30-Day Social Media Challenge: Tell Your Story, Be Heard And Get More Sign-Ups

Everyone says to get on social media, but what exactly are you supposed to do? In this 30 day social media challenge, we take the guesswork out of getting started.

Day 1: Answer This - What are you trying to accomplish?

You need to be clear on what your goals are with social media. Do you want more members for your box, do you want to sell a product, do you want to build more brand trust? Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says to “Begin with the end in mind”. What end do you have in mind?

Day 2: Discovery - Who are your customers?

Before you begin any venture you must determine who your customers are. If you don’t know, you probably won’t get very good results. Are you trying to reach young men who want to build muscle for vanity? Are you trying to reach busy working moms who would like to get in better shape and find balance? Who are they? Remember, sometimes your customers aren’t always who you think they are.

Day 3: Gather All Your Information

Today, you’ll want to gather and create all the information that you’ll use on your profiles and pages. This means getting together all your photos, descriptions, URL’s, email addresses operating hours, etc. You’ll want to have this organized so you can easily fill out your profiles.

Day 4: Sign Up For Facebook

Facebook has over 1 billion users so you might want to get on it. Facebook is a great way to upload new photos, host contests and connect with customers. We believe Facebook is a must for any box.

Day 5: Sign Up For Twitter

Twitter is another social network with a massive user base. It’s essentially a platform for microblogging where you create content in 140 characters or less. It’s a great way to link to things, share ideas and is especially good for people with mobile devices.

Day 6: Sign Up For Google+

If you already have an account with Google you will have a Google+ account. Your job now is to fill it out fully. Apparently Google+ now has over 500 million users and is growing.

Day 7: Sign Up For Google Places

While Google Place isn’t a social network, it’s crucial that you sign up for it. Not only will it improve your local listings, but it will simply show more information about you if people Google you without having to go to your website. A great Google Places page could give people that extra push needed to go to your website.

Day 8: Sign Up For Yelp

Yelp is one of the most popular review sites in the world. There will be some people who will look for reviews before they commit to something. You’ll want to make sure your Yelp business listing is filled out well before people start looking you up.

Day 9: Sign Up For A Management Service

This isn’t required, but it will save yourself a lot of time and energy. Remember, you don’t want to be spending hours per day fiddling around with your social media. I’m sure you have better things to do.

Try one of these:

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Tweetdeck

Day 10: Add email lists on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

This is probably the fastest way to start adding friends and followers. Many of the people on your emails will have social media profiles and you should upload those emails. It makes it a lot easier than finding all those people individually.

Day 11: Add 5 friends on Facebook

Go ahead and add 5 new friends to your Facebook account. Search for people that you know and who would probably interact with you. Don’t worry about having thousands of friends. It’s better to have 50 friends who you interact with regularly than a thousand friends who you don’t even know.

Day 12: Join 3 relevant groups on Facebook

You will be able to find a lot of similar people when you starting joining Facebook groups. You could find Crossfit groups and start interacting with other members. Look for groups that would have your target customer.

Day 13: Follow 20 people on Twitter

Follow either 20 people you personally know or follow 20 people/businesses that are relevant to you. It won’t make sense if you are a Crossfit box and you follow a bunch of fast-food restaurants. It doesn’t make you look good.

Day 14: Begin Tweeting 1-2 times per day

Ultimately, you’re going to need to be somewhat active on these social profiles. If you just build it, they won’t come. Start tweeting 1-2 times per day and tweet relevant information. This will help build up your followers.

Tweet Ideas:

• Link to a great article
• Say something useful
• Post WOD’s
• Post a new picture
• Give someone a shout out
• Post a great quote

Day 15: Link to a useful article

Find something that either you have written or something that is highly relevant for your followers and friends. For example, you link to an article about CrossFit and post it on all your social media platforms. The main idea is to be relevant and useful. It’s also an easy way to get a conversation going.

