Tweet

Seven Steps to Lose Weight with Twitter

Guest post by: Pete Brand

Article Overview: You might be saying, "Come on now! The only thing social media does is add to my waistline since I spend too much time in front of the computer." Well I am here to tell you that's only because you are using it wrong. I'm not making that statement in an accusatory way. I've fallen into the same trap (as evidenced by my increasingly large physique). :) We've all rushed out to purchase the "at home" exercise equipment which we've creatively figured out how to use as place to hang our clothes, or as a dust collector. Come on ... you remember. You decided to purchase the equipment for your home so you could eliminate the recurring fee you paid to the health club. The crazy thing is you weren't using the membership anyhow.

Seven Steps to Lose Weight with Twitter

You might be saying, "Come on now! The only thing social media does is add to my waistline since I spend too much time in front of the computer." Well I am here to tell you that's only because you are using it wrong.

I'm not making that statement in an accusatory way. I've fallen into the same trap (as evidenced by my increasingly large physique). :)

We've all rushed out to purchase the "at home" exercise equipment which we've creatively figured out how to use as place to hang our clothes, or as a dust collector.

Come on ... you remember. You decided to purchase the equipment for your home so you could eliminate the recurring fee you paid to the health club. The crazy thing is you weren't using the membership anyhow.

If you talk to any health club professional or personal trainer you'll find the most important ingredient to any weight loss program is accountability. We all know it is much more difficult to hold yourself accountable than it is to have other people keeping you in check. The following are seven steps any health club can use to help it's members lose weight using Twitter or any other social media platform.

Step One - Set up a Twitter Account and Start a Group

The first thing you'll need to do is go to Twitter.com and set up an account. This is important for any business since you'll want to control your brand. Remember back when the Internet started becoming more and more prominent and you ignored it and neglected to snag your yourcompany.com domain name? Well, don't let that happen again.

Once you've set up your Twitter account you can go to Twittgroups.com or Twibes.com and set up your group, otherwise known as a "hash tag." You'll simply choose a word or words and have a "#" sign before it. This will help keep all related "tweets" categorized and easy to follow.

Step Two - Establish Ground Rules

Common sense tells us that the trick to losing weight is decreasing your intake and increasing your physical activity. The slightest adjustment in the correct direction for each of these things will result in marked progress if you keep it up for a significant period of time.

It's important to measure the progress so each of the participants should take measurements, weigh themselves, and even take some before photos.

As a health club you should encourage your "Weight Loss Club Members" to sign up for their own individual Twitter accounts and send out "Tweets" that contain your "hash tag" each time they eat something, and each time they exercise. If your participants know there are other people who will be reviewing it, they'll be less apt to fall off the wagon.

Step Three - Give Away a Prize

Although this can definitely be a an ongoing tool that could be used by anyone, set up four 90 day periods and allow a limited number of participants. This alone will drive participation since nobody wants to be locked out of a contest.

Even though losing weight will be a great benefit to the participants, if they know they could potentially win a free membership for a year, they'll find added motivation. I know that may seem like a big prize, but if you limit it to the person who made the best progress throughout the contest period, you'll only be giving away four memberships each year. The PR you'll receive by doing this and the advertising and promotion opportunities will FAR OUTWEIGH this small loss of revenue.

Step Four - Promote the Program

We've all heard of "The Biggest Loser" and there are oodles of people who watch that show. Why not take advantage of the popularity?

Use your online and offline newsletter, your email database, flyers, your personal trainers, and your front desk staff to promote the program. You can even use Twitter and Facebook to do it as well. Talk about it as much as possible. If you do it right you will find people who live beyond your geographic reach may start participating. If you are creative you can potentially uncover additional revenue opportunities that extend beyond geography and membership based revenue.

Step Five - Monitor Participants Progress

Once the program has begun, spend 5-10 minutes a couple times a day reviewing the progress of your participants. Take a peak at what food they are consuming and what activities they are participating in. Compare those actions with the goals they set.

If you happen to find someone who hasn't "tweeted" in awhile, or seems to be making some poor consumption choices, send them a direct message encouraging them. This might just be the reminder they need and you could be making a much bigger impact on their health than you even imagine.

