In this blog we’ll be taking a look at arguably the most popular social platform for fitness brands – Instagram. And specifically, Instagram Stories.

Let’s start with a pretty common scenario:

John runs a fitness business in Canada and has a substantial number of followers on Instagram. His followers are loyal. He has an aesthetically pleasing feed and was quite happy with how things were going. 

After a pretty good run, his post reach started declining. He has been hearing about Instagram Stories from his buddies and influencers in the Industry. But, the thought of creating new content for Instagram Stories in addition to everything else sounds too much. And besides, he was already reposting his feed posts on IG stories.

If you are like John, contemplating whether to invest time and effort in Instagram Stories for your fitness brand. Or just wondering how to go about doing it so you actually get results, we are here to help you.

From a rundown on the importance of IG Stories for your fitness brand, to engaging Instagram story ideas to help increase your brand’s reach, today’s blog has it all.

Let’s get started.

Instagram Stories = Brand Engagement = Constant Presence in Customers’ lives

When you open Instagram as a creator or a business, your reaction might be “Whoa!” There is too much going on here. You have feed posts, IGTV, Guides, Reel, and Stories. 

Each of these features has its merits individually, but Instagram Stories are especially effective for increasing reach. 

Five years ago, no one saw the merit of creating something designed to disappear in 24 hours. But today popular brands like Nike, Adidas, Sephora, NBC Olympics, and National Geographic are posting IG Stories regularly.

So, what changed? 

Well, consumers love them and brands followed suit. There are 500 million people who use Instagram stories every day. The format’s popularity with brands comes from the fact that Stories are easy to read and engaging. And most important, it’s a free method to reach out to your followers on a personal level.

Instagram Stories allow fitness brands to: 

• Share raw, unfiltered, and unique content with their followers
• Curate content other than their own and provide value 
• Connect, engage, and understand their followers in detail 
• Provide a sneak peek at their feed content and generate excitement for it 
• Show their human side and seem more approachable and relatable 

“Especially with the decline of Snapchat, this is really where you want to start positioning your business. And it’s a lot easier to get engagement and find success in Stories than it is in the regular feed right now.”

– Taylor Loren, Later

Instagram Story Ideas for Your Fitness Brand 

Your followers need variety in content, a reason to click on your Stories every day and keep tapping through each slide. Coming up with new Story ideas to keep them engaged can be challenging. But don’t let that keep you from such a valuable platform. 

We at Kimp have curated some of the best Instagram Story ideas for your fitness brand to help you get started. These ideas will help you build a loyal follower of fitness enthusiasts and take your business to new heights.

1) Themed Content

Do you remember the charm of watching television shows back in the day? You’d know what program was on what day. And the consistency and certainty of it kept you hooked and built up anticipation for the next episode too. 

Programmed social media content has the same effect. By sharing themed content regularly, you tell your followers what to expect from your account. 

As a fitness brand, you have the opportunity to schedule weekly or daily content that will inform, educate, and engage your audience. These Stories can follow the same schedule as the services you offer in your gym or studio. And will make your followers feel like they are actually working out with you.

Popular themed Instagram Story Ideas for Fitness Brands include:

• Monday Motivation Tips

• Leg Day content 

• Friday Fitness Tips 

• Deal Thursdays 

• Dance Saturdays 

With themed content, you set the expectation and deliver it, leaving a lasting impression. And keep yourself top of mind for your followers.

If you create innovative themed content regularly, customers will flock to your profile even without active promotion. 

Kimp Tip: Create a unique design template as per your branding guidelines for each theme. This strengthens the visual identity of your brand through better visualization and color correlation for your customers. 

Over time you can get to the point where your followers will know what type of post you’ve shared based on the color and/or layout. When they look at the color blue, they should instantly know it’s Leg Day.

2) Behind the Scenes Action

Fitness can be an intimidating subject for many. The perfect abs of a fitness trainer or an exercise routine done by them may look like something unachievable. A great way to make your brand more accessible is to share some behind-the-scenes action.

Are you trying out a new move? Or trying to master a particular exercise routine? Share this and show this to your followers through your IG Stories.

One way to do this is to pair your feed posts with your Stories. So say for example you post a photo doing a headstand on your Instagram feed. You can post a video of how to get into the position so that customers know the work that goes behind those picture-perfect moments you post about.

This will give them hope that with you, they can also achieve new goals and overcome whatever intimidates them. 

Some other examples of Behind the Scenes Instagram Story Ideas include:

• A day in the life of a trainer – right from meal choices to warm-up, to how they plan their classes.
• Packaging videos for healthy pre-mixes, training gear, or goods you sell.

3) Class Videos 

IG Stories are a great way to share day-to-day content that otherwise may not suit the aesthetic layout of your feed. One such example is a series of daily class videos. Whether you are a fitness influencer teaching students or a gym with regularly scheduled classes, you can share a snippet of these sessions on your IG Stories.

Class videos must be short, well-edited, and engaging so that your followers who are not yet your students also get interested in your services.

Kimp Tip: Adding fun stickers to class videos helps you connect with your followers. Be sure to tag the people in the video so that they can share it and make it reach more people.

4) Customer Stories 

Nothing like a good old Before/After transformation image, right? Want to make it perfect for your Instagram Stories? Make it personal and pick a customer or students’ story.

Customers turn to fitness studios, gyms, and fitness influencers on Instagram for authentic content. They have seen models with perfect bodies and magical transformations in advertisements.

But, real customer stories are different. It makes them feel that the same transformation is possible for them too. And, it helps reinforce, and make apparent, your value in the process too.  

One of the biggest sports and fitness brands, Nike has understood this well. Even though it doesn’t directly sell fitness solutions, it identifies as an athletic brand. Nike regularly posts inspirational customer transformational stories, all using Nike products, of course.

