Social Media Strategies for Building Communities

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Table of Contents

Holos Fitness Case Study
Best Social Media Practices Employed by Holos Fitness
Works Cited

Social media is a major innovation that has produced remarkable results in the Health and Fitness Industry. While some organizations are taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by social media, others do not seem to understand that social media is equally applicable in the Health and Fitness Industry. Although social media portals were developed primarily for individuals everywhere to keep in touch, companies have seized this technology, and are using it to widen brand awareness, and connect with not only their existing customers, but also their potential clients. Today, it is evident that social media is as important to individuals as it is to companies. For companies, the major purpose of social media is to develop a community of users loyal to the companys brand.

Holos Fitness Case Study

Holos Fitness is a fitness website based in Chicago (www.holosfitness.com). The website has a wide-range of fitness, health, and nutrition related information that includes systematic guides on hundreds of exercises and video demonstrations of many workouts. The social networking features embedded on the site helps motivate and support individuals as they work toward attaining their fitness goals. All the employees in the company are on a contractual part-time basis. The company heavily relies on outsourced workers to offer technical help, fitness content, and graphics design services.

According to Jack (17), the company has developed what it calls an “Active Lifestyle Community”. The company has taken advantage of social media strategies such as video, blogging, and community boards. Holos Fitness equally provides email newsletters to its online communities. Community members can share their photos and workouts, comment and rate the effectiveness of workouts posted by other community members. They are equally able to have access to member directory of gyms. Furthermore, individuals share, read blogs, and ask questions to community members.

Holos Fitness communicates with its current and potential members through a number of social media accounts that include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. Through the social media, Holos shares its announcements, keeps community members interested and engaged, and posts videos of exercises. Each social media posting invites both existing and potential community users to visit the companys website by including a link to the companys website.

Driving traffic to the companys website, Holos Fitness has harnessed the power of the internet to drive traffic to its website through social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and YouTube (Jack 18).

Providing relevant content to its online community, Holos believes, that content is the king in social media. To the company merely posting a blog or tweeting a new message is less valuable compared to offering insightful content to social media audiences. Consequently, the company engages in a coordinated campaign aimed at providing valuable information to its audience. They have a strong line-up of new exercise information, videos, interactive features, and blogs that are both fun and entertaining.

Wise and thoughtful use of social media, using social media to build communities does not merely involve opening a YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter account. Social media has to be used in a thoughtful and wise manner. The content posted in social media, just like those posted in company websites must have value. In the long-term social media presents significant opportunities for the Health and Fitness Industry. The communities developed through social media outlets can be used to boost business and expand a companys reach locally, at the national level, and even internationally (Jack 19).

Social Media Demographics, in using social media, it is important for a company to understand its demographics. For instance, targeting to create communities whose members have advanced degrees using Myspace, where the average user is below 18, would amount to misuse of time and resources. The charts below demonstrate how different social media websites attract different demographics.