I get it. You want to focus on helping people. You don’t want to spend your time-sharing posts on Facebook or commenting on Instagram. And it drains your energy, all this time ‘online’, right?

Luckily you don’t have to spend hours online to make an impact and there are some hacks to make it as pain free as possible. And the better you get at it, the more people you can help.

If you are a newly trained teacher or you just have little to no presence online, here are some things you can do to get yourself out there:

Create a Facebook Business Page

A well designed, eye-catching website adds to your credibility, but if you are just starting out or don’t have the funds at the moment, a Facebook business page can be a great storefront for your business. It gives you somewhere to send potential clients and you can add some of your own branding to it. It’s super simple to set up and best of all, it’s free!

Set-up an Email List

It’s all well and good having 1k likes on Facebook and 200 comments on Instagram, but if you put all your marketing eggs in one basket you are taking a risk. Social media platforms can change their algorithms at any point, reducing who sees your posts, and there is no guarantee certain platforms will be as popular in say, 5 years-time. Building an email list of past, present and future clients puts you in control. You choose when to contact your people and how often.

Get a Website

A website can help to add to your credibility as a teacher just like a business card or personalized email address. It’s a bit crazy when you think about it, as it is easy to get a website, and it has no bearing over your skill as teacher, but personally, if I’m looking for a new teacher it makes me more likely to choose them over others. It is also great in this industry as you are offering a local service. If you optimize (more on this in future blogs) your website you may start to get clients from google, as people searching for teachers in their area.

Blogging

Blogging has so many benefits for your business:

• A window into your soul: Blogging is a great way to spread your message and allow clients to get to know you as a teacher and a person (if you like).
• Search engine optimization: Put simply, it helps to make your website more visible on google.
• Shareable: It gives you something to share online and increases awareness of everything you are up to.

Facebook Ads

In an effort to get people to spend more money on ads, Facebook has drastically reduced the visibility of your organic posts (ones that aren’t boosted or adverts). The good news is that the ads can be cheap, relatively simple to set up and the world and their wife is on Facebook so you know you can find your audience.

Wrapping it Up

That should be enough to keep you busy for a while. There is a lot more I could say about these topics, but I just wanted to make you aware of some of the things that are out there. If you need help with any of this, whether you just want to hand it all over to someone else and they do it for you, or work more collaboratively, check out Align and Engage Marketing. I’m a long time Pilates student and digital marketer and I want to help teachers to help others.