The Facebook Manifesto Part 1

The Facebook Manifesto Part 1

The Social Power of Facebook Marketing Awesomeness for Fitness Trainers and Experts

Hey there, it’s Big Chris, hope all is well with you, your training business and the ones you care about.

This blog post is about the many ways fitness professionals can use the power of Facebook to build their businesses. .. And since this post is about Facebook, let’s do this this the right way… If you like this post, then “Like” it right above and even share via Facebook should it feel right to ya. And if you have something to say, be sure to leave a comment, especially in the Facebook comment section if you have an account… and by all means feel free to share this… I spent like forever on it (=

You can never have too much good Referall Karma ya know?

Ok, so I’m up super early and typing away.

It’s about 6:20 am and I’ve been up working since 3:30 am…

I just wake up when I want, and lately I’ve been so on fire to fulfill my vision that I get to bed at around 11 or 12 and jump up at 3 or 4 in the morning ready to create.

My passion acts as an alarm clock.

Here’s my bedroom balcony where I like to do a lot of blogging … especially on the weekends … how cool it is that we things like blogging and Facebook, you can build an entire empire with just a lap top, mobile phone and and a whole lotta drive ( the thing most people miss )

This is the first in a series of posts where I’m gonna tell you all about some of the cool ways fitness professionals can use Facebook to get more clients and better serve the market place and how Facebook can make your life easier and your business more fun.

But before I do I wanna thank everyone who sent in emails, comments, text messages and phone calls to send some support and coolness to me after these two blog posts slammed the greediest segment of the fitness training industry  onto it’s ear… you can read the posts here…

First read this post:: This Needs To Be Said – Is The Fitness Industry LOST ?

Next read this: The REAL Road Ahead … Can We Fix This ?

( By the way, I cleaned up most of the profanity that was in the first post, making it easier to share on the internet )

I’d like to thank EVERYONE who sent in their overwhelming messages of support and sentiments of agreement… I seriously received more messages in the last three days then between the years of 2000 and 2006 all together … but actually I wasn’t popular in any way, shape or form then so that would make sense.

Also… I have a gift for you, nothing big just one of my lower-priced products, it should help you to be more productive in your training business..  here it is for free for you ===> Get Your Free Gift

And a real shining star of our community could use your support right now, if interested in helping a fellow fitness pro in need go here ===> Click Here To Help

And a few members of the community I’d like to give extra HUGE nods out to…

Erik Rokeach – ( This Cat’s doin’ a good things with his site… reminds me of me when I get started.. my prediction is he will be the next star in the market… because he started with GIVING )

John Spencer Ellis – yes, yes, yes

Ryan Lee – I’m just tryin to be like you Ryan

Andy Jenkins – all I can say is HOLY SH*T

Big Mike – I know you’re like “who’s the hell is this dude?” … one of the world’s coolest people and brings in about $52 Million a year and revolutionized an industry .. a cool industry… especially for any of the 420 lovers of the world (;

Pat Rigsby – Thanks Pat, means a lot

7-Figure Sam – Sam, you make some amazing points and I appreciate your cool head.

Larry Lonis – Six Foot Eight, about 300 pounds, top ranked professional martial artist and minister… me and this dude used to throw drunks out of bars for money in Lubbock Texas… glad to know 11 years later and over 1000 miles a way the dude has still got my back… andhere’s his other site

Clay Collins - Clay is the guy who pretty much inspired me to blog yesrs back and is one of my closest friends

James Coury – Always there for a brother

And my wife Sarah, assistants Tali and Katie, Frank Kern and Chris Collins for keeping me cool and challenging me to be the best guy I can be.

The list of people to thanks numbers in the hundreds… these are just a few who really stick out.

And remember, I’m working on code of ethics for the community… feel free to send in or post any ideas in comment section on how to make this industry as kick ass as possible.

Think about this… all over the world… fitness training clients, die hard enthusiasts and people  just starting to embrace the fitness lifestyle are taking pics of themselves with workouts, their results, their trainers, their goal… and even even even what they’re eating… and BAM….

… Seconds later it’s up on Facebook.

If I’m out and about, if I have a funny thought, quick question, wanna start a rant, reach out to a freind, let the word know what I’m up to, make a few quick sales, give a shout out to someone or just kinda check in… I use Facebook

Along with Blogging and other forms and using my lap top and internet as my control center and headquarters … it’s how I make a living… how I create my lifestyle…

… and it allows my introverted socially awkward personality to shine through and prosper without having to interact face to face with face with my audience all day if  don’t want.

The internet allows an attention-craving introvert like me to fulfill my innate need for attention while still allowing me to be and work by myself as much or little as I like.

