12 Ways to become a fitness expert online

Become a fitness expert in 12 steps.

This article is written by Sarah Cordiner from sarahcordiner.com. Sarah is a Qualified Educator & Course Creation Specialist with over 40,000 students in 168 countries. She is cited in Forbes and was a previous university director. You can turn your expertise into profitable online courses through her website.

Do you build an audience first or build your fitness course first?

This is a question that many people ask me. 

Do you need to build an audience before you create an online course so that you have someone to launch to? 

Or do you create the course first and then build the audience so that they know what you do?

The answer is that you need to do both, all at the same time, forever.

Don't stop and wait for something.

In this article, I am going to take you through 12 steps to make you a fitness expert online.

How to become a fitness expert online (12 steps)

When you don’t have a massive marketing budget or a big marketing team, you have to find ways that have the biggest impact and reach possible. 

I personally used a whole bunch of strategies and I’m going to share some of the online ones today. Follow each one (don't skip the ones that you don't like doing) to see good results.

My goal is always to build and grow something is to be prolific and omnipresent.

If people can’t see you, they can’t hear you. You simply do not exist to them.

You have to put yourself out there. It’s a scary thing to do at first, but you have to go through it if you are going to make an impact online.

You have to make it really, really easy for people to find you and you have to put yourself in front of them.

Content marketing is one of the best ways that you can do this - especially without a budget. 

I am now going into the 12 steps that I follow to make myself as prolific and omnipresent as I possibly can online. This lets me share my expertise with the biggest market possible - and in a way that makes the system of doing that as easy as possible.

This is how you go out into the world. You need to create valuable content. That is how you get your thoughts, ideas, techniques and strategies out there.

Go big.

1. Make a fitness video

It is good to start this whole entire process with videos because videos are the highest converting type of content that you can do right now.

Videos have the maximum reach when you go live. 

Facebook, at the moment, is trying to encourage live streaming. It gives lots of reach and exposure to people who post videos. That's an instant reach reward!

Do live streams on social media. It doesn't matter whether you look good or feel comfortable at first. Post live streams until your quality and professionalism get better. This will take time and practice.

After you’ve done a great live stream, download it. Start downloading the best ones. Save them and upload them to YouTube along with your social media channels.

This is how you get multiple pieces of content right away.

Make more content.

2. Turn videos into words - get the transcription

Step number two is to then get the videos transcribed.

There are a number of different transcribing tools and pieces of software out there.

I use Rev.com. It also provides you with the subtitles that can go back onto your video. 

Now your video has subtitles. That's awesome!

3. Turn text into fitness blog posts

I turn that transcription into a blog post. It's simple as that.

Now I have videos everywhere from a single, simple video that I did. I also have subtitles on those videos. These videos become valuable blog posts as well.

The second that you press publish on a blog post; you now have something else that has reach and search optimization.

You have something else that can be found in people’s Google search results. You have something else that can be shared.

People consume content in different ways. Some people like to watch, some people like to listen and some people like to read. Your initial video will cater to all three markets.

Use the power of multiplication.

4. Send the fitness blog post to your email list

This is the fourth step that I do personally. I take that blog post and simply copy, paste, and share it to my email list.

Many of you won't have an email list. You grow one by becoming prolific and omnipresent. You grow an email list by sharing expertise and education online.

It is very important to focus on growing your email list.

When you have a list of people in your email list, you have people that you can sell to.

This is the community of people who obviously like your stuff. They are going to be more inclined to buy from you down the line.

It’s really important that you start growing your email list today. The best way to do that is with valuable content.

When people are on that email list, don’t just sell to them.

You need to give them educational, helpful, informative content because that’s what maintains your status as an expert. 

That’s why we then share the content to the email list.

Value comes before income.

5. Text social media posts

Tip number five is to go through that blog post that you’ve created from the transcript of the video and extract snippets of text to use in social media posts.

Perhaps in that blog post you’ve got some nice little one liners or a couple of sentences - or maybe even a little paragraph that’s really nice and consumable to use as a social media post.

People love to consume content in different ways. I might be looking at your social media channel and not open a link to a blog article. I should still be able to benefit from visiting your social profile.

You can go straight into Facebook or you can schedule posts.

I like to use a social media auto posting tool called Buffer. 

Buffer allows you to schedule posts ahead of time. You can create a series of posts that will be published in the future automatically.

I write the blog post, grab some snippets, copy and paste it into Buffer and all of that stuff goes in the queue.

Make your content easy to digest.

6. Infographics and images

To complete step number six, we need to create infographics and images.

Remember that people learn in different ways.

The next person that we want to attract is the visual learner.

Go back to some of your blog posts. Take some useful tips and create pretty little social media image cards. Share them on social media.

I like to use a tool called Canva to do this. It’s really easy. There are loads of social media templates that you can use in there to create these pretty little tip cards.

I want it to be a little bit more than just motivational. I like my tip cards to be an actual, useful tip.