This makes it an aspirational brand for anyone on their fitness journey to associate with. 

Kimp Tip: User-generated content gets you customer trust. Encourage your students and clients to share their journey with you and reshare them on your page. You can offer them templates for the IG Stories to maintain brand identity. 

5) Interactive Stories 

Most social media platforms can feel like one-way communication channels. Even if you are active on your profile, engaging with customers via comments, IG stories can take this to the next level.

Customers like to be seen, heard, and given importance. IG stories allow you to do all of this. Some of the most interactive Instagram Story ideas include:

Ask me anything sessions: You can host AMA sessions with your customers on fitness tips, nutritional plans, fitness journeys, workout gear, and so on. Through this process you will come to understand what your customers like and be able to tailor your content accordingly.

Polls: Confused about whether your customers like the content you are producing? Trying out a new product and not sure if it will be well-received? IG stories are a great way to conduct market research from your actual and potential customers. Put out your questions to them and let them answer. This helps validate your ideas and gives you actual actionable data. 

Ask Audience: This is sort of the opposite of AMA sessions, where you can ask your audience anything you want. It could be an opinion on a new content format, ideas on what they expect from you, or just fun sessions like favorite workouts or energy drinks. 

Kimp Tip: Sharing images and videos as the background of these questions can make the sessions aesthetically appealing. You can choose images based on the topic and use this as an excuse to share your branded graphics on your stories. 

6) Program Information 

If you have more than 10K followers on your IG profile, you have the option to use the coveted Swipe Up option. This is a great tool. 

At the end of the day, you want your followers to become your customers. You can encourage this by regularly sharing information about your classes, workshops, and training sessions with them on your IG stories. 

Share your program flyers, brochures, and even video advertisements on your IG Stories. And link them all to your booking page using the Swipe Up option. You can then save these in story highlights to make the information available to anyone who needs it. 

Doing so reduces friction in the sale by eliminating the need to contact you or go to an external source to complete the signup process. 

Kimp Tip: Instead of sharing marketing designs meant for some other platform, redesign or reformat your flyers, brochures, and videos to fit the IG Story sizes. With this, you avoid zooming issues and make the stories easy to read and act upon. 

As seen above, SoulCycle has a Story Highlight on its Bike Booking Process to make it accessible to customers instead of via “Link in Bio”. 

7) Easy Workout Routines

Giving away knowledge works out in your favor big time on Instagram. This might be surprising to hear. If you are running a gym or a fitness studio you might be wondering why you would teach people to work out on their own. 

Because it builds trust. It shows you know what you are talking about. And it demonstrates that you care about supporting people on their fitness journeys. 

Sharing small snippets of easy workout sets can make a big difference to your followers. And slowly over time, they will graduate to a level where they seek your expert guidance, and become your clients. 

You can create an easy workout series and save it on your highlights. This will lead to customers visiting your profile often, improving your reach. Win-win.

Below are examples of workout Ideas shared by Equinox Fitness using IG Stories. 

Kimp Tip: Ensure that you edit the workout videos to the right time frame for IG stories to engage customers. When posting, using stickers, closed captions, and branding elements like logos can elevate your IG story content. 

8) Promote Non-IG Content 

We have spoken about how content like blogs, newsletters, and even podcasts can be repurposed into IG posts so that you get the maximum traffic possible. There is just one problem. IG makes it ridiculously difficult to link external content to its posts and makes you use options like “Link in Bio” or Linktree. 

A great way to circumvent this issue for your Instagram Story Ideas is via the Swipe Up option in your IG Stories. 

Repurpose the significant sections of your fitness blog, newsletters, and customer testimonials into IG story slides. And link them back to the original source. This way, you create interest in the content and promote them to generate traffic too.

Another option for repurposing is to create audiograms using your Podcast cover to promote it via IG stories.

Kimp Tip: Use blog images, newsletter covers, or interesting graphs from your content as the background for IG Stories and encourage viewers to swipe up.

Instagram Stories For Fitness Brands – Tips and Tricks 

Use templates that match your brand identity 

Instagram Stories may be informal and an outlet for unfiltered content. But, they are still an essential part of your visual identity. It is important to ensure that your IG Story aesthetic matches that of your feed and overall brand image.

Get professionally designed templates for your professional IG stories based on your content marketing strategy. Define color palettes, fonts, and even the overall design you want to follow in your IG Stories.

This will help create a cohesive visual identity for your fitness brand. 

Create branded GIF/AR Filters

We spoke of how user-generated content is important to grow your brand via IG Stories. Yes, you can reshare them on your profile. But a way to step it up and truly stand out is to create your own branded GIF or AR filters.

This can help you keep track of your mentions on IG and also provide authenticity to user-generated content. Customers will feel that they are a part of your brand, and this will improve your reach. 

Kimp Tip: Try and create GIFs or AR Filters from your logo, mascot, or brand imagery. It will add to your online visual identity and ensure that you grow into a well-recognized IG brand. 

Create IG Stories for your Fitness Brand easily with Kimp 

Building a strong brand on social media can take a lot of work, especially on a platform like IG which is extremely visual. It can be challenging to design your Instagram Story ideas in ways that stand out. This is where working with Kimp makes a difference. 

Kimp works with fitness brands worldwide for their branding, marketing, and advertising design needs. With us, you can get IG stories and story templates that work with your branding and are engaging enough to get results.

Our flat-rate design subscriptions also make it super easy for you to manage design services for branding and social media.

Talk to us today to see how you can secure high-quality, innovative, and engaging designs to make your fitness brand grow bigger on Instagram. 

Or sign up for the