They don’t care what you look like if the information is useful or entertaining or interesting.

Video is another effective and inexpensive way for prospects and customers to get to know you. Use your smartphone to record yourself, upload it to YouTube, and then share it with your customer base. You’ll probably be surprised by the amount of people who watch it.

If you have no idea what to talk about on-camera, here are some ideas to get you started: talk about and showcase your new inventory, demonstrate how to use a popular item in your store, address the most common question you’re asked about your business or help customers deal with a common problem. Videos can be as short as two minutes or as long as an hour – whatever length you think your audience wants. You can use them to position yourself as the expert in your field, by offering a helpful tutorial on a subject your customers want to know more about. All at no cost.

Help a Reporter

Even if you have no budget for advertising, you can certainly invest time in pursuing publicity opportunities. Publicity involves persuading the media to write about you, mainly in articles and blog posts. Success is being quoted in an article in a newspaper, magazine, or on a website your target market pays attention to.

So how can you get the attention of busy reporters and writers? Pay attention to the articles they’re working on and the types of sources they need. To find that out, all you need to do is subscribe to HelpaReporter.com, at no cost.

SurveyMonkey

Successful companies know a lot about their prospects and customers, including who they are, what they buy, why they buy it, and more. Without a massive market research budget, how can you gather some of these insights? By using SurveyMonkey, a free tool for creating short online surveys.

You can create a simple questionnaire using SurveyMonkey and share it with your Facebook group; include a link on receipts, perhaps with a small incentive for filling it out; mention it in a customer newsletter or email your entire mailing list to ask that they complete it. Specific questions are best, such as, “What day are you most likely to shop with us?” Or, “What product or service do you wish we carried?” Or even, “What one change could we make that would cause you to buy from us more often?”

Then use the responses to make adjustments and earn more of their business.

Google Alerts

One of the best tools for competitive intelligence, blog post fodder, and market research rolled into one is Google’s free alert service. It’s useful for staying on top of particular companies, issues, products, or topics of interest, simply by setting up an alert that triggers an email to you whenever keywords you’ve entered appear online.

Given the ongoing need for social media content, Google Alerts can be a lifesaver for coming up with new ideas to write about. Create alerts for subjects your customers are interested in or that are related to your products and services. Then, when related emails arrive in your inbox, set them aside to use as inspiration the next time you have to pen a blog post, draft a customer newsletter, or share a Facebook or LinkedIn update.

How to Use Social Media to Get College Coaches to Notice You (For the Right Reasons)

April 28, 2016 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

Social media can be a valuable tool for college prospects, but student-athletes must learn to use these platforms wisely.

The synergy between social media and college recruiting continues to grow. Social media is evolving into the primary tool of communication between prospects and college coaches. If used prudently, these high tech platforms can help streamline evaluations significantly to help college coaches recruit best.

On the flip side, it is important for prospects and families to realize that social media sites are “public platforms,” where information and opinions can directly define a prospect’s core character and values.

Social media and the accelerated pace of college recruiting are two strands of the evolution, and they are merging into a streamlined communication platform.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google are valuable places to share your personal story. That aside, the substance and tone of your postings will define you in the eyes of college coaches.

Think of social media as an opportunity to make your personal statement to both the public and to college coaches. Envision each post as an individual thread that helps weave your college recruiting experience into a seamless and comprehensive package.

Inspire your followers with positive messages and experiences, and avoid using social media to express irresponsible and potentially damaging opinions.

Introduce yourself.
Share your college mission statement and goals.
Identify your glorious moments and success stories.
Do not be afraid to share your failed moments.
Demonstrate the importance of team and loyalty to your coaches.
Prospects rarely realize the potentially severe consequences of ill-advised material on social media. In today’s high tech society, everything you communicate is out there for people to see, and recruits need to be vigilant about vetting the information they share, especially the ways in which they respond to critics. I offer the following points as an informal reference guide:

Everything you put on the internet is easily shared and therefore “permanent.”
Understand the potential repercussions before sharing your opinions.
Carefully review any photos or videos you plan to post which even remotely degrade your character or personality.
Use a communication coach (mom, dad, club coach) to review your posts before they go live.
High school athletes are being observed and evaluated on several complex levels, and college coaches are using social platforms to get inside the minds, spirits and emotions of their prospects. This should serve as an important reference to boys and girls who regularly navigate social media sites.