Now most fitness pros, like most people, are extroverts… but either way… Facebook is the great party online where just about anything is possible…

INCLUDING…. making one helluva living… DO NOT rely on Facebook or any marketing channel or platform… but DO plug it into your business as a tool to network, stay connected, get clients, build your tribe, serve your market and have a lot of fun…

And if you’re not fun to be friends with on Facebook… if you try to use Facebook as an extension of your business card or brochure… you’ll most likely fail… unless you can make it…

1. Entertaining

2. Informative… but not NEARLY as important as being informative.

Use Facebook as a place to meet, hang out, tell stories, have a laugh, make some connections, connect a few others, put some smiles on some faces, focus on adding a ton of value to your market …  treat it like a party or get-together where you’re there to have fun and be a part of something greater than yourself.

Facebook is one of the main places that connections, business, rapid fire exchange of information and current events are being talked about these days… it’s where the conversation is happening.

To me… Facebook is a web of ever evolving crowds having an ever growing amount of conversations

Personalities are being made.

Shady businesses being exposed for what they are through word of mouth… and the true leaders and underdogs are able to rise above just by taking awesome care of people

The power is being taken back by the little guy… the individual… the consumer… they’ll vote with their dollars and what they say and what they “Like” and what they “Click” and through a whole bunch of other actions and behaviors

And the amount of information being gathered is mind-numbing… information that YOU can use to hyper target your audience… and the more hyper targeted a message, generally the better the response.

Facebook is where all this is happening.

Now I’m sure you’re aware that recently Facebook has been in the news a lot regarding it’s privacy issues… regardless of how you feel about all the recent privacy “stuff” goin’ on… there’s no denying that Facebook has SO MANY uses for the fitness professional and up and coming fitness expert.

This blog post is meant to be the most up-to-date free resource available anywhere to help fitness pro’s get more clients and make more money *directly* because of Facebook…

There are so many ways Fitness Trainers and Studio Owners Can Use Facebook  For Good… Or For Bad…

Before you jump in and find out all the cool different ways Facebook can help your business.. I wanna talk about why MOST people us it.

Now, as a fitness professionals you wanna be concerned with things like tagging clients photos from your workouts… Facebook ads (which is my favorite form of pay per click advertising for the fitness professional right now)…  creating a tribe on your fan page… delivering cool and fun insights, tips and random nuggets on your profile page… getting industry and client feedback…  easily reaching hard-to-reach people…  getting fast responses from people… and utilizing the SEO power of Facebook’s Social Activity on your site.

“Stuff” like that (=

( I’ll be covering this stuff in depth during this free series )

Just like Google… Facebook is a MONSTER OF POSSIBILITIES AND OPPORTUNITIES  for the fitness professional looking to get more clients, make more money, stay better connected, get market feedback, have fun and build a tribe of loyal followers.

And you can get training clients for pennies on the dollar using Facebook Ads … which can carry a pretty fat return on investment and allow you to reach a hyper-targeted audience.

Facebook is one of the most powerful “client-getting business-building” tools at your disposal…

But Facebook means many things to many people…

Take my wife Sarah for example, for her, like a lot of people, Facebook is  a place of connecting with her friends and family, have a laugh and be heard.

For Sarah Facebook is a place to keep in touch, play games, chat, take a break, kill time and basically just enjoy herself.

For me, Facebook is not only a place to connect to friends and family… it’s also a place to make new connections, keep up on industry haps, get feedback, give praise, toot the ol’ horn from time to time, put a on people’s face, build my brand, market via pay par click, drive traffic to blog posts, turn people onto cool stuff, start a war, go on a rant, get turned onto some other people’s cool stuff, catch breaking news whether worldly or locally or having to do with the people you know or the interests and hobbies you share.

For me it’s a place of business AND a place to connect with and be a part of customers and clients clients lives… almost as if they were friends or family.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Facebook… and feel free to skip this italicized section if you want…

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be at least 13 years old to become a registered user of the website.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade “best-of” list, saying, “How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers’ birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?” Quantcast estimates Facebook has 135.1 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in October 2010. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account

According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008. ComScore reports that Facebook attracted 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people. According to Alexa, the website’s ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 2nd. Quantcast ranks the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic, and Compete.com ranks it 2nd in the U.S. The website is the most popular for uploading photos, with 50 billion uploaded cumulatively. In 2010, Sophos’s “Security Threat Report 2010″ polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed that Facebook was the social network that posed the biggest threat to security, well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

One definition of social media I like that I heard a good ol’ southern boy by the name of Perry Belcher discuss when he gave a talk on Twitter a few years back at a StomperNet Event, and it applies just as well to Facebook…. this is a para-phrased…

Facebook is the party, your blog is small BBQ you put together to invite all the friends over who you met at the party, and deep in the blog … amongst all that content… hidden in the back yard around the grill… is where the men talk business and cook meat, while the kiddies run along n’ play…

Facebook is where things are happening online right now … and many people are finding their fitness trainers on there these days.

