Social media marketing is a unique way to increase brand awareness, grow your followers, and drive more people into your yoga business. This method takes into consideration social media channels as a powerful avenue to share content, build awareness, and more. In particular, Facebook and Instagram are often the platform of choice for the public to follow brands, companies, and people they care about.

Your yoga business and its social media post schedule and presence is more important now than ever and that's not going to change anytime soon. Although it depends on where you live, visual-based social media is rising in popularity. Instagram is the most popular channel for visual content such as yoga classes, but Tumblr and even Facebook or Twitter posts with images are becoming a big source for establishing your social media presence and to remind people you exist.

Here’s how to create yoga content for social media, incorporate it within your overall yoga studio marketing strategy, and maximize your presence on all social media channels.

Do Your Research On Social Media Content

Before committing to a social media plan, be sure to conduct thorough research and assess whether or not a social media plan or strategy will resonate with your studio's target audience, including yoga teachers. In addition to looking at “likes”, relevant comments are a great example of social media engagement.

Choosing what goes on your social media feed is important. You want a nice variety of images that are relevant to your followers. If you have a yoga business, you might want a rotation of subjects including:

1. Healthy food/juice pictures
2. beautiful yoga poses
3. Advice from yoga teachers
4. Artistic nature shots
5. Inspirational picture quotes and
6. Relevant local, likeminded businesses

This positions you as a lifestyle brand. This way, students will look up to you as a source of inspiration, keeping them coming back to your yoga social media feed for more.

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Create a Strategic Social Media Post Plan

As with any marketing plan, it is critical that you define your goals from the start when looking at social media. The goals you want to meet can vary, and aren't usually so clear cut. Are you aiming to create awareness around your brand on social media? Do you want more traffic on your website? Do you want more followers on Instagram or another social media platform? Is your goal to bring more students into your studio for your yoga teachers and business?

To get your social media accounts noticed, collaborate with other relevant businesses on a photoshoot, or make a deal to share each others' products. This way you use cross promotion to get both of your names out there. Hiring a well-known social media influencer to take over your account is another great way of getting you exposure. You could always offer them free classes to offset the costs of hiring their expertise.

Use The Right Social Media Post Hashtags

There can be many different aspects to think about but practice really does make perfect. Take a look at the accounts of people who you find appealing and have a big following and see what they do. Keep adjusting, and you'll have great looking visual social media posts in no time.

Find relevant hashtags to tag your yoga social media posts so the public can find you. When someone clicks a hashtag, they will see all images on Instagram with that specific hashtag. Find images from successful Instagram accounts and see what they hashtag. Large, established accounts may not need the boost of exposure from using hashtags but, when you're starting out, it's a great way to get noticed.

Searching out hashtags that yoga teachers, yoga practicers, fellow studios, and other would commonly use is a good place to start. Feel free to A/B test this and see which hashtags tend to drive more social media engagement.

Calculate Your Costs On Social Media

Your social media post campaign needs to be affordable, but also, efficient and easy for anyone on your yoga studio team to keep up with. If you have it in your budget, partnerships are great to consider. Since there is no standardized way to approach these social media partnerships, rates may vary from influencer to influencer. Most charge between $250-$1,000, but some influencers may charge as much as $5,000 to $10,000 per sponsored social media post, according to 2018 reports. And while cash is still king, there is still value in offering perks such as free classes.

If your yoga studio budget does not allow for sponsored social media posts as you had hoped, consider reaching out to a “micro-influencer.” Micro-influencers are those who have a significant, but not massive following and likely to have a high level of social media engagement. They may also be more likely to be interested in trading services with your yoga studio, versus cash payments.

Yoga social media marketing campaigns are a great way to reach new audiences, and with the immense popularity of social media, it’s worthwhile to take advantage of their potential. Harness the power of your Instagram social media marketing campaign and grow your yoga business. Want to get more out of your studio’s digital capabilities? Learn more about how Xplor Recreation powers yoga teachers and studios with our studio management software.