My images say ‘course creation tip’ at the top of the picture. There is one sentence in the middle where it’s got the tip and then at the bottom, put your URL (website link).

Put your URL on that tip card so that if people share it, everyone knows who the original poster or creator of that was. This way, everyone knows who to go to and who to look for if they want more expertise like that.

Beauty sells

7. Use audio - start a podcast

We are talking about different learning styles again. There are different ways to get in front of people. This is how you become omnipresent.

People like to listen to good content!

Basically, all that you need to do is refer to the original video that you created. You can use simple software to convert MP 4 (video) to MP 3 (audio). MP 4 is a video file and MP 3 is an audio file.

Search 'convert an MP4 to MP3' on Google. There are online platforms that are completely free of charge. They will take your video and give you just the MP 3 audio file.

It is really simple to set up a podcast.

You can use various tools like libsyn.com or podcast.co.

You can upload the MP 3 file onto these platforms. Make a nice and pretty podcast cover for your fitness brand. Click on the button called distribute. It will send these podcasts out to Spotify, iTunes and so on.

It is a lot easier today than it used to be, and it’s a lot easier than people think.

Nobody is going to do it for you.

8. Publish a native article on LinkedIn

The eighth step is to take that original blog post that you created and plug it into the LinkedIn audience.

Go into LinkedIn and publish it as a native article inside of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is also searchable. It has a massive ecosystem of its own. This is yet another way to be published and become searchable inside of a particular ecosystem.

LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing social media platforms at the moment.

It has very big reach when you have native articles inside the LinkedIn system over sharing links. 

That is why it is a really good idea to create them inside of LinkedIn. When your article is within LinkedIn, the article gets more views.

Use what you already have.

9. Borrow other people’s audiences

You might only have a really limited audience.

Perhaps you have only got a small email list. Maybe you don't even have an email list at all. You probably have a small social media following.

You need to get in front of as many people as possible if you want to be seen as prolific and omnipresent.

What that can mean is simply borrowing other people’s audiences.

You can contact other bloggers who have already built huge audiences with a whole readership and following.

Find your target audience and make content for them.

There are thousands and thousands of bloggers who accept guest posts. They will accept your blog article and they will post your article on their site, sharing it with their followers. They will even put a link back to your website.

This is great for credibility, and not to mention, you now are in a position to collect the leads and the followers from that person’s platform.

I create a Google Sheet. I collect all of the target magazines and blogs that accept guest articles.

Every time that I do a video and transcribe it, I turn it into a blog post. I email it out to all of those people to see if I have the opportunity for it to be published on that site as well.

It’s a fantastic way for you to grow your following massively. Grow your list of connections and continue to use it as an expert online.

Connect to succeed.

10. Become a published author

Okay, number 10 will take a bit longer than the other steps. After a period of time, you will hopefully have published a number of fitness videos.

If you have been following this process, you will have lots of blog posts.

From all of these blog posts, all that you are going to do is copy and paste them all into one big document. Give it an edit, tidy it up and save it as a PDF file.

Go to kdp.amazon.com. Upload the PDF and press publish. You are now a published author. 

That sounds very simple and, of course, this is a simplified version of the process of publishing.

I can assure you that it is nowhere near as hard as people think it is to publish a book and to get that published on Amazon.

The second you press publish on Amazon, you’re a published author.

There is nothing that quite says expert more than being a published author.

If you have the content, use it.

11. Presentations and summits

Step number 11 is to do keynote presentations. These are big, live, online summits that are happening right now.

If you’ve got some content out there, people are going to see that you are serious about your topic.

People should notice that you have a valuable viewpoint, a successful strategy and highly educational fitness content to share.

This is when people are going to start reaching out to you and say, “Hey, I know that you’re an expert in this fitness thing because I keep seeing you everywhere. Will you come onto my show? Will you come to my conference and speak for us?”

You must definitely take these kinds of opportunities. This stage only happens, however, after you’ve created all of the other stuff. You only get to this point when you’ve dominated the other steps

Hard work comes before reward.

12. Appear on other people’s fitness podcasts

Step number 12 is a big step in its own right. Go onto people’s podcasts or create one of your own.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s really straightforward to create your own podcast.

Another important part of this process is to get on other people’s podcasts. There are millions of podcasts that are looking for people to interview every single day.

Simply go onto Google and type in ‘the top 100 fitness podcasts’ and reach out to the podcast host.

Make sure that you add these things to your pitch:

• A proposed title for the podcast
• Three things that you will share (must be highly educational and engaging)
•  How the podcast host can contact you

Don’t ever, ever, ever sit back and wait to be interviewed or for the right people to contact you at the right time. If you want to be successful, you have to go out and do it yourself.

Chase it or lose it.

The article is written by Sarah Cordiner from sarahcordiner.com. Sarah is a Qualified Educator & Course Creation Specialist with over 40,000 students in 168 countries. She is cited in Forbes and was a previous university director. You can turn your expertise into profitable online courses through her website.