It’s amazing that you can go on Facebook at just about any time and any time and IMMEDIATELY touch base and connect.

Immediately get a referral for something from your list of “friends”

Facebook it’s one more place to “be” in your market’s and customers lives and works for trainers via things like pay per click, business page, personal pages and so on.

But fair warning… just like anything… Facebook can be used for Evil as well as Good

For example…

My wife showed me something on her friends Facebook Wall that shows up when my wife looks at her news feed… her friend was recovering methamphetamine addict which in case you didn’t know is one of the darkest addictions around.

Now, the girl relapsed on the meth and her husband posted a pretty disturbing pic on Facebook of something that was goin’ on.

BIG FAT CAUTION: Do not go to the following link unless you have a strong stomach… and please promise me this picture won’t get you all negged out… cuz that would suck… ok now, you’ve been warned…

Click Here to See What Was On Facebook – AT YOUR OWN RISK – From that post alone … within seconds or minutes, a large part of the important people in this persons life knew she was back on the ‘gack’ and had a very disturbing visual image of that planted in their brain… just from a single Facebook post… thus stuff is soooo POWERFUL

Information on Facebook travels so fast that it’s often where I’ll first learn about most current affairs, natural disasters, big name celebrity deaths, cool new movies and music coming out in genres I really like, what my friends are up to right now and all kinds of other “breaking news” … no matter how big or small… it keeps me in the loop.

And most people on Facebook open and reply to Facebook messages MUST faster than normal email messages.

For example recently we needed to get a hold of some high end customers and consulting clients … and fast… and we tried some on Facebook and some via email, for the most part the Facebook responses came back WAY quicker than did email.

I used Facebook myself along with the blog post above I was telling you about, to put the Kibosh on some really nasty things I saw goin’ on that weren’t sitting right with me… and guess what?

I have no doubt it will work because if you do business like an asshole, there’s NO WAY to hide it with thing like blogging, Facebook and social media in general.

And Facebook is a great place to connect with friends and family… for example I’m friends with my girlfriend from high school on there who I haven’t seen in twenty years.. last time I saw her she was just a kid… now she has TEN kids… yep… I run into her twenty years down the road on Facebook and she has 10 kids…

On Facebook  I’m friends with old running buddies from when I was a kid… do I hang out with any of them?

Not really… one or two, but not many… but it’s pretty cool to connect with them all and see what everyone’s has been up to

Facebook is the great connector.. and “connecting” with the right people… others who can help you get ahead… is critical if you wanna succeed in today’s world.

Take for example Katie … who hunted me down on Facebook, and messaged in so impressively that she became one of my assistants… and an all star one at that.

Katie knew she wanted to work for my company.

But she also knew we were probably flooded with requests for employment and partnerships and affiliate promotions and free advice and paid advice as well as the usual spam and online tomfoolery we’ve all become so accustomed to … and accustomed to trying to avoid as well.

Which can sometimes make getting a message to the right person a little challenging.

So to get get a hold of me and not get lost in the shuffle, she sent in messages to myself and my office manager, explaining how she could help the company, how she believed in what I did, saw the coolness in being able to spread the good news of what’s possible for a fitness trainer to achieve in this day and age… and how far out the ripple effect of helping the fitness professionals of the world can go.

Katie saw my business as a fun and cool way to help a ton more people than she could ever help in her local training business.

Since I show fitness trainers how to make more money… and the more trainers I can help …  and the more clients each of those trainers can help… the more people who are becoming healthier and happier all over the world… and then those people are now living longer and are probably happier and a better influence to those around them… at least in terms of health and fitness.

I’ll let Katie take it from here…

“I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for Facebook. For a while I’d been looking for ways to build a fitness business and I’ve become aware of the various guru’s out there … so I started watching the way these guys marketed themselves online, mostly through things like email newsletter broadcasts, blog posts and Facebook, and Facebook is where I could really see what these guys were all about.

Facebook is a great place to put your finger on the pulse of what a person or business is all about… as well as a way of getting the attention of hard to reach people… like some of the various business and marketing guru’s in the industry… or even authors or experts, or basically whoever,  as long as they’re on Facebook… right now it’s one of the easier channels you can use to get their attention.