Make an effort to keep your posts positive. Share messages that take the “high road” and that can serve as an inspiration for younger student-athletes. Avoid using social media as a sounding board to debate reckless viewpoints. Keep anything remotely negative to yourself.

Social media and constantly changing communication technology and strategies are huge parts of the new landscape of college recruiting, allowing prospects and coaches to connect instantaneously. That being the case, savvy student-athletes will take great care in organizing and managing their social media communications in ways that will impress college coaches—and they will do so in a positive and responsible manner.

Source: How to Use Social Media to Get College Coaches to Notice You (For the Right Reasons) | STACK

3 Basic Steps to Social Media For Your Gymnastics Business

November 17, 2015 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

Social Media is continuing to gain MOMENTUM, and it will continue to disrupt how customers make decisions. Fewer and fewer of our clients watch “normal TV” or read a newspaper. We all have POP UP blockers on our computers. How to we engage our clients?

Let’s start with the basics of understanding how social media works. Knowing what your clients (Moms and Dads) want is crucial.

Here are 3 basic steps to being successful with social media:

1) Listen

Listening is a fundamental part of developing a two-way social media communication strategy for any gym. Listen and respond, or listen, evaluate, then respond. If you’re utilizing the latter formula, you’ll be more successful with your social media development than the former. The term ‘Listen’ in social media has become a “buzz” word among social media experts, gurus and marketers. Some businesses are using this term and not truly understanding the meaning and the responsibility that comes with listening.

To truly communicate with your audience using social media, you need to listen, think (evaluate), then respond. If it’s a question about your gym, programs, or service from a customer on your social media channel, make sure you’re listening to what they are really asking and respond accordingly. If it’s a conversation, listening to what they are saying and then join in. Don’t join in because you’re following a trend or because you heard all these experts say you must talk to your customers on social media. Listen because you sincerely want to engage and build a two-way communication and your customers are important.

2) Monitor

Monitoring your social media presence is different from listening. Listening as mentioned above pertains to the communication you develop with your customers and potential consumers. Monitoring relates to taking that communication and analyzing the chatter between your gym and customers. Understanding who you’re talking to on Facebook versus Instagram. Monitoring tied in with listening will provide you with the data you need to develop the right strategy to keep your customers engaged. According to the EXPERIENCED blog “57% of consumers are actively taking steps to avoid companies that bombard them with irrelevant communications, with 69% having unfollowed companies on social channels, closed accounts and cancelled subscriptions.”

Even though it might seem like the trust towards businesses is diminishing, it’s clear that customers still count on businesses to be present on social media. Consumers are still using social media to share their experiences with the businesses they value and the ones they don’t value. Whether to complain or to praise about your gym, customers want their voice to be heard, and they want you to listen. In addition, seeing the reviews customers are writing on Yelp or photos their posting on Instagram about your gym will help you to develop the right message and relevant content to treat them with care and attend to their individual needs.

3) Communicate

Now that you understand how to listen and monitor, the next step is to learn how to efficiently communicate with your existing and potential customers. The right communication starts with crafting the right response, creating the right messaging and developing the perfect content. When breaking through the clutter, think story and communication, not ad. You’ll know you’re developing the right message and content to complement your gym when you can get your customers to communicate with each other about your products or services.

