{"id":3564,"date":"2025-07-08T15:58:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3564"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:58:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:58:28","slug":"how-fitness-influencers-gain-social-media-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-fitness-influencers-gain-social-media-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fitness Influencers Gain Social-Media Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Fitness influencers use various tactics to build their personal brands, attract followers, and inspire engagement on social media that can be applied to any topic or community.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Tim Pollock<\/a> of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville said that people trying to build their follower base on social-media channels need to be proactive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to post a lot and comment on others\u2019 posts and pictures, but also put out your own pictures on Instagram or the platform of your choice that people can engage with and relate to,\u201d Pollock said. \u201cLooking at fitness influencers, we saw before-and-after pictures of either the influencers themselves or their clients, somebody who was heavier or not that muscular before and now here\u2019s a picture of them and they\u2019ve lost 50 pounds and now they’re ripped, that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr here\u2019s a selfie; here\u2019s a picture of the influencer doing some kind of really cool exercise,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd usually they try to do them in some sort of funky location too, so it\u2019s not just in the gym, but they\u2019ll be doing them on the beach or in the mountains, and those sorts of things enhance engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollock said that influencers who share details about their personal lives are viewed as more authentic and likeable.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal stuff is something that that makes me want to know a bit more about you and allows me to connect with you as a person,\u201d Pollock said. \u201cThese were called \u2018warmth images,\u2019 things like you in a group with other people doing social activities, pictures of you with your family or kids, these kinds of things that gave some insight into who you are as a person.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond just the fitness pics, influencers also attracted people and pulled them in with personal posts and warmth images,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then, using positive emotional language and talking about the other person and congratulating them were ways that fitness influencers enhanced the engagement with their posts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Fitness influencers use various tactics to build their personal brands, attract followers, and inspire engagement on social media that can be applied to any topic or community. 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Academy of Management Scholar Tim Pollock of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville said that people trying to build their follower base on social-media channels need…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3564"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3564"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}