Facebook is where I was able to find a person in my marketplace, who spoke eye to eye with me without insulting me with hype and more “I’m the best” and “We’re the best” messages.

With Facebook… the playing field is leveled,  and for me, watching Chris on Facebook was like… ok.. now here’s a guy who really get’s it,  he’s making this stuff fun, informative and helpful, plus his message is very congruent with who he is and congruent with the segment of the market he was goin’ after,  the fitness experts who don’t wanna conform to industry norms or strict franchise restrictions and compliance’s … they just wanna be great at getting people into shape, they know they’re worth a lot and expect to be paid what they’re worth, as long as it’s in fair proportion to the amount of value their providing to the world, they wanna have fun, do it their own way and make GREAT money WITHOUT trading your life away just for the almighty dollar.

Chris uses Facebook to really put himself out there, it’s the real him. I mean his blog is the real him too, but there’s things I’ve seen him do on Facebook that I don’t think he would ever do on his blog, but who knows, he’s been known to surprise us once in a while (;

Through Facebook, I found someone who’s higher vision I could align with and who knew I could learn a great deal from.

Through Facebook I found who I felt delivered the goods for me… now not necessarily for everyone, cuz I’ll admit I’m kind of a dork and we all have different tastes ya know

Facebook allowed me to find the teacher I wanted to learn from.

I’ve since met some of the various gurus and their personalities are very consistent with their Facebook posts… so Facebook was the perfect tool to help me sort out what kind of coach or teacher or employer will work for me personally and which ones won’t. And what’s great is, since we’re all so different, and Big Chris’s stuff definitely isn’t for everyone.. different people can use Facebook to search out what resonates with them personally.

Eventually, through FACEBOOK and his blog, I became so impressed with Chris’s vision and how he helped trainers create a life they couldn’t even fathom before… that I decided I just had to work for this guy and I used Facebook to get the gig. Facebook has played a giant part in my business, life and destiny… and it’s at all of our fingertips all of the time” - Katie

Hey it’s Chris again… so Katie tried to contact me through Facebook and her message got deleted… I get way more Facebook messages than I will ever even attempt to keep up with…and 9 out of 10 times I’m way to far behind on that damn thing to even do anything with it.. I mean I do my best… but it could easily take half my day everyday if I responded to every message coming at me.

If I did that, I’d never have time to get the truly important stuff done.

Sometimes it’s just not possible to keep up with all that stuff.

Well, she tried a few more times and we noticed the unique tone of her messages which was…

“Hey, I believe in what you do and want to help make you, me and the as many fitness trainers as possible a whole bunch of money helping a whole bunch of people… oh, and I have nothing to sell you… besides on the fact that I would make the best personal assistant for you in the world.”

As compared to your typical person who would email something in more similar to …

“You hiring?” or “Got any extra work I can due?” or… “Will you promote my thing.. it’s the best thing ever… it’s amazing”

Which is more based on what what they want… to be hired.. or to have extra work to do… me to promote… instead of what I want… which is for my business to be as successful as possible in line with MY own personal definition of success

Katie even offered to work for free, or do it as an intern or in-exchange work for some business coaching… I’m sure being fully aware that if she did good there’s no way I’m gonna let her come work for me a not get paid.

Katie used the connecting power of Facebook and went after getting hired by coming from a place of helping ME to get what I want, and not a place of  HER getting what she wants … and in the end… she got what she wanted

THAT’S WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS ALL ABOUT… Being a Value ADDER… NOT a Value Extractor

Our industry is riddled with Value Extractors.. if you REALLY wanna stick out, be a value adder.

Add value to people’s lives… and lot’s of it.. it’s really that simple.

It’s about making people laugh, praising them, getting answers fast, it’s hanging with people over the interwebs…

It’s about sharing… sharing good times, thoughts, referrals, news, ideas and resources.

I’ve been turned on to so many cool resources from Facebook

…blogs…

…websites..

…books…

…power players in different industries…

… connecting …

…you name it.

My mastermind group uses a Facebook message board to communicate with eachother

And even my mom is on Facebook … that’s how she keeps tabs on my little brother Jeff and myself.

…and speaking of my little brother… Jeff…

After spending a number of years at Yahoo where he was Senior Vice President of Business Operations…  Jeff is now Director of Business Operations for Facebook.

The kid is wicked smart… he’s like Will Hunting with no Philly accent, less math skills and more work ethic … he hit the books while I hit the bong.

Having Jeff as my little bro has put me in a pretty cool position…

I’ve spent hours talking to him, as well as with internet hipsters Andy Jenkins and Frank Kern, team members of the Facebook Ad Department… been through the courses… and most importantly spent lots of time testing and tweaking and seeing what works.

