Katie Haire is the IYTA’s Social Media and Advertising Manager, here are her top five tips for using Facebook as a yoga teacher

Social media can drive us nuts BUT it’s also a one-stop shop for inspiration, information, promotion and connection.

Katie posts regularly for the IYTA on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin and she is keen for other members to join her Social Media team. If you’d like to jump on board, learn about social media AND promote IYTA please register your interest.

1. Be Consistent and Regular

Make sure you are posting on a regular basis. If your last post was a few months ago or you tend to get very excited one week and then radio silence the next, people are less likely to look at your page. It can also be really helpful to establish a strategy with what you post, for example: Sunday your timetable for the week, Wednesday events and Saturday something a little more lighthearted. Facebook has a schedule feature so you can easily just set it all up in one sitting so you don’t need to find time everyday to post.

2. Post valuable information

While you may be trying to use social media as a tool to promote yourself or your business, no one is really that interested in straight out promotional posts. It is totally fine to boost your workshops and offers, however it’s also important to post things that your followers actually care about and add value for them. That will keep them coming back. The suggested ratio for this is 3:1 – for every promotional post, post three completely non-promotional posts. The idea is that you are building trust by supplying lots of great information and this will eventually translate into sales.

3. Be Real

Find a voice that is authentic to you. There is no need to be perfect, Yoga Girl, one of the most successful Instagram sensations, gained popularity because she was not perfect and used social media as a outlet for her grief and frustrations as well as her happiness and joy. The key is make sure that whatever you are putting out there is genuine, not a manufactured idea of what a yoga teacher “should” be.

4. Speak their language

Again this comes down to who is your target market and what is their knowledge and experience of yoga.

When Katie is posting IYTA, the majority of the followers are yoga teachers or experienced yogis, so she is able to post things that use correct terminology or assume some knowledge. However, when it comes down to it most students don’t know the Sanskrit name for poses or the anatomical names for their body parts. It is important to use their language not yours. How do they talk about their body, practice, dreams and desires? A myofascial release workshop may mean nothing to them, whereas a workshop to help release tension for tight shoulders from sitting at a desk all day may land a little better.

5. Connect and Engage

As the name suggests, Social Media is about being social. It is the only form of media where this is direct, live feedback from your followers. Engage in conversations that happen around your posts. It is also not just about your followers but also who you follow. Comment on other people’s posts, reply to comments on yours and start to create a community.

Click here if you’d like to join the IYTA Social Media team.

Katie adds: ‘I try to post anything that may be of interested to our followers and also news relating to upcoming events, such as the IYTA Celebrate Yoga Conference in October. This may sound simple, however we really try to ensure that posts represent the IYTA values of ethical, safe, high quality education, which can take some time as there is a lot of conflicting “information” out there. The next step is creating a presence in the wider yoga community. This may simply be joining an online conversation, posting on other yoga social media platforms and of course boosting our posts to try to increase awareness of IYTA and what we can offer. Social Media is fast becoming a very powerful platform to communicate to a wide and vast community.’