Face it, we all want more people in our classes. And you can bet your manager or boss would like to see more butts on bikes (as the saying goes in “industry” lingo). More and more studios incentivize instructors by paying a per-rider rate, so it’s a good idea to learn how to promote your own classes.
Sure, you can increase your class size by being a better educated, more inspiring, more engaging instructor with the best music.
Here at ICA, we’re all about helping you improve those aspects of being the best instructor possible. Click here to get a taste of what we offer at ICA if you’re not already a member.
However, even the greatest products and services on earth need to promote. If you aren’t using social media to help promote your classes, you are missing out and leaving money on the table.
I am new to this, I will admit it. In the past, I’ve worked at clubs that took care of the promotion. It wasn’t that I didn’t promote my own classes—I did, but it was via word of mouth and email, and a splash of social media here and there.
But now that I am working at a new boutique studio, I am diving headlong into becoming an expert in social media promotion—not just for my business at ICA, but for my cycling classes. For this, I will focus on Instagram. While I have been active on Facebook and Twitter for over a decade, I use those apps for other purposes. I will still post my classes on those platforms, but it’s only on Instagram that I will focus solely on fitness, cycling, and wellness (and, admittedly, my cats!).
I recently created a brand-new account called @RideWithJennifer and I invite you to follow me there to see how I promote my classes.
I also invite you to follow me on my journey of becoming an expert in social media promotion.
If you are an ICA member, I’ll be adding more tips and tricks in the exclusive members’ Facebook group.
In the meantime, here are a few of the free tools I am using, along with some suggestions for building your followers.
Remember, I am fairly new at this too, and plan to share everything I’m learning. Come with me on this trip! If you happen to be an expert at Instagram and/or creative designs for social media and want to help me educate other instructors, please email me at jennifer@icafit.com. Or, if you have a favorite tool that I didn’t mention above, add it to the comments below. Also, feel free to add your Instagram (or other social media) account where you promote your classes.
Below are some of the promotional posts I’ve created over the past few weeks for my classes. All of these were done using the free templates and available free and premium images on Canva. In one, I uploaded an image from Unsplash, in another I used my own photo.
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