I even contacted a few buddies to help me out with this series… and I promise you I’ve got lots of cool stuff coming you way.

And while, these tactics will work for lots of markets, industries and niches… since I’m from the fitness world as well as from the internet marketing world … I’m gonna stick with mostly real world examples of what I’ve seen in the fitness industry….

The Face Book TAG Your It Strategy . Basically tagging clients like Christian Aguirre explains here

Social Proof Facebook Style - The social proof that can be gathered by how many friends you have, comments, “likes” and how often your and far your stuff gets “shared” can leave a big impression on your audience

If you’ve been following my blog for long, you’re well aware of the power of social proof and how to use it to your benefit, and hopefully you are using it in as many ways as possible. Social proof is the “juice” of your Facebook activity, and if done properly it can easily lead to more clients, happier clients and more profits.

Social Activity plays a big part in Google, meaning if people are visiting your site from Facebook, staying on it a long time, visiting lots of pages, leaving comments in your comment section and/or in a Facebook comment section in the post itself, liking it, telling other people about it and so on… the more people you have coming from Facebook and being active on your site, the better.. if your site has lots of Social Activity it can often times rank higher in Google than a site that is more optimized and has a longer track record of trust in Google.

Facebook Sponsored Stories - from Zach Hunt…

These are fairly new to the facebook world. I’m sure you’re familiar with facebook ads, meaning you have a display ad on the side of their site which directs someone to either a site you have (squeeze page, etc.) or directly to your fan page.

Here’s how cool these are, so basically what sponsored stories are (they come in two flavors) using users actions as ads to all their friends.

This is super powerful cause every single one of these ads has built in social proof. Kinda like a referral in a way just by their action they do.

The two main flavors are sponsored “likes” and sponsored “check-ins”. Sponsored likes mean whenever someone likes your page ALL their friends see the ad that they liked your page. How cool is that?

Here’s the best part: the click through rates on these ads are through the roof. On a conservative note they get 5 to 10 times higher click through rates than the normal facebok ads, and hense they are usually 10 to 20 times cheaper clicks.

I remember the first time running sponsored likes I got around 63 clicks for about $1.07, not bad I’d say.

Also the other cool one is sponsored “check-ins”. This is basically when someone uses the facebook check in option to check into your business place on facebook. (Please note: you have to categorize your facebook fan page as a local place, which I recommend you do)

You then promote to your clients to check into your business via their smartphone. This will then show up to all their fiends as a local hot spot they are constantly visiting. Cause they check in each time they go.

And here’s the best part, your friends most checked in places will usually show up on the top right of your screen. (See Picture On Right). So this is a double good thing.

There’s one other sponsored story type called “Page post story”. This one basically helps promote your posts on your fan pages to people who wouldn’t normally see them. I don’t know about most people, but I rarely if ever check my normal news feed and hence don’t see most of the updates happening, These will put your fan page posts as a small ad on the right to help get additional exposure to your posts. Also a pretty cool trick!

Jeff Sherman’s Facebook Guide – My buddy Jeff Sherman gave me a pretty cool power point presentation  about how he gets lots of business from Facebook, you can download it right here.. super cool of Jeff to hook this up

And here’s…

7-Figure Sam’s STALKER STRATEGY – The Facebook Stalker Phone Method

This is to keep your  clients accountable outside of the gym… because remember snside of the gym is only 20-25% of results.. an outside of the gym which is 75 to 80% of results.

You can use Facebook to keep tabs on you clients “outside the gym” … here’s how…

1. Add them to Facebook subscribe to their posts through texts

2. Send that to different phone number that goes to assistant… That way when someone posts something their assistant gets it

3. If they are doing something bad like at McDonalds or eating donuts they get a text from Sam ( actually from his assistant ) saying don’t do that, and that they need to get back in line because remember.. “outside” the gym will account for most of your results

I hope you enjoyed this post and keep an eye out cuz” I’ve got lot’s more great stuff coming your way on using Facebook to build your fitness training business… including a whole bunch of great Facebook Ad tactics from the ‘Fitness Facebook Ad Guy’ Josh Carter

So keep an eye out for future installments of the Facebook Manifesto Series

Before you go, I’d love to hear your comments below about either…

A. Ideas for Ways To Improve the Fitness Training Industry

B. Ways YOU use Facebook to build your training business

And I’d like to leave you with a jam that has a personal meaning for me…

And of you like this post… don’t forget to “Like” it

Facebook Manifesto Part Two Coming Soon…