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If I have been known for one thing on Instagram from day one until now, it is hands down, my reputation for not exploiting my body, but still providing value and growing an audience.

It can be done my friends.

This comes up often in my DM’s. How to grab attention, get interaction and grow without showing your butthole.

That’s the goal today – to give you some legit ideas on how to make that happen.

It can definitely feel easier to just post a flattering photo with some suggestive skin. But let’s keep in mind that this action may not attract the audience you’re truly wanting or the reputation you’re working toward, and that matters when it comes to people actually paying you money for your services.

I always say that if you can’t grab attention on Instagram without exploiting your body, you simply lack effort, creativity or both.

Remember – butthole tactics are easy.

We are not taking the easy route.

You must get creative. And I might add, this should be fun! It should be fun to prep content and think about how it’s going to be received.

Ways we can do this:

Use words

 – we’ve talked about the hook before. This is your first sentence. What grabs the viewers attention.

Having a good hook is important. But step one is the photo, image or graphic. That’s what stops the scroll right?

Something that is becoming more and more popular and has been wildly successful for me is to essentially put the hook as the actual post.

That can be just text as the photo or an applicable photo with text added next to or over the photo. If you go to my Instagram you can find examples of both.

These are bold statements, which grab attention, and more importantly, don’t involve my butthole.

Make the words polarizing

• either stand for something, or use attention grabbing verbiage.

I tell my pelvic floor specialists to use the word vagina. It grabs attention. Then they can educate and make their legitimate point in their caption. But no one is stopping their scroll to read about incontinence.

I did a post comparing and defining the differences between the single leg RDL and single leg DL. Instead of using text on the image that said RDL vs DL, I said “stop mixing these up, they’re not the freaking same.”

Which one is more likely to catch attention?

And which one are you more likely to read?

People so often underestimate the power of words. Or know the power of words but then don’t leverage that power for their own brand and business.

Use funny, playful, or questionable photos:

• a smile is great. And those posts are needed. But we want to draw people in, away from scrolling.

This can be done by simple facial expressions. Ones people can relate to. You see this all over my feed.

Be expressive. Play with your expressiveness.

Serious faces amidst smiles are intriguing to people.

Me making a confused and frustrated face matches a post about small biz taxes or not understanding how to write efficient programming.

Instagram is a visually creative platform by nature. Push into that.

One of my FitsPROs, colleagues and gram friends creates super relatable and hilarious gifs. They all look the same and are on brand. That’s her way of stopping the scroll and demanding attention.

Like I said, creativity and effort are the only things holding you back.

With all of that, it might be helpful to keep a few things in mind.

People react, respond to and share things that are relatable.

This is why it’s so incredibly important for you to understand your ideal client. Get my free download here!

Is she or he a parent?

Do they like to lift alone?

Do they workout at a globo gym?

Are they hybrid athletes?

Do they measure their food?

What do they love?

Do you know their philosophy about food and exercise?

What do they think is bullshit?

All of those things drive, or could be driving the content you create. Content that stops their scroll, builds a reputation for you, not based on your body, and builds an audience because you’re creating shareable content.

You must provide value. So even if you do create a shareable post, or a post that grabs attention, you must still provide value for your audience.

When I say value, that can be an actionable take away, that can be joy, that can be a better understanding of your philosophy. But no matter what, it’s centered on your audience, not yourself.

It’s always safe to ask who your post is going to benefit before posting. Ideally that’s a no brainer.

A tip for creating posts that are beyond just a photo would be to use Canva. Find or create an IG post template that you like and then play around with it.

Once you get a template that works well, it makes content creation easier. Then you just copy and create the same template but with new content.

And lastly, you won’t build a valuable reputation without being consistent.

Period.

None of the above matters if you’re not consistent. Consistency builds trust and recognition. It continuously puts you in people’s minds as the expert on your topic of interest. That is needed and it matters.

As you grow and solidify that reputation you can post less, and still remain an expert.

Sooooo get creative. Stop limiting yourself.

As yourself what will stop their scroll?

Is this relatable?

Could I word this another way?

Is this photo intriguing? Does it make me curious to read more?

That’s what we want our content to do. It’s got to be deeper and more interesting than all the buttholes out there.

If you are new here or have absolutely no idea why I keep referencing buttholes, I will link my IG post so you can be informed. Basically, buttholes have taken over the online fitness space. Including but not limited to: exercise videos, marketing, poses, angles, apparel companies and so on.

So this episode is essentially how to be successful in other ways on the ‘gram while building a health and fitness brand with a reputation you’re proud of. Hopefully that’s what you got out of it.

Review of the week comes from desjaden and says,

“I just listened to the episode on how to be polarizing!! So very very helpful!! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m excited to implement what I’ve learned.”

Remember you need to check the show notes (here) to see if you were review-er of the week, and then keep an eye out to see if you were listener of the month as well. That will be in the show notes and Annie’s Weekly Wrap. You can subscribe to Annie’s Weekly Wrap here!

If you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to itunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.

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