Step Six - Send out Motivational "Tweets" EVERY DAY

Most people have a difficult time with self motivation. Since you know this to be true, take the time every day to send out general motivation "Tweets" to all your participants. These subtle reminders will help keep them on track and when your contest is complete you'll have some incredible case studies to share with the people who didn't decide to participate. You'll also increase the credibility of your personal trainers since they are guiding these participants in the right direction.

Step Seven - Track and Publish the Results

If your health club doesn't have a blog ... get one! You should be tracking the progress of your weight loss club on your blog and showcase the many case studies you create during each of your contests. Of course you'll need to get the permission of the people whose story you use, but I am guessing if they've made the kind of progress that's worth sharing, they'll be more than happy to comply with your request.

Be creative and have fun with this idea. I believe if you consistently follow these steps and enhance them with your own "club personality" you'll see an increase in your membership base and you'll potentially find additional ideas for non-membership revenue generation. Keep me posted on your progress!

Related Articles
  Three Steps to Get Your Money Headed in the Right Direction
  The Biggest Loser- The Best Route To Your Weight Loss Journey
  Are Your Beliefs Holding You Back
  Crafting Powerful Goals
  Do You REALLY Want to Lose Weight?
  Effective Twitter Strategies For Promoting Your Business
  Fired or Fat
  Is Twitter For The Birds?
  How to Advertise on the Internet! ~A MUST READ 4 SERIOUS ENTREPRENEURS
  How To Maintain Life After Biggest Loser Weight Loss- Part 1
  Marketing With Twitter The Right Way
  Jenny Craig Weight Loss
  What Losing Weight Can Teach You About Marketing
  Twitter Tips: The Secrets You Should Know
  5 WAYS TO LOSE A PROSPECT
  Buy software is easy. Fixing lead generation is hard.
  Golden Rules Of Weight Loss Journey
  Enhancing Your Business Language
  NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS (Don't Do It)
  Height Weight Chart - Gauging Your Life Insurance Risk Factors

Article Tags: goals, techniques, twitter



Related Forum Posts
Re: Using Twitter To Double Your Traffic? - I'm sure in many cases Twitter sends more traffic than Search Engines because most people don't have good enough SE rankings to get SE traffic. But anyone can get Twitter traffic. The problem is that Twitter traffic won't convert for the most part and SE traffic will. I'd venture to say that 98% of the time getting just 100 visitors from search is better than getting 2000+ from Twitter.
How to Use Twitter to Market Products? - How do you use Twitter to market products? Has the Twitter route given you good results? Please share your experience and ideas on how to use Twitter to take a product to the customers. Thank you in advance.
Re: Social Media Works If You Do It Right... - Hi Michelle, Ah, but it seems hashtags are still being used by a lot of people - including Twitter! So I would still use them for your keywords. It's just that if you are searching for something on Twitter you can either go the #hashtag route, or do a direct search on the Twitter homepage. I guess you could use #hashtags when searching on the Twitter homepage as well! DH
Re: Facebook or Twitter? - Thanks for the feedback guys! I personally started with Twitter and am now moving over to Facebook. I polled people on both my accounts and (not surprisingly) the Twitter people said Twitter and the Facebook people said Facebook! The actual order of my social media presence looks like this: 1) LinkedIn (with little success) 2) Twitter 3) YouTube 4) Facebook
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - I use Facebook pages for Business and rarely ever use Twitter. I hace lost count of the no. of Hotels that I have visited, regarding their marketing campaigns, that may have 5k Facebook Fans and only 100 followers on Twitter. It is a lot more difficult to engage with people on Twitter and thus harder to gain traction. If you are a business like Nike, then Twitter is great, but if you are an SME, then focus on Facebook or LinkedIn (if you are providing a professional service.) You can always have your Facebook feed directly in to Twitter, so you can have a presence on both, but do the work on one. Also check out ping.fm for managing campaigns - it is a free tool, and a great time saver.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What Is The Foundation for Your Vision?

The Death of the Sales Magazine

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.