Hi everyone, I’m Daniel from G1, and I have chosen to analyse the three social media platforms that Fitness First adopts to engage with its customers and target audience.

The company has undergone a major brand transformation from 2013-2015, with a new logo rolled out in 2014.

The company has invested significant amounts of money into this overhaul, and thus my research questions seek to investigate its effects, and the company’s effectiveness in using their social media platforms to promote the brand and garner new customers.

Research Questions:

1) Is Fitness First Singapore effectively using social media to portray their rebranded company image?

2) How can Fitness First Singapore leverage upon its social media image to draw in new customers?

Data Analysis:

The time period analysed was from March 1 to April 1 2016.

Facebook: Despite the frequent postings, it appears that most posts do not garner many likes, with most posts averaging about ten likes, and only some outliers, such as the most shared post on the Performance Series, which had 108 likes, 16 shares, and 56 comments. The most liked post was an advertisement for their CustomFit App.

As a proportion of total followers, we can see that the most shared post only gathered 0.34% of likes and the most liked post gathered 0.75% of likes from their 31,418 followers. Objectively, it appears that the posts with the greatest response tend to be those that contain giveaways, practically useful information or stimulate community involvement.

Instagram: On its Instagram Account, @fitnessfirstsg, Fitness First has a total of 1,318 Followers as of 1 April 2016, and 199 Posts. The most popular post in the designated time frame had 61 likes in total, and 4 comments. The content shared in the Instagram page tends to bear similarities to that of the Facebook page. There are limited comments and interaction from the account to its subscribers.

YouTube: The uploaded video with the highest views had 1918 views as of 1^st April 2016. In the month timeframe, only one video was uploaded, with 32 views in total. Fitness First Singapore’s channel currently has 258 Subscribers. The video with the highest views was the “Fitness First New You Achievement Awards 2013”, with 1,981 views. Generally, the company appears to be trying to use the YouTube channel as a means to generate awareness of its products, provide fitness advice and promote the New You competition.

I also briefly compared Fitness First’s social media usage to its closest competitors, True Fitness and California Fitness.

Thesis Statements:

1. They have a weak following on social media compared to other large companies.
2. They lack community engagement on all platforms.

Suggestions:

1. Partner with Influencers to run a Campaign called FitforLife. Fitness First can use popular fitness icons in Singapore to represent the brand and be their spokespeople. The campaign will include posts on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube videos featuring these influencers describing their fitness journey and challenges that they have faced, to attract the attention of the local community. This would drive interest to the page and create a larger following.
2. Run a concurrent photo competition and giveaway. The objective of the competition would be for participants to create the best collage of their exercise journey, and showcase it with a caption on Instagram with the hashtag #FitforLife. The best entries will win prizes including gym memberships and products. Also, random commenters on certain pictures may stand a chance to win prizes such as free gym usage for a month, or fitness trackers. This helps to engage customers on two levels: Photo contests (which have higher barriers to entry, but better customer engagement) and sweepstakes (which have very low barriers to entry, but also low engagement). This would thus improve community engagement on the whole.

Conclusion

There are still problems faced by Fitness First’s social media platforms, even after their rebranding. Thus, I propose that by partnering with influencers and creating competitions, Fitness First can tackle their problem of not being able to fully utilize their current platforms, as well as insufficient engagement with their customers.  In the long run, their improved image will thus draw more interest, and as a result of that interest, more customer sign-ups as they have a stronger presence in consumers’ minds.