Responding to feedback:

Crafting the right response to a customer feedback, whether positive or negative can be a little challenging. As a business owner, you love your business and if someone say anything negative about your business, it’s normal to go on the defense. Just remember it’s not personal, it’s just business. The right response to a negative review can be the difference between losing that customer forever along with future customers that might read their review and your response or regaining the trust of that customer and building loyalty with new consumers. Staying silent is worst than not responding and will look like you just don’t care about your customers. Your response to a negative review must be three things:

It must be sincere.
It must address each issue that customer had.
It should offer a solution.

On the other hand, responding to a positive review should serve as a chance to thank your customer. In either scenario, you should be using feedback as a way to grow your business.

Creating the right message:

You don’t have to be a superstar wordsmith or have a major in copywriting to create the right message for your gym. You know your business better than anyone else and if you’ve been around long enough, you should know what your customers like or dislike. Posting on social media is about telling a story. A story that at all costs should avoid overselling. Talk about your products, services, people and business culture in a fun and creative way that will show that there is a human behind your brand and not a selling machine. Use your words to connect with your customer’s emotion to build trust and loyalty.

Content:

Content will help you to emotionally connect your customers to your business. Whether it’s a 15-second video of a pre-school class playing in the pit, a photo of your team saying ‘Happy Birthday’ to their coach or news from the community that is important to your customers. One of my gyms is on the same road as a major shopping mall. Traffic is already picking up with holiday shoppers. Sending out a tweet or fb post “Lots of traffic on Gosling Rd this PM. Take Woodbury Ave” . Remember that great content that communicates your gym in a way that your users can relate to will lead to success. Knowing how to develop in-house content and repurpose approved content using customers’ photos is an affordable way to get great content. In addition, when taking photos for social media having the right scenery, symmetrical shot, composition or just a very creative imagination can help you capture the perfect visuals and will help bring your social community closer to your business. Having great content is imperative and it can make or break your social media strategy.

Episode 158| GymCastic

August 5, 2015 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

Great podcast. And NOT just because I am interviewed!

Source: Episode 158 | GymCastic

SUPPORT GYMCASTIC!!

This Week’s Interview
Ariana Berlin is happy, goofy, surprising, unique, beautiful and partially made of steel. She made her mark on college gymnastics by bringing her professional hip hop dance background onto the competition floor. Her floor routines were something totally new and sometimes controversial but always entertaining. But the road to NCAA finals almost went through the grave. “Ari” went from a being a promising level 10 gymnast, about to test for elite, to a girl in a coma, told when she woke up that she would never do gymnastics again. Though a car accident almost killed her and her mother, losing gymnastics was heartbreaking. She found solace in dance with the world famous hip hop troupe Culture Shock. A dance performance in front of UCLA head coach, Valorie Kondos-Field led her back to gymnastics. After years away from the sport, with a rod holding her femur together, Ari walked onto the UCLA gymnastics team, earned a scholarship and became one of their most consistent gymnasts of all time. While at UCLA she hit 175 of her 182 career routines (96%) without a fall, never missed a competition in 57 consecutive meets. In the final competition of her career, the former walk-on, placed fourth all-around at the 2009 NCAA Championships. We talk about the movie based on her life called, Full Out, staring Flashdance star, Jennifer Beals. We discuss:

GymMyth Busters Full Out edition; we separate fact from fiction and talk about the liberties taken with her story in order to deliver a dramatic message of inspiration.
Being star struck and all of the cameos: Alicia Sacramone, Jordyn Weiber, Victoria Moors, Samantha Peszek and Elfie Schlegel are all in the movie!
Ariana’s advice for walk-on (non-scholarship) athletes, how to get onto your dream team and what to do even if finances won’t make it easy.
How she became so consistent and her mental game.
Dealing with the haters who claimed her ground breaking hip-hop floor choreography was cultural appropriation or racially inappropriate.

