Facebook marketing can be a powerful tool for personal trainers. It enables you to attract new clients, build an audience, and share your fitness knowledge with the wider world. But with organic reach being so low these days, what’s the best way to get results from Facebook?
In this article – we outline how to market personal training on Facebook so that you generate engagement, leads, and new client sign-ups.
We’re a specialist fitness marketing agency with 15+ years of industry experience, so we know first-hand what works (and what doesn’t!). We’ve helped gyms, fitness studios, and personal trainers to successfully promote their businesses on social media, so our marketing strategies are tried and tested. You can be confident that the ideas and approaches we share in our articles are proven to work in the real world.
Personal Trainer Facebook Marketing Ideas
Here’s a quick overview of the best Facebook marketing ideas for personal trainers to get more clients…
- Gear your PT profile for lead generation
- Share client success stories
- Post workout taster content
- Answer training FAQs using Facebook Live Video
- Invest in Facebook Ads
- Run competitions to drive reach and audience growth
- Use questions and polls for engagement
By combining these ideas you’ll create a sales funnel on Facebook that produces leads and client sign-ups for your personal training business. Let’s dive into each of these steps in more detail…
Social Media Content Bundle – 400+ Fitness Posts1 – Gear your PT profile for lead generation
The first step to getting PT clients on Facebook is setting up your profile with lead generation in mind. You need to ensure that as many people as possible who visit your page, go on to sign up with you. This means making it easy for them to set up an intro call, sign up for a free trial, or book a package of training sessions.
Use the bio and about sections of your Facebook profile to summarise the type of personal training you offer and clients you help. This is really important for attracting your target market.
Include a call to action that will generate leads such as…
- Call now to learn more about how we can help you (insert common fitness goal).
- Sign up for a free trial session by clicking the link.
- Book your first session online using the link below.
- Download my free ebook on (insert common fitness goal).
By doing this, you’ll maximise the chances of visitors converting into personal training clients.
2 – Share client success stories
Feature client testimonials and success stories as part of your Facebook content strategy. These types of posts prove that you get results for your customers. They also inspire people that they can achieve their fitness goals (even if they don’t have much self-confidence right now).
Anyone can make bold claims on the internet. But case studies and success stories provide proof that your training methods really work. So it’s crucial to include them in your social media content in order to convert people into paying clients.
3 – Post workout taster content
Post workout taster content on Facebook so that would-be clients get an idea of what it’s like to train with you. Share photos, Reels, or Live Video of you working out or training your clients (with their permission of course).
People like to know what they’re buying before they commit. So sharing content like this helps people to learn about your services. It also demonstrates your fitness knowledge and training style, enabling potential clients to decide if working with you is right for them.
You might also like… 25 Creative Content & Post Ideas For Fitness Brands.
4 – Answer training FAQs using Facebook Live
Use Facebook Live to answer frequently asked questions over video. This helps demonstrate your fitness expertise and positions you as an authority in your area of personal training. It builds credibility so that people are more likely to trust you.
Answering FAQs also enables you to address common objections that prospects raise, so you can convert more leads. Make a list of the questions or concerns that people typically have when enquiring about personal training and then make short videos to discuss them. By pre-empting their worries you can outline solutions so that more people sign up.
5 – Invest in Facebook Ads
If you’ve done all four of the steps above, then you’ll have a Facebook page that’s educational and persuasive. Now you need to get more would-be clients to see it. And the most effective way to do this is with Facebook Ads.
As frustrating as it is, Facebook is increasingly a pay-to-play social media platform. Just 1.5%-2.5% of your audience will see organic posts – reach and brand awareness is one of the biggest challenges on social media. So if you want to increase this percentage or reach new people who aren’t already following you, then paid ads are the most effective option.
To do this you’ll need to…
- Create a compelling offer for your ads
- Refine your ad targeting so it’s focused on your ideal client
- Follow-up with every lead, whether by phone, Facebook messenger, or using an automated email series.
By following this approach, personal trainers can use Facebook Ads to drive a steady stream of new clients. It’s a an effective digital marketing strategy for fitness professionals and trainers when set up correctly.
6 – Run competitions to drive reach and audience growth
If you don’t have the budget for Facebook Ads, then competitions are a free alternative. They’re more manual and time-consuming but we’ve found them to be a really effective marketing option for our agency clients.
The key is to incentivise Facebook likes, shares, and follows, in return for entry into the competition. And choosing a prize that will appeal to your ideal clients too!
This way more people will share the competition posts, so they’ll be seen by more people. It’s often these types of post that go viral on Facebook.
You can also partner with other Facebook pages that have similar audiences to your target market. You can all club together on the prizes and share with each others followers.
Competitions are a great way to grow your following so that you future content can reach more people. They’re unlikely to get you new clients immediately (although sometimes you’ll get lucky!). But they’re a longer-term approach that’ll build your follower base so you can then reach more people with your sales-focused content.
7 – Use questions and polls for engagement
Our final tip is focused on boosting engagement on your PT Facebook content. Engagement is what the algorithm uses to judge whether your posts are any good and if they should be shown to more people. So increasing your engagement rates will help your content reach a wider audience.