Day 16: Ask 3 customers to leave an honest review on Yelp

Ask 3 of your current customers to leave a review on Yelp. Give them the option to opt out. Forceful or fake reviews are unethical. You should ask people who are actually customers and have used your product or service. Also, ask them to be completely honest.

Day 17: Create a deal on Google Places

Creating a deal on Google Places is an easy way to get new members or get people to your website. For example, you could do a discount for first time members.

Day 18: Post new images on Facebook and Google+

You should be regularly posting new image on Facebook and you might as well add them to Google+. It makes it look like you are highly active box and that people are getting results. People might hesitate to interact if the page looks old.

Day 19: Record a simple video

Video is wildly popular these days and is easier than ever to create. Just record a simple video about yourself or a video about your box. You can even use your smartphone and upload. It will make you seem like a real person or business.

Day 20: Create a schedule

Determine how much time you are willing to spend on social media. It’s easy to get sucked in for hours on social media if you don’t have a schedule. For example, you can choose to spend an hour per day on social media from 1-2pm.

Day 21: Tell Your Story

You should have some followers and friends by now. People may want to hear your story. Write a great story about how you got to where you are or how you got into what you’re into. You could talk about how CrossFit change your life and what led you to starting a box. Go through your struggles and you accomplishments.

Day 22: Create your own hashtag

The most important part of a hashtag is relevance. It will look spammy if you use hashtags in posts that aren’t relevant. Mashable has a guide to using hashtags right here if you need help getting started.

Day 23: Start a contest

Starting a contest on Facebook can be a great way to get people interacting. First, determine what the prize is going to be. It could be something like a free month of Crossfit, a free eBook, etc...It doesn’t necessarily have to be formal. For example, ask people to like a particular post. Say, “If you like this post, you will be entered in a raffle to win a free eBook.” Then take all the people who have liked that post and basically randomly pick a winner. Then announce the winner.

Day 24: Promote Someone Else

Part of being on social media is helping other people out. Give someone a shout out or promote them on your page. Don’t expect anything in return, but do it just do it. We’ll live in a better online world if other people are willing to help other people and not just be selfish all the time.

 Day 25: Post a before-and-after photo of a client

It might be a good practice to take before photos of your clients. So when your clients are getting great results you can show them off. Ask for a client’s permission to use the photos online and then post them. The idea is show, don’t tell. People love to see proof before making decisions.

Day 26: Ask your friends to create a top 10 list

This is a fun activity to get your friends talking and interacting with each other. Ask people to comment and make a specific top 10 list.

Top 10 list ideas:

• Top 10 favorite exercises
• Top 10 favorite foods
• Top 10 favorite blogs
• Top 10 favorite fitness articles

Day 27: Post a WOD (Workout of the day)

People love new workout ideas. But posting WOD’s will also give potential customers and idea of what working out at your box will be like. People may be more open to joining your box if they know what to expect.

Day 28: Use Social Media icons in your print advertising

You should get in the habit of putting your social media icons or URLs on your business cards, posters, flyers, brochures and anything else that’s printed. This will let people know that they can connect with you online and you will gain more friends that are actually interested in what you are offering.

Day 29: Write a FREE Report and give it away

Writing a free report is a way to create massive value for your current and potential customers. It’s also a two-way street. You could offer them a free report if they will enter their email address, like, +1 or re-tweet you. The key to a free report is to give away high quality content. They’ll be thinking, “if their FREE stuff is the good, then their premium stuff must be out of this world.”

Day 30: Measure and Improve

You should be measuring everything for the entire 30 days. Test some things out and see what is effective. For example, you might notice that twitter doesn’t get many responses, but Facebook does. Or you might find that uploading new pictures every week gets a massive response rate. Find out what works and then do more of it.

I hope you enjoy the 30-day social media challenge. Stick with it and plan for the long-term. This should get you on the right path for using social media to tell your story and get more high quality leads.

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