In the News

In the news this week, Evan Heiter and Jessica chat about:

Simone Biles going pro: Is it too soon or the perfect time to turn pro? If this will affect her preparation for Rio and which brands we want her to endorse!
The first ever all adult gymnastics camp took place in July at Atlantic Gymnastics in New Hampshire. We talked to the camp director Gina Paulhus, gym owner Tony Retrosi and two campers to find out what made this weekend such a sucess.
The clinics by the pool that made this camp unique: dealing with fear and mental blocks, physical therapy sessions, and a class on nutrition for the adult gymnast with tips on balancing snacks and meals between work and family on the way to the gym.
Why Tony Retrosi, gym owner and coach, supports adult gymnastics and the adult camp.
Campers Ryan and Stefane explain how the camp accommodated:
different gymnastics and fitness levels
people who didn’t do every event
made the schedule reasonable for all levels
helped everyone feel welcome by hosting everything from dinners to beach trips
The fun awards Gina created to make each camper feel special.
Tony’s advice on the best student to coach ratio for adult gymnastics classes.
How to identify the right coach for an adult gymnastics class.
Afraid to try adult gymnastics? Stefane and Ryan explain how adult gymnastics has helped them find their community and why they recommend it to others.
Related Links

Find out how to watch P&G Championships (the US National Gymnastics Championships) and hear Samantha Peszek and Evan Heiter do reprise last year’s commentary fabulousness on the official website pgchamps.com
Find out more about Adult Gymnastics Camp Director, competitive adult gymnast and personal trainer, Gina Paulhus here.
Tony Retrosi’s website is gymmomentum.com
Here is Gina’s article with details on the schedule, costs, demographics, staffing and photos of adult gymnastics camp!

Adult Training Camp Review

3 good lessons on leadership

July 7, 2015 by Tony Retrosi 1 Comment

I graduated from college in 1989 and got married in 1990. To me this does not seem like a long time ago But to many of you reading this it is a different world. I can tell you: the world has changed an awful lot in just 25 years. My word processor was a joke. Computers were HUGE. Online classes were a fantasy. Computer hackers and the internet were things that worked in movies like WAR-GAMES but not real life. And CELL PHONES? ha! A phone that fits in your pocket that almost anywhere in the world people can call you? Send you a TEXT MESSAGE? why would anyone want to write you a message when they could just call? Let’s not even get into smart phones and their capabilities.

The world we live in today is one I could not have imagined when I graduated. I am sitting at a table at my fairly remote lake house. Cell phone service is delightfully weak (it is good to disconnect) but I have fast wifi. I am typing on my Macbook Pro that (I have heard) is “smarter” than the computers that helped us land on the moon. 25 years from now where will things be? What now seems like science fiction will be boring and slow. To my younger readers- This will be up to you! You will have helped shape your generation’s world.

It doesn’t matter what country you live in. Because countries do not lead. People lead.
Everyday you must start your path toward leadership. What kind of leader will you be? How much impact on others will you have? What will be your mark on the world?

I have heard that at companies like Facebook, they have posters on the walls to remind them to THINK BIG — to challenge themselves to do more each and every day. There are important leadership lessons reflected in these posters . I try to emulate that in my gyms. To encourage each manager to not just lead but to encourage others to lead. To help the coaches realize that they are not just creating the masterpiece, they must first prepare the canvas. To be excited about what they do and get the gymnasts excited about what they do.

Here are some lessons I learned from Sheryl Sandberg the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook

Fortune favors the bold.

Facebook exists because Mark Zuckerberg believed that the world would be a better place if people could use technology to connect as individuals. He believed it so much that he dropped out of Harvard College to pursue that mission and he fought to hold onto it over the years. What Mark did was not lucky. It was bold.

