How to set up your Instagram Professional account as a Personal Trainer ? We share with you how, step-by-step in this article.
This article is proposed by Gymkee, the personal trainer software that allows you to deliver the best coaching experience to your clients while saving time and growing your personal training business.
Try Gymkee for free for 14 daysSocial medias are a key tool to grow your personal training business.
It is crucial for you to use them, especially Instagram, the fav of the fitness community.
However if you think you know how Instagram works because you already have a personal account and you want to use it as a work one too, I'm here to tell you you're wrong. 🙅🏻♀️
In this article i'll explain why it's so important to separate your personal account from your professional one, how to set up a professional one and the tools that come with it and how to write a great bio.
There's a thousand reasons why you shouldn't mix your personal and professional life.
If you get why it is so important IRL you should apply it online.
If you don't get why, let me just say that in terms of privacy and credibility it impact negatively both your private and professional life if you get it all mixed up.
You need to create a real separation between them to be able to post whatever you feel like on your personal one while making actual interesting and credible content on your professional one.
I know that for most of you fitness takes a big part of your daily life and interests since it's a real passion and that might be what you mostly post about already on your personal account...
But trust me you need a real pro account and not just a personal one !
You'll be able to have a separate business message box and attract way more clients and keep them interested.
And post your dog on your personal account without him interfering with your feed. 🐶
Professional accounts have lots of wonderful exclusive tools :
I'll give you the official description made by the app : track your performance, access and discover professional tools, and explore educational information curated by Instagram.
Intuitive and very useful, that's all you need to understand.
There'll now be a Contact button that can be placed differently according to the device you use insta on. It's big, visible and easy to access so your potential and actual clients will be able to contact you easily.
You'll be able to include an address📍, a phone number 📞 and/or an email address 📧.
If you entered a physical address, like a specific address or just a city and country, it'll now appear below your bio.
🔓 You can also choose to display or hide your contact information after setting up.
That's great if you want to control who can contact you.
❗️ You can also add a custom action button that can be a link to anything, your website, a reservation page...
You can now have a category labeled directly below your profile pic.
Unfortunately you can't type your own label but you'll have a very large list of categories to choose from.
🔓 You can choose to display or hide your category label on your public profile after setting up.
Want to organize your DMs which are more and more numerous ?
You’ll have access to an inbox with two tabs : Primary and General.
You can use this inbox to organize your messages and control notifications.
You can choose if you want to move an existing conversation to Primary or General or choose the tab directly after you accept a message invite.
🔕 You can turn off your General messages notifications off so you'll focus in priority on your actual clients for example.
You’ll be able to sort your requests/message invitations by received date or by top accounts.
Top accounts are those with the most followers.
If you rank your requests this way you're sure to never miss a big opportunity by it being drowned into your other invites.
It's a little superficial but opportunities like collaborations, sponsorships and potentially famous clients are always something you want to be aware of and consider. ✨
Instagram Insights give you informations on who your followers are, when they're online and more.
You can see analytics about their age, their gender and the countries they are mostly from and even better, when are they the most active, which days and at which time. 🤩
You can also view the statistics for specific posts you've created to see how each performed and how people are engaging with them : the number of accounts it reached, of interactions with the post and of people who saved it.
This feature is available directly under each post or you'll have a more global analysis on your dashboard.
All that is great for you to post more efficiently, with all these datas, and reach more people.
Go to your settings:
→ Create a new account
→ Account
→ Switch to Professional Account
→ Choose the "Fitness Trainer" category
→ Choose the "Business" category (you need data and the ability to automate publishing)
→ Add your professional infos
→ Connect your professional Facebook Page (if you don't have one, create it. It will take you 2 min and it's really easy to do)
Well that's a step you probably should've done at the creation of the account but don't worry a username is changeable anytime.
However your followers won't be notified by the change so it can be a problem for them to find you if you do.
That's why you should find the perfect username at the very beginning and this is how :
Let's say your name is Dwayne Kee and you want to be the greatest personal trainer in the US (wow that's an amazing ambition dude !)
You'll have multiple options for your username :
Ex: @harveypersonaltrainer ; @dwaynepersonaltraining ; @dwaynetraining
Ex: @keepersonaltrainer ; @keepersonaltraining ; @keetraining
Ex: @dwaynekee_pt ; @dwaynekeepersonaltrainer ; @dwaynekeetraining
Ex: @gymkee ; @dk_personaltraining
Why use this type of username ? Simply because when you'll post, like or comment people will immediately understand what you're doing and that, even before seeing your profile.
Clients will usually reach you through e-mail at first if they're interested in your services.
The thing is that these days you can't have a regular e-mail address as a professional.
By regular e-mail address I mean something like "dwaynepersonaltrainer@gmail.com".
Do you contact Amazon by sending an e-mail to "supportamazon@gmail.com"?
Nope... and as a professional personal trainer, you should do the same.
Look professional because you are one.