We’ve got a comprehensive article dedicated to increasing social media engagement and a free guide you can download too…
Social Media Engagement Guide
A downloadable guide to boosting social media engagement for health and fitness businesses.
An effective way for personal trainers to boost Facebook engagement is by using polls and questions. These encourage interaction and are a great way to get your audience involved. People love to share their views when asked, so include interactive content as part of your social strategy.
Facebook Marketing Tips For Personal Trainers
So, now we’ve gone through some practical ideas and strategies, let’s talk about best practice. Over the years, we’ve noticed that personal trainers often make similar mistakes in their Facebook marketing. Here are some practical tips to help you avoid these common pitfalls and get the most out of your social media efforts…
Be Relatable
Social media is awash with ‘perfect’ people who always eat healthily, train consistently, and look amazing. The thing is, most people can’t relate.
It’s not intentional of course… often we’re just trying to lead by example, and be an inspiration for our audience.
But sometimes, we forget what it’s like to be a beginner…
Posting those perfect gym selfies, or recipes with specialist ingredients can actually put people off. Instead of motivating our audience, it causes a disconnect. They either don’t see those things as authentic, or attainable for themselves. So they just keep scrolling until something or someone else resonates.
How To Fix It ⇒ Post genuine ‘behind the scenes’ photos, or your own occasional #gymfail so that people see more sides of you that they can relate to.
Case study: Bad Yogi’s Erin Moritz posts videos of all the trial and error it takes to achieve those ‘perfect pose shots’. Instead of being a perfect but unrelatable yogi, she’s seen as someone who’s been where her audience is and understands their struggles. And her genuine approach has paid off, with over 375,000 followers on Facebook.
Post Consistently
To be successful on Facebook (or most social media platforms for that matter), you need to post at least daily. If you have an audience across multiple time-zones, then it’ll be even more often.
If you want to be successful, be consistent.
The average organic post on Facebook is seen by just 1.5%-2.5% of your audience. So if you’re only posting sporadically, then you aren’t reaching many people at all.
How To Fix It ⇒ Batch prepare content ahead of time (or use our Social Media Kits) and then schedule it all in advance.
Plan Posts Ahead
Facebook marketing can be an incredibly powerful lead generation tool for personal trainers. But if you don’t have a plan, then you probably aren’t benefiting from its full potential.
Many of us post a workout video here, or a photo there, but there’s no cohesive strategy behind it. What are these posts intended to do? Are we trying to build loyalty, generate leads, or establish ourselves as an authority?
Every marketing activity should have an end goal that it’s driving the audience towards. We also need to make it clear what people should do after seeing our posts… Comment? Share with their friends? Sign up for a freebie?
How To Fix It ⇒ Create a marketing plan that breaks down your objectives, strategies, and tactics. If you aren’t sure how then check out our guide on How To Create A Content Calendar. And always include audience instructions with your posts (also known as a call to action).
Vary Your Social Media Content
If we only ever post motivational quotes or photos of protein pancakes, then people will quickly become bored. Likewise, if we only ever post self-promotional stuff then people will eventually stop following us.
The 80:20 rule is a fundamental principle in social media.
It helps us strike a balance and ensures variety in the Facebook content we post. Promotional content should only make up 20%, or 1 in 5 of our posts. Things like membership offers, course discounts, or anything clearly salesy fall into this category.
The remaining 80% should be things that our audience will appreciate, even if they aren’t ready to buy just yet. Content like educational tips, recipes, workout videos, research summaries, inspirational case studies, or motivational quotes.
How To Fix It ⇒ Apply the 80:20 rule, ensuring that you educate, inspire, and motivate with the non-promotional 80%.
#5 – Focus On Your Audience (Not Yourself)
Time for some tough love… We’ve all seen the personal trainer Facebook pages that consist of gym selfie after gym selfie, with the occasional ‘motivational’ (read: preachy) rant. But these feeds neglect the SOCIAL aspect of social media, which is about interaction.
Instead of a one-way flow of info that’s all about ourselves or our business, we should be encouraging two-way interaction. In real social situations, we don’t tend to like people who only talk about themselves. The same applies to Facebook marketing…
How To Fix It ⇒ Ask questions, invite comments, or share other people’s posts. In this way, you can become a hub of info within your niche, and develop a network of loyal fans and followers.
Facebook Marketing for Personal Trainers
Facebook marketing can be a great way to attract personal training clients, but creating your own posts is time-consuming. Especially when you’re already busy training clients, running a business, and trying to balance a personal life too.
So we’ve done the heavy lifting for you… Our social media kits include ready-made posts to share on Facebook, Twitter/X, or Instagram. They make it easy for you to post consistently and inspire your followers to hire you as their PT. They also come with a 14-day money-back guarantee so if you’re not happy for any reason you can get a full refund with zero hassle.
Social Media Content Bundle – 400+ Fitness PostsOur social media kits make it easy to drive leads, engagement, and loyalty for your fitness business. Ideal for busy gym operators and studio owners, they enable you to benefit from our marketing agency expertise for a fraction of the usual cost. The ready-made social posts save you time and effort – learn more here.