It’s unusual to find your passion as early as Mark. It took me far longer to figure out what I wanted to do. I love coaching and I pretty much have been coaching my entire life. When I was sitting in a graduation robe, I could not have considered that I would actually be making a good living on coaching and owning a gym. Every coach I knew was just getting by. Their passion for the sport kept them alive. Every gym owner was struggling day in and day out. They loved the sport and they loved the kids but did not have enough business sense. Thinking that I could survive and raise a family as a coach then club owner was a dream (much like cell phones).
I taught school for a few years and coached every afternoon. Taking kids to JO Nationals. When the gymnasts were at a point where they were ready to make the jump into International Elite Level, I needed to stop teaching. It was the only way to make it work. I had learned the ropes about the gymnastics business, I had some great people help me know what to do next with these talented gymnast. It was then that I knew it was time to go out on my own and open up my own gym. In retrospect, this seems like a shrewd move. But in 1994, it was questionable at best. It was a struggle and a fight but I KNEW I COULD DO IT. 21 years later- I still love working in the gym and coaching. It was not my original plan, but I got there — eventually.

I hope if you find yourself on one path but longing for something else, you find a way to get there. And if that isn’t right, try again. Try until you find something that stirs your passion, a job that matters to you and matters to others. It’s a luxury to combine passion and contribution. It’s also a clear path to happiness.

Feedback is a gift.
As a manager or club owner- sometimes it is hard to tell if you are doing a good job. I have always looked at feedback- EVEN NEGATIVE FEEDBACK as an opportunity to learn and grow. If people care enough about you and your organization, they will tell you when you fall short of their expectations. If they tell you- and you make corrections- THEY WILL TELL EVERYONE.

If you are a manager, getting feedback from your boss is one thing, but it’s every bit as important to get feedback from those who work for you. This is not an easy thing to do as employees are often eager to please those above them and don’t want to criticize or question their higher-ups.

One of my favorite examples of this comes from Wall Street. In 1990, Bob Rubin became the CEO of Goldman Sachs. At the end of his first week, he looked at Goldman’s books and noticed large investments in gold. He asked someone why. The answer? “That was you, sir.” “Me?” he replied. Apparently, the day before he had been walking around on the trading floor and he commented to someone that “gold looks interesting.” This got repeated as “Rubin likes gold” and someone spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make the new boss happy.

On a smaller scale, I have faced a similar challenge. I was watching a group of gymnasts vault in a “day before the meet workout”. I noticed that they were all leaning forward on the board. I had to put a band-aid on this so I told the coach to move the board back a little bit. The kids the next day vaulted well. Monday back in the gym- I noticed that vault was a disaster. Kids were eating it. I went to see why- Well the vault coach had moved everyones board back. Not realizing that I was just putting a band-aid on a problem that needed to be fixed on Monday.
At my next staff meeting I said “One, I wanted you to move the board back for that one group that one day. And two, next time you hear a bad idea — like not staying on the kids about proper technique– speak up. Even if you think it is what I have asked for, tell me I am wrong!”

A good leader recognizes that most employees won’t feel comfortable challenging authority, so it falls upon authority to solicit feedback. I learned from my vaulting mistake. I now ask my coaches “What could I do better?” And “What can the gym do to help you meet your goals” I always thank the person who has the guts to answer me honestly, often by praising them publicly. I firmly believe that you lead best when you walk side-by-side with your colleagues. When you don’t just talk but you also listen.

Nothing is someone’s else’s problem.
When I started coaching, I observed people in leadership roles and thought, “They’re so lucky. They have so much control.” So imagine my surprise when I had my first head coaches job and realized that the higher up you go, the more dependent you become on other people. At the time, I thought I was doing it wrong.
But I was right. I am dependent on my team. From the part time person in the office and college student who can only work on Saturdays to my full time Team Coaches and my Gym Managers. not the other way around. If they fall short, it is my mistake. As a leader, what I can accomplish is not just what I can do myself but what everyone on my team does.

Companies in every country operate in ways that are right for their cultures. But I believe that there are some principles of leadership that are universal — and one of those is that it is better to inspire than to direct. Yes, people will do what their bosses tell them to do (at least they better) in most organizations. But great leaders do not just want to secure compliance. They want to elicit genuine enthusiasm, complete trust, and real dedication. They don’t just win the minds of their teams, they win their hearts. If they believe in your gym’s mission and they believe in you, they will not only do their daily tasks well, but they will do them with true passion.

Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei has said “leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”

1. That you are bold and have good fortune. Fortune favors the bold.
2. That you give and get the feedback you need. Feedback is a gift.
3. That you empower everyone. Nothing is somebody else’s problem.

Social Media Lecture Notes

June 9, 2015 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media
Tony Retrosi
Gym Momentum
tony@gymmomentum.com
Twitter
@gym_momentum
@tretrosi
@atlanticgym

Facebook
Tony Retrosi (tretrosi)
Gym Momentum (GYM-Momentum)
Atlantic Gymnastics (atlanticgym)

THE

LAST

THING YOU NEED

IS…
Social Media
Stop giving me that pop-up ad for facebook.com! There’s a reason you don’t talk to people for 25 years. Because you don’t particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn!

So what do YOU need?

Brand Story

The first thing
you need is a
SOLID BRAND

but what is a brand?
So you don’t really have a brand.
you have customers that have a perception of you.
are you happy with what they think of you?
do you even know what they think of you?
maybe its time you started…

LISTENing

This should be your social media strategy

Social doesn’t fix real problems, it exposes them

Who is managing your  social media presence? Your assistant? Nephew? Mistress? is it this guy…

WTF?

OBLIGATORY
BULLET POINTS.

Social Media = Human Interaction

Groups are built of like minded individuals

That follow trends

Make buying decisions

Trust opinions

and ultimately…

Become communities

DO YOU KNOW YOUR
COMMUNITY?
Pros of Using Social Media
FREE!!!!!
Quick Communication
Interactive.
CONS of SOCIAL MEDIA
Life span of Social Media is SHORT
TRENDY
What you say once could live FOREVER
Easy to loose control of your message
Worlds Largest Cocktail Party
“A great analogy for social media is the world’s largest cocktail party, only without the drinking and at incredible scale,”
At a cocktail party, you wouldn’t walk up to someone and say, ‘Hey, I’m Dave. My stuff is 20 percent off.’ What you do is ask questions, tell stories, listen and relate to people.
Key Technical Matters
Stay positive.
“Thanks” is not a rich enough social media message on Twitter or elsewhere.
“Thx” isn’t either. But it’s easier to type.
Your “special social media language” is the language of your audience. For instance, if you’re marketing to English speakers, your special social media language would be English.
Awesome is not a language.

Never attempt to use slang on social media that you would not use in real life.
Reread your tweet. Do not respond in an official capacity via social media while drinking.
Do not respond in a nonofficial capacity via social media while drinking.
Still, your company’s social media personality should be your company’s corporate personality after exactly one beer.

If your gym’s annual revenue is more than $2 million, you may not abbreviate “great” as “gr8.”
If your gym’s annual revenue is less than $2 million, you may not abbreviate “great” as “gr8.”
Like this: light, amusing, useful.
Not like this: languid, ponderous, moralizing.
No grammatical errors.
Funny only if you’re funny.

No lawsuit threats via social media.
If it involves “tips” of any kind, people will click.
Especially “simple tips.”
Also, “giveaway.”
WAYS TO INCREASE TRAFFIC
Post about GENERAL THINGS that your clientele would be interested in.
Things going on in your community
Parenting information
School Information

PHOTOS
VIDEOS
Funny
ASK questions
ANSWER questions
comment back to everyone
Trends
Diversify. You’ve probably seen headlines about Facebook’s algorithm changes. If you currently operate a brand or business page, one study found that only six percent of followers currently see your posts. Experts suggest that that number will continue to plummet, eventually reaching one percent.
Google+ is for real. If there’s one social network businesses should pay specific attention to, it’s Google+, which is already playing a more important role in Google’s organic ranking algorithm. I expect this trend will continue.
Visual content will win. An estimated 63 percent of social media comprises imagery. As such, visual platforms are playing an increasing role in social media for businesses. One study found that 29 percent of Pinterest users bought an item after posting or re-pinning it on the network.

