Fitness Modeling 101: The Art Of Self Promotion
December 13, 2010 by Jamin Thompson
Filed under Fitness Modeling, Recent Posts
If you’re reading this, you’re either an aspiring fitness model, just a really big fan of mine, or trying to kill time at work because you’ve already spent 4 hours on Facebook building your Mafia Wars empire and you can’t seem to get past level 6.
Whatever your reason is for being here…welcome…I”m glad you dropped by!
I can’t really help you if you’re stuck in Mafia Wars (I’m a Playstation 3 groupie myself) but I can give you some decent fitness modeling advice.
If you’re one of my three fans that exist around the world (one being my mom) thanks for your continued support 
Self Promotion…
It’s an easy myth to get caught up in, but the truth is…the hottest model isn’t always the model who gets the gig.
With the rapid growth of the internet, more and more companies searching for “brand ambassadors” who not only look good, but also have a strong social media presence, and brand building skills as well.
What does this mean for you?
It means that you should be using Facebook and Twitter, as well as the mediums I’ll discuss below to promote yourself and build your brand for literally pennies as well as place yourself in front of millions of people!
If you have been on the internet for a while you probably know that getting your message heard is HARD. Seems like everyone has Facebook now, it’s super hard to get followers on Twitter, and you just can’t seem to get noticed.
So how can you separate yourself from the crowd and shine?
Simple.
Follow these 5 simple rules and start LIVING LARGE:
1. Start a blog.
Blogs are informational websites where the blog or site owner posts useful content or articles on topics that interest their readers. Many blogs provide content on a particular subject, but others are more or less just personal online diaries…but the overall “theme” of your blog is up to you. My advice is to make the theme about you, but just keep it interesting.
You can talk about your life, your workouts, your meal plan, your schedule, your kids, your boyfriend/girlfriend, parents, flight to mexico, gig you booked, etc. You get the idea.
Blogs are great to build up your readership and help you establish credibility, as well as a free way to promote yourself and your brand (yes you should be promoting and branding yourself online).
The search engines also love blogs, especially the ones that are updated regularly with fresh and unique content. (hint hint)
If you don’t have a blog yet, just head over to www.WordPress.com or www.Blogger.com and start one for free!
Setting up a blog is very simple, and they are very easy to manage. You will not need any real html code knowledge or need to be a technical expert to manage your blog.
I know many people opt for a Blogger blog because it is much simpler, but I prefer WordPress because it is much more user friendly and it gives you even more options. WordPress has a longer learning curve, but it isn’t too complicated and they have tutorials on their site to help you.
TIP: After you get your feet wet with a free blog you can then take it to the next level and get a custom self-hosted blog on WordPress.org.
2. Get a website. If you own a business these days people expect you to have a website. Yes, to clear up any doubt, your fitness modeling career is a business and you might even want to think about incorporating yourself. (Check out LegalZoom for more info)
But anyway, having a quality website can have a profound impact on your career because casting directors, agencies, photographers, etc DO GOOGLE YOU. And what do you expect them to think when they type your name into Google and nothing shows up?
I know what I would think…I would think that this person hasn’t done much, isn’t about much, and isn’t all that serious. Whether any of that is actually true or not is irrelevant. This business is all about perception and you want to be perceived as a mover and shaker and you want to look like you are “big time” on the internet.
Me attempting to be big time
On the flip side of that…what do you think they would think if they searched the keyword “fitness model” in a Google search and your website came up first?
Well they would probably think that you’re the real deal of course!
Cha-Ching!
A website gives you the opportunity to tell the world what you stand for and what you’re all about. Plus you can show companies why they should put their faith in you and hire you to promote their products. It also gives your website visitors a chance to spread positive word of mouth advertising about you, and trust me if you do this right, your website visitors can do most of your marketing for you!
Your website is your 24/7/365 day per year marketing machine. It will promote you while you are sleeping in every single corner of the world.
Another perk of having a website is that it allows you to diversify your revenue streams. You can sell training services if you are a trainer, supplements, equipment, eBooks, and even advertising space if you have enough traffic.
Sure it may cost you a few hundred bucks or so to get a website up and running but the long-term payoff is well worth it. If you want to look like a pro and eventually book big time gigs you better start acting like it. Get a website asap.
Now if you’re “ballin on a budget” there are affordable ways to get your website created. No I’m not talking about those cheesy websites where you “build your own” website disaster. I’ve seen some sites like this and they just look awful. If you’re going to do it…do it right.