For that, you need :
The domain name will be used for your professional e-mail address and for your future website.
It will cost you from $1 to $5 the first year then it will be $10 max per year if you don't get a fancy one.
For the e-mail provider, you can still use your current provider by using his professional side.
If you're using Gmail, you can connect your domain name and still be using Gmail with Google Workspace. It will cost you $5 per month.
Having a professional e-mail can seem like a detail... but people make their choices based on perception. If you don't look professional on such basic things, how do your trainings look like ?
It's better to pay $10 and have the value of your services perceived greatly to acquire new clients and be credible.
As a personal trainer, you need to focus on your brand image and your Instagram profile picture is part of it.
That's the first thing that people will see on your profile and they will make a first judgment based on it.
As a personal trainer, you have 3 options for your Instagram profile picture :
That's it. Don't put a silly picture, even if you look like a funny guy and it can be seen as charismatic, it's no good when it comes to business. 🤪
Try to have your picture taken professionally or at least with a great quality phone camera, don't take it yourself in your mirror. ❌
Even if you look good the point is to look like a PRO, not to be cute.
Oh, and guys... please, no topless pic. Even if you want to show off your muscles people prefer to be talking to picture your face when they're messaging you, not your pecs that's disturbing.
Earlier in this article, I said that everything is about perception and impression. And you know what makes the first impact when we go to your profile ? Your bio. 💥
It's your showcase, you should take advantage of it and optimize its use.
Here are some tips to help you write a great Instagram bio as a personal trainer :
You don't need to share all the details of your life in the bio (even if you have an incredible one).
Even if you wanted to, our great friend Mark won't let you.
You're limited to 150 characters and that's better this way.
If a person has to make an effort to read your paragraph to understand what you do : you've lost the game. And his interest.
So how do you make people to say on your profile?
You share who you are and what you do. That's all.
Your goal in your bio is to present yourself as an authority, to describe as simply as possible what you offer and to push the visitor to look at your posts.
Don't write actual sentences,
Transform :
"I'm a 27 years old personal trainer who does online coaching and groupe training and i'm specialized in coaching postpartum women"
⬇️
Into :
"Personal trainer I 27 yo
Online coaching
Group training
Postpartum workouts pro"
I'm a big fan of Emojis 🤩
Sometimes, instead of answering with long sentences, I simply answer with an emoji that embodies everything i wanna say and pictures my emotions.
It's a simple way to accompany the words or simply express them without using them.
We are visual creatures so emojis biggest advantage is that they help guide the visitor's eye.
It also helps them understand right away what you do.
If you compare the two bios below, you will see that the one on the left requires much less effort than the one on the right.
🎓 | ACE certification
🏋️♂️ | Group training + Online coaching
🥑 | Diet program
📩 | dwayne@personaltrainer.com
| ACE certification
| Group training + Online coaching
| Diet program
You can copy & edit the bio below, with or without emojis directly on your personal trainer Instagram profile :
🎓 | Certification
🏋️♂️ | Services (Online training, 1-1, etc...)
🥑 | (OPTION) Food programs
📩 | Your professional e-mail address
Moreover, it allows you to position yourself as a fun & friendly person (and that's a good point for personal training) without risking ridicule.
I advise you to use them in your bio but it all depends on your personality.
Don't just put your e-mail in the "Contact" section.
Make it as easy as possible to contact you.
People are looking for simplicity, removing those extra steps will increase your chances of being contacted.
In my opinion, a personal trainer in 2021 must have a website. At least a showcase site.
You have so many tools and tutorials at your disposal to create a professional website with WordPress, Wix, Webflow etc... that it's really a shame if you use the difficulty as an excuse.
You lose a lot of potential new clients compared to another coach who offers similar services with a well-thought-out showcase website. It's all about looking legit and professional.
Take a weekend to start a showcase website, you won't regret it.
Then put your website in your Instagram bio by clicking on "Edit my profile", you'll have the possibility to put a clickable link that will appears at the very bottom of your bio.
Now you know why it's so important to have a professional Instagram account and MAKE it LOOK professional.
Your profile is your showcase and can help you acquire lots of new clients but for that you have to make them interested in your content first and that goes through drawing their attention with your bio.
All these steps are super easy and quick to make, but take your time and put thought into the process. You'll have a wonderfully set up profile in an instant.
🙌 Thank you for reading my article you can :
❤️ Share this content with your friend's personal trainers, it can help them achieve more in their personal training business.
❤️ Don't hesitate to check out our video on the topic on our Youtube channel.
❤️ And of course, if you're not using the app for personal trainers Gymkee yet, you'll find the link at the top of the page to get a 7 days free trial and start delivering the greatest coaching experience ever to your clients while maximizing your time & activity.
📧 If you need more pieces of information, feel free to mail me at marine@gymkee.io!
Take care ! ❤️
This article is proposed by Gymkee, the personal trainer software that allows you to deliver the best coaching experience to your clients while saving time and growing your personal training business.
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