Marketing ideas and suggestions for promoting your equestrian coaching business-

It can be difficult and daunting to start expanding your business exposure, especially across the appropriate social media platforms. Putting yourself out there when you would rather not can feel pretty uncomfortable. However, there are lots of things you can do to tailor an effective marketing model around what suits you personally.

It can be good to consider what public image you want to portray and what type of potential clients you most wish to appeal to. Audience engagement is EVERYTHING regarding social media marketing, but achieving that engagement can be a hit-and-miss.

If you don’t already have a website, it could be worth considering looking at hosts such as WordPress or Wix. Their basic templates are free, and any add-ons or plug-ins (Eg, an online shop or a members-only area) are not expensive. If you can stretch to it, employing a web designer/developer is much less stressful. An attractive website with some nice visuals and a sharp home page can be a good nucleus to build around. Coaching videos, blog posts, a podcast, guest interviews, client testimonies, a subscribing members-only exclusive content area, online booking and a linked booking system are all good things to incorporate into your web build plans.

However, websites are not the be-all and end-all, and you can manage without one. Facebook for Business now offers options for an online shop (that can be linked to a website if you have one) and a booking option for clients. The downside to Facebook is that you have to pay attention to the comments and check in quite often. Facebook is sadly so often used for bad purposes, and bullying and negativity are commonplace. For now, Facebook is still the best option for business promotion as it has the most significant worldwide audience. If you are likely to struggle with monitoring the comments, it can be good to ask someone that you trust to act as an admin and help you police the inevitable nonsense. You can ban problematic users, but they can still see your page. However, they cannot comment, like or share your page content. You can also use Facebook for business stories, which allows you to create a ‘swipe up’ feature with attached website links. You can link your Facebook and Instagram accounts and enable dual posting, which saves time and increases the potential audience size. You cannot share your business page posts with your business page stories. Think about sharing your Facebook content on relevant groups with large audiences to increase exposure and attract viewers.

Instagram is a much easier platform to monitor, as the only sharing options available to your audience (if you have a public or business account) is to their own stories. There also exists a platform called ‘regram’ that allows post sharing from Instagram and involves an app. Instagram stories are a HUGE plus for sharing information, promoting engagement and raising your profile. Instagram has a video option similar to TikTok within the platform, plus a lot of excellent options and features. You cannot attach a website link to a post until you have over 10k followers, but you can add a link to a post in stories.

So. Content creation. What works?

The statistics suggest that every week, you should aim to create two pieces of original, ‘organic’ content and up to five pieces of shared content that you think will appeal to your prospective clients. I find that organic content is far more relevant in equestrian circles than shared content, so I don’t tend to follow the rules strictly.

For appealing content, consider the following prompts-

-Share a little about yourself, your achievements, your direction, etc

-Re-tell an experience with a ‘lessons learned’ angle. This can be a powerful way to build a likeable, relatable online presence, which is precious in the coaching world.

-Ask the audience what they are doing with their horses this weekend, what supplements they use and why, and who their equestrian heroes are. Anything like that is brilliant for creating engagement.

-Opinion polls or sharing controversial articles asking readers for their opinions (be careful using this on Facebook as it can unleash all sorts of handbags at dawn type carry-on)

• Running competitions can work well. Can you ask a business to donate a mutually beneficial prize? Their product incentivises audience participation; your competition gives their product exposure. Create at least two dedicated posts over a week-long competition around their product/service, with information, mentions and links. Mention them in other posts or stories during that week. Representing a brand well will bring you more brands and give you more potential for growth. You cannot, by law, ask anyone to like and share a post and tag a friend or follow a page/business/service account for them to participate in your competition. You can, however, word the post to encourage participants to do all or any of these things without making it a prerequisite.

• Spotlight certain areas of coaching. Ask the audience about things they struggle with, or post on a topic and ask the audience if that topic resonates. Highlight your approach to building, growing and/or troubleshooting certain issues. You should put forward your own authentic and honest thoughts and feelings from a position of ‘this is what I have found useful, but I am always looking to learn and understand more’. Authenticity is important.

• Nothing unites folk more than laughing together. Post some funny horse memes, tell an amusing story, or ask audience members to send in a humorous tale.

Set up your profiles on social media to include a nice picture and a brief list of the essential things, e.g.‘ Centre 10 Advanced Coach’. Use the link share option available in your profile. Use your website link if you have one, and if you offer other products/services, then get a link tree account to group all of your links in one place. You can then use your link tree link in your profile, which will link to multiple options for viewers and save you from having to edit your profile link.

Aim to post something new every day. If you are crazy busy, you can create and schedule multiple posts easily. On fb business, you can make the post and click ‘preview’. You can design the post from the schedule option there.

Ideal post-publishing times are typically early/mid-evening on weekdays or mid-morning. Weekends are more flexible. Pay attention to the demographics you will have automatic access to, on your business accounts. This will show you trends for your accounts, content, etc, and you can see the times and days with the highest interactions, as well as shares, engagement, etc.

Please keep it simple, keep it friendly and have fun with it!

One final point is not to get dragged into a row with anyone on social media. If you can’t diffuse an inflammatory situation, don’t hesitate to block or ban offenders and delete offensive comment threads.

Interact with people who interact with you! If someone has taken the time to comment, then at the very least, like their comment. Reply to any questions and respond to any messages. The more interactive you are, the more people will be inclined to participate with you.

-