You can try to find a cheap web designer to put a site together for you using Elance , or another freelancer website….I also suggest asking a few people in the industry who they got to build their sites. Just be sure to do your homework.
If you do decide to do it yourself, you’ll need to buy a domain name. I always use GoDaddy.com to buy my domains because I can always get the domain name of my choice for less than $10 per year. I used my own name for my fitness model website www.JaminThompson.com and I suggest you use your name as well, but feel free to be creative.
Even if you don’t plan to use your own name, you may want to buy it anyway just in case someone else decides to buy it. I’ve seen this happen before and a modeling friend of mine who has the same name as a pornstar gets killed in Google rankings because the pornstar bought the domain name first.
Just brutal. Don’t let that happen to you though.
Next you’ll need a reliable web host to host your website, and as much as I love GoDaddy I don’t use them to host my sites because I’ve found their hosting service to be unreliable and unsecure. With that being said I recommend using HostGator because you can get very reliable hosting for about $7 per month. They have a very easy to use online management system and you can set up your account quickly. Plus their customer service is the best in the business and you won’t have to worry too much about your site getting hacked.
3. Start a newsletter. This is the one element many fitness models fail to capitalize on, even though it is probably the most useful internet marketing tool of all time. The old saying goes: “The Money Is In The List” and this is no different.
The biggest problem many fitness models with blogs and websites have is a lack of consistent traffic. They may write a blog post or add new pictures to their photo gallery, then check their stats the next day and only 3 or 4 people read their blog post or checked out their website.
Sigh. Total bummer dude!
So what should you do?
Here’s the thing…
If you don’t know much about internet marketing you don’t stand a chance.
If you don’t have a ton of money to spend on advertising your site you don’t stand a chance.
As great as Facebook and Twitter are you probably won’t generate a ton of traffic from those sources and if you have been using them as your primary traffic sources up to this point you probably know what I mean!
Here’s what I do and it is one of the main traffic strategies I use to promote my websites: Just forget about Google and use your newsletter as your unlimited website traffic supply! Why compete with millions of other people on Google for expensive keywords and traffic…and worse…try to SEO your site so you can rank high in…GASP…the highly competitive fitness industry?!
Why keep relying on tweets to send you traffic when you only have 200 or so followers?
Why keep hoping your Facebook “friends” click the links in your status posts or open that long boring group email you sent out (which they wont)?
You really didn’t think we read those group emails did you…??
I’m not saying you should just abandon Google here at all because Google is a great traffic generator if you know what you’re doing…I’m just saying you may want to re-think your primary traffic source.
Let’s say you add 50, 100, 1000, or even 10,000 people to your free newsletter. Then the next time you write a blog post, add some pictures, or make an update you can email all of those people to come check your stuff out! The best part about it is, you can establish a real relationship with these people from day 1, so everytime you send them an email they are dying to open it.
That trumps any other advertising source by far! Who wants to wait around for months to see if their SEO kicks in? I sure don’t! Besides Google seems to change their rules every few months so last months SEO flavor of the month may not even work down the road. You just can’t put all of your eggs in that basket.
This may not ever happen but just imagine if Google went out of business? What if Facebook & Twitter went out of business? What if your Facebook page & Fanpage got deleted? What would happen to your website? Where would your traffic come from? Would your business be over?
I learned this lesson the hard way when my fanpage with almost 4,000 people got deleted in the blink of an eye.
Here’s a stone cold fact. You own your newsletter list. Nobody can take it away from you and it is your most valuable asset in your online marketing efforts. Facebook can’t delete it and Google can’t slap it so start building your list today!
Here’s how you can get started building your newsletter list. First you will need a good autoresponder service.
I have used several different autoresponders, but I definitely would not recommend them all.
In fact, most suck.
The only two I use are GetResponse and Aweber. You don’t have to use both, just sign up for one. Neither is really better than the other it is just a matter of personal preference, but both programs are very good.
Once you have your account at GetResponse, for example, ready to go, you will then need to figure out what you are going to give away to “entice” people to subscribe.
Most people are hesitant to give away their email address these days because they are afraid of getting spammed. That’s why you need to give them something of value to give them an incentive to subscribe.
Here are some free giveaway ideas:
- Your fitness modeling resume in PDF format
- A free e-book (workouts, recipes, pics, stats, anything creative)
- A link to watch a video of you, or a video series (YouTube videos on your website)
- A free article email course giving away a new article every week/month.