How to Write a Tweet to Increase Twitter Engagement for Your Gymnastics Club

March 24, 2015 by Tony Retrosi Leave a Comment

Many gymnastics clubs use twitter to try to increase traffic to their website, get information out and market their club.

Gym Momentum posts all articles on twitter but also to send out quick information and link to other articles that and posts that I think Gym Momentum followers may be interested in. As a middle age guy- I am never 100% confident that I am using Twitter most effectively to generate interest and traffic.

Hootsuite is the platform that I use to schedule tweets. It is easy and pretty intuitive. As a bonus- they post some great articles on marketing. Kristina Cisnero is Hootsuite’s Inbound Marketing Specialist. Each day she focuses on bringing small businesses valuable content on social media marketing. She posted a great piece recently on ways to increase twitter engagement.

See Original article here.

You Can’t Spell ‘Twitter’ without ‘Wit’: How to Write a Tweet To Engage Your Audience

A study done by researchers at Cornell University, backed by the National Science Foundation and Google, found that style may trump substance when it comes to Twitter popularity. This research found that including an engaging call to action at the beginning of the Tweet—for example, “please retweet, retweet, plz, pls”—can increase people’s engagement rate on Twitter. Now, what does this mean for US?

Recently, Hootsuite (HS) conducted its own Twitter experiment to see what its followers found engaging. They found that knowing more about their audience, using images, and taking some risks really helped boost its Twitter engagement rate (TER). This helped them increase their TER by 180% in two months.

How well do YOU know your audience?

Researchers at Cornell gathered their findings and created a tool that uses an algorithm to automatically learn what kind of wording works better for Tweets. This tool, however, may not work for everyone because it still doesn’t factor in humor or personality—which they (HS) found was a key factor in how we increased our own TER.

Cornell University’s tool is a great start on learning what kind of content to use in your Tweets. But since Hootsuite’s experiment yielded some findings that weren’t accounted for by university researchers, they decided to add to this research. They’ve put together a template to help you know how to write a tweet that people will want to engage with.

Here’s a template demonstrating how to write a Tweet:

Breaking down this how to write a Tweet template:

You’re probably thinking, “Great, a template, but what does this template mean?” Don’t worry, I’ve put together 4 key takeaways that will explain the graphic and teach you to write engaging Tweets.

Write engaging content that speaks to your audience

The first part of your Tweet should be around 90-100 characters. This text should be engaging, show off your brand personality, and include a call to action. Yes, Twitter’s character limit is 140; however, if you’re going to ask people to retweet your Tweet, make sure you leave enough room for them to add ‘RT’ to the body of the Tweet.

Include a URL (or a shortened URL)

For majority of businesses, Twitter is used to drive their followers to their website, or to a landing page. If this is your goal, make sure to include a URL in your Tweet. Better yet, include a shortened URL, using a URL shortener like ow.ly, so you can track click-through rate and save your character count. Make it easy for people to get to your gym’s web page or the event you are hosting.

Wrap up your Tweet with a hashtag

Increase the reach of your Tweet by using a relevant hashtag. Hashtags will increase your Tweet’s visibility on the network, and help you join the bigger discussion going on around the topic. For most reading this you are going to be tweeting about GYMNASTICS. #gymnastics, #preschool, #tonyisfunny

Include an image, a GIF or a video

Still images, GIFs, and now videos can dramatically increase the engagement rate for your Tweets. Make sure the images that accompany your Tweet are relevant and high-quality. There is really no more VISIBLE sport than gymnastics. Include photos and videos in your tweets.

Crafting Tweets doesn’t have to be as daunting as it seems. Just remember to always have your audience in mind whenever you’re writing a Tweet, and you’ll see your Twitter engagement rate rise. The best way to know how to write a Tweet to suit your audience is through practice, tracking, and constant improvement based on your engagement metrics. Happy tweeting!

How do you compose your Tweets? Hit me on twitter @gym_momentum and let me know!