YouTube has over two billion logged-in users every month, and with a massive global reach, the platform presents a huge marketing and business opportunity – especially in the fitness industry.
Whether fitness vloggers and brands have inspired you or you’re ready to leap into starting your fitness channel, video is now essential. Interest in video is rising year on year, and the global pandemic has accelerated its popularity; platforms like TikTok have seen a staggering 210% increase in usage since 2018. Home fitness searches have surged on YouTube in the last year; by June 2020, the platform reported that daily views with titles including “home workout” had risen by 515%.
It’s time to make a content plan and delve into the world of YouTube. In this article, we discuss why your business needs a fitness channel and the steps to create an engaging YouTube channel.
- An Introduction to YouTube Marketing
- 4 Benefits of Having a YouTube Channel for Your Business
- The Top Fitness YouTube Channels Right Now
- 8 Steps to Start a Fitness YouTube Channel
An Introduction to YouTube Marketing
With billions of potential users to access, YouTube is a hugely popular platform. 78.8% of marketers say that YouTube is the most effective video platform, beating out Facebook. The first-ever YouTube video launched in 2005, and in just a decade, it went from zero to one billion viewers.
In the world of marketing, video is king. Many fitness influencers, gyms, brands, and instructors have taken to YouTube to give their marketing a bigger boost. There are several reasons why you should start a fitness channel. It can allow you to tap into a larger audience, leverage the home workout crowd, increase brand awareness, and create the kind of content that actually helps people.
Starting a fitness channel or vlog takes time. You might be wondering if it’s right for you and your business. But you can build video into your marketing strategy in a way that completely aligns with your business. From quick workouts to fitness equipment reviews and health tips, YouTube is a great way to show off your brand personality. It also fits in nicely with other video content like Facebook and Instagram Live while giving you a platform for full-length video content. For example, your IG Live might be a quick update about your gym, but your YouTube vlog can go into detail and really answer members’ questions and concerns.
4 Benefits of Having a YouTube Channel for Your Business
If you’re considering starting a fitness YouTube channel for your business, it’s time to take the plunge. Here are four benefits of having a fitness channel for your business.
Help People Find You on Google
Do you find that videos are showing up more than ever in Google search results? Google cares about video. So, if you care about Google, you should value video too. Video can help improve your SEO and help people to find you more easily on Google. YouTube helps you to maximize your online presence as much as possible.
Reach a Massive Audience
After Google, YouTube is the second biggest search engine. That’s a lot of people that you can potentially reach with your video. The platform is only getting bigger. There is a massive variety of people on YouTube that fit into multiple demographics. With the potential to reach a bigger audience, video is an essential marketing move. This is especially true if you’re looking to increase your reach and push your digital fitness platform. YouTube has users all over the globe, and digital fitness is not location dependent.
Video Content is More Likely to be Watched
Statistics show that 66% of consumers prefer to watch a video on a product than read about it. More than half of consumers want to see even more videos,,, this year. Viewers often retain the message more when watching a video than reading a text. They tend to feel more connected as a real person is speaking to them. Every year the consumption of video on smartphones is increasing by 100%. If you’re not building your video marketing and YouTube strategy around mobile phones, you need to start.
Grow Your Brand Reputation and Expertise
YouTube can help to improve your overall brand presence, reputation, and authority. It can help to position your fitness brand as an authority with expertise. When you start to solve people’s problems and offer informative advice, people will start to come back to you. YouTube helps to encourage a level of familiarity that develops your community even further.
The Top Fitness YouTube Channels Right Now
While some fitness professionals and brands use YouTube as a platform to grow their business, others started on YouTube. It’s the place where they have made a name for themselves, before rolling out fitness programs, streaming platforms, and teaching in-person. Here are three of the top fitness YouTube channels right now for some content inspiration.
Yoga With Adriene
Adriene Mishler, aka Yoga With Adriene, is an international yoga teacher, entrepreneur, writer, and actress. Her yoga community has over nine million subscribers of all levels, abilities, genders, and bodies. From yoga for weight loss to yoga for climbers, you can find high-quality exercise videos that help to move your body and connect with the wider Yoga With Adriene community.
The Top 10 Barriers
Slowing Your Fitness
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Discover more Blogilates
Casey Ho is an award-winning fitness instructor. In 2009, she posted her Pop Pilates workout on YouTube for the first time to share with her 40 students. Now Pop Pilates is an internationally recognized fitness instructor certification program. The gym chain 24 Hour Fitness uses the Pop Pilates format as their official program for all Pilates classes at their gyms. With over five million subscribers, the Blogiliates community continues to grow.
Tone it Up
Tone it Up aims to inspire and empower their community to live a healthy and happy life. They want to make fitness and nutrition accessible to all. The Tone it Up YouTube channel is a great example of a brand that uses YouTube to build their community and complement their existing business. The Tone it Up app gives users access to a digital fitness platform. They use their YouTube channel to show minutes-long workouts, announce new features in the app, and share vlogs with the founders.
8 Steps to Start a Fitness YouTube Channel
YouTube is a powerful platform and has the potential to up your marketing efforts. While it’s by no means easy; video is essential. Increase your SEO, raise your brand awareness, and reach a larger audience by starting your fitness YouTube channel in 2021.
Align with Your Business and Choose Your Niche
Many people start YouTube as a hobby; it’s something they do for fun. To build a successful YouTube channel, it needs to align with your business goals, morals, values, and mission. It’s important to stay true to who you are as a brand with your video content. Think about your niche and the gap your content will be filling in the market. For example, maybe your business focuses on functional movement and training. Remain authentic and true to your brand as you build your channel.
List Your Fitness Video Topic Ideas
Before you delve into creating your channel, think about the type of content you want to make. When it comes to health and fitness, you are in a fortunate position because there is plenty that you can cover with your videos. Consider your target audience and the type of content they enjoy and engage with. You are a fitness expert and want to provide even more value to your audience and members. Here are some video ideas for YouTube content to get you started:
- Workout tutorials and exercise routines
- Member fitness journey
- Motatival advice
- Fitness tips
- Home gym equipment reviews
- Top fitness supplements and protein powders
Plan Your Video Content Schedule
When it comes to creating video content, planning is everything. To make engaging and effective videos, you need to have your pre-production and strategy in place. Although more and more brands are producing video and it is essential to growth, it’s not exactly quick and easy. You need a skilled video production team, the right equipment, good editing, and a strong strategy ready to go. When planning your video content, there are a few tools that can help, such as:
- TubeBuddy – a free extension certified by YouTube that allows you to see a ton of analytics and has great SEO functionality.
- Final Cut Pro X – a popular video editing software for YouTubers.
- Canva – a free tool you can use to make fantastic thumbnails that stand out from the competition.
Invest in Video and Sound Equipment
High-quality sound and video are crucial to a successful YouTube channel. With so much content online nowadays, viewers will leave a channel that has poor sound and is out of focus. You will need to invest in equipment like cameras, microphones, lighting, tripods, monitors, and editing software. Here is a useful video on the top 5 cameras for YouTube to give you a good starting place.
Set Up Your YouTube Channel
At some point along the planning process, you will need to set up your YouTube channel. To create a business channel with a name, you will need to create a brand account rather than your own channel. This will allow you to have multiple managers and give you access to insights and video advertising campaigns. To create a YouTube account, you will need a Google profile. You can then log in to YouTube using your Google credentials and set up your new channel. Here are step-by-step instructions to create your new channel.
Create Video Content
The next step is to begin creating video content. Think about your planning, SEO strategy, keyword research, ideas, and your competition. How can you create videos that are even better than your competition? If you want to start off small, all you need is a good smartphone, microphone, ring light, and tripod to start filming. Make sure your filming location is well lit and begin creating video content. Often, it can be useful to create videos in batches, especially content that is similar. For example, if you’re filming a series of workout videos or a nutritional tips series, you can film this at the same time.
Edit and Upload Videos
Unlike Facebook and Instagram Live, YouTube videos usually require editing. Video software like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro are great options for editing. The majority of video-editing software have free trials and low-cost alternatives. It’s a good idea to hire someone with editing and video skills in your team so that you can churn out the best quality content for your fitness business. When you upload any videos, you will need to create an engaging thumbnail and title that makes viewers want to watch. The majority of the time, people decide whether to watch a video based on both the thumbnail and title.
Promote and Share Your Videos
Finally, it’s time to promote and share your videos. After uploading your videos, you need to promote and share them with your audience. Share it on your social media platforms, send it to your email list, and embed the YouTube link in blogs so that you reach a range of people. Building a successful fitness YouTube channel takes time. You should post regularly to stay relevant and up-to-date. If you can, post at least once a week at the same time and day. Keep an eye on the results so you can determine what works best for your channel. Over time, this will help you always improve your channel and produce top-quality content that engages viewers.
In Summary
YouTube is a huge video platform that presents a big marketing opportunity. Starting a fitness channel can support your business goals and objectives while increasing brand reputation and awareness. By taking time to plan all your content and create a YouTube strategy based on data, you can build a successful channel and produce content that adds value and grows your audience.