- A promise of a gift in the future
-A combination of all of the above 
(Check the top right upper corner of this page to see how I did it on this blog)
You can literally give away anything but just be 100% sure you make it worth the persons time because remember they can always unsubscribe…and most people will if your newsletter sucks.
The next step after they subscribe is for you to keep in touch with your subscribers and send out a message every 1-2 weeks or perhaps every 3 weeks. Offer them more free stuff at least once a month (articles, PDF reports, career updates, pics, etc) and any other creative ideas you can think of so they won’t forget about you.
Plus don’t forget to send out blasts everytime you post an article, book a gig, or do anything cool 
TIP: After they subscribe, send them a message and introduce yourself. Be brief, but thank your subscriber for signing up and remind them of all of the BENEFITS that you will be offering them by signing up. Be absolutely sure to come across as a friend, but maintain a professional demeanor. (If you use an autoresponder this message can be sent out automatically)
4. Create YouTube Videos. One of the best free marketing strategies you can use is to create viral videos which link back to your website/blog. You can film yourself doing exercises, talking about your workouts, meal plans, fitness modeling tips, etc it’s really up to you what your videos are about but just remember that YouTube is one of the best free ways to send traffic to your website and/or blog! All you have to do is place your website name into the video and the video description and you should slowly but steadily see more and more traffic coming in from your YouTube channel.
Of course it gets more complicated than that but my buddy Gideon Shalwick has an awesome free ebook on his website called Rapid Video Blogging that will show you exactly how to dominate YouTube and generate unlimited traffic to your website. Trust me you’ll love it.
5. Be active on Facebook & Twitter. Unless you have been sleeping under a rock for the past couple of years you probably have a Facebook account already. If you do hi 5 yourself. Your next step is to get a Twitter account if you don’t have one yet.
And if you are one of the people who always tell me that Twitter is for kids or that you “just don’t get it”…let me tell you right now that you need to learn how to GET IT and learn to USE IT to your advantage.
We are in the age of digital marketing and if you don’t want to get on board then you will just get left behind. As the 10th most popular website in the world (based on traffic at the time of this writing) Twitter is simply too powerful to pass up. You simply can’t afford to let petty thinking and the stone age “it’s not my thing” attitude cause you to miss out on a great way to help build your business and brand.
Twitter is a very useful tool that will allow you to deeply connect with your audiences and fans in real time. You can broadcast your message and connect, share, interact, and influence people all over the world instantly! It’s another great opportunity to build relationships and also gives you another avenue to get your name out there.
Your goal is to combine Facebook & Twitter together to build a community of supporters, create networking opportunities, create a buzz, build your brand, and extend your global reach.
Keep in mind that while your goal is to shamelessly promote yourself using social media…you don’t want to come across as annoying. You don’t want to be one of those people who do nothing but talk about how great they are and blab about their achievements all day…but never take the time to interact with their fans.
Thats a surefire recipe for failure my friend.
Here are 5 important rules to follow if you want to win at the social media marketing game:
1. Be dynamic but be yourself. Don’t “lose yourself in the music” so to speak, but keep being yourself and show your audience why you’re awesome just being you.
2. Interact with your audience. Regularly comment on other statuses, walls, retweet, and join the conversation. Nobody is too cool to do that.
3. Post regularly. You don’t want your audience to forget about you. They may jump ship for someone more interesting…like me
4. Be Diverse. Nobody wants to hear about your contest prep or your cheat meal all day & night. Talk about more stuff than fitness or you will get tossed into the “this person bores the hell outta me” pile. Yawn.
5. Be humble. Always seek to inspire first and don’t always thirst for glory.
If you remember those five things your social media marketing campaign will definitely be a successful one!
5. Syndicate everything to create a domination hub. This is the final step and your domination hub is simply everything we’ve discussed here all tied together. So it is the combination of your website, blog, newsletter, and youtube videos.
Here’s how it will work…
You use your website, blog, and social media to promote your brand, use your youtube channel to draw more attention to yourself and generate free traffic, then use your newsletter to capture the email addresses of your visitors and fans to create a non-stop traffic machine.
Pretty simple stuff actually.
If you are just starting it may seem like a little much…but don’t worry just start somewhere and slowly build your domination hub piece by piece. Before you know it, you’ll be a well respected authority figure in the industry and an internet rockstar.
So what are some of your best self promotion tips? Please post them as a comment below!
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