5 Tips for Personal Trainers to Create Engaging Facebook Stories

Facebook describes Stories as "a great way to connect with your audience and share content between your scheduled video posts." Because of this, personal trainers and other professionals in the fitness industry can use it to promote themselves, their services, and their brand.

Stories only last for 24. As ephemeral content, they encourage audiences to engage with you regularly and stay in the loop. Leads must consume your content today or risk missing out on it forever. 

Facebook Stories come in fullscreen, short-form format, like photos or short videos. The platform provides various tools that allow you to overlay productions with creative content, providing more context and information. What's nice about Stories is that there is less pressure to be perfect. The format lends itself to improvisation, letting you communicate with your audience at any time, in any place, authentically and passionately. 

The inherent benefits of Facebook Stories are considerable. However, if you want to leverage the tool fully, you need to know how. 

In this Facebook Stories guide, we run through some helpful tips and tricks to give your audience the best experience possible, no matter what kind of fitness business you want to market.

1. Shoot Vertically

While TV companies, YouTubers, and streamers shoot videos horizontally, fitness professionals who market on Facebook Stories should always shoot vertically. 

The reason? Simple: it's the natural format that most of your audience uses. Facebook's research shows that people hold their phones vertically 90 percent of the time. 

If you shoot landscape-style, videos will appear with giant black bars above and below, reducing engagement and making it harder for users to see what you're doing. Hence, the portrait is the natural option.

2. Add Captions

Practically all major social media platforms now prioritize accessibility. Facebook wants to make content available for everyone, including those living with hearing impairment. As a fitness professional, you can do your bit to help this by adding captions. Also, many people will watch videos or stories on silent, so adding captions will make sure everybody gets the message.

Unlike some other sites, Facebook does not auto-generate text to go with videos, so you need to do this yourself. Don't worry, though. You don't have to type out all the content yourself manually. Third-party apps, such as Clipomatic, can sync text with your voice. If there are glaring errors, you can edit them afterward to bring them up to standard.

3. Add A Call To Action

Stories allow you to do more than communicate with your audience on the fly. It is also a conversion tool – something that encourages users to take action and buy your services. By including a call-to-action (CTA), you can encourage users to sign up for your services, purchase one-on-one sessions, or join fitness webinars online. 

A CTA, for instance, may allow users to: 

• Instantly call you to book an appointment
• Purchase a product directly from your store (such as training bands or protein supplements)
• Visit your blog and learn more about what you do
• Sign up for online classes via a website

CTAs are a critical part of a personal trainer's website marketing. They link your social media pages and the funnels you use to sign people up.

Facebook provides tools in Ads Manager that let you include a CTA in stories. You can choose between various pre-loaded options, including "Subscribe," "Sign up", and "Contact us." What's more, you can use CTAs regardless of your subscriber count. There are no minimums, so you can start selling straight away.

If you're looking to increase your reach, you can also add website URLs to your stories in Ads Manager. The link will forward users to your website or blog, where they will have more opportunities to find out more about your services and become a client.

4. Use Templates

If you have a strong eye for design, you can build stories from scratch. However, if you're new to it – which most people in the fitness industry are – you'll want to use templates. These help communicate your brand's personality without having to do any hard work yourself. Themes let you portray business as:

• Funky
• Old-school
• Serious
• Cute
• Welcoming
• Minimalistic
  
  

You can quickly obtain themes from third-party vendors, such as Adobe and Hootsuite and even Canva.. Many offer free templates that let you communicate with your audience engagingly from day one.

Facebook also provides in-house Story templates for ads that you can use across all Meta platforms, including Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. To find templates, go to the Ads Manager and pick the one that best fits your brand.

5. Plan Your Content

Even though many fitness businesses use Stories to provide audiences with quick updates, it's still a good idea to plan so that you always have something to share. Improvised videos can be great for keeping users in the loop, but they are also more prone to mistakes.

Planning gives you more time to think about what you will say in Facebook Stories posts. You'll have an opportunity to brainstorm ideas and polish your content before finally releasing it to the masses.

You can then make daily judgments about whether you should release pre-planned or ad hoc Stories. In some cases, going with your planned fitness marketing schedule is the better option. However, outside circumstances, such as tragic events, may change how you post. For instance, you might not want to post up-beat, self-promotional content during a natural disaster or on the eve of war.

Remember, you can delete Stories at any time. Click the three dots in the top right-hand corner and click the "delete" option.

Wrapping Up

Thanks to Facebook Stories, marketing your fitness business on Facebook has never been easier. Today, thousands of independent personal trainers are using the platform to win clients and turn their brands into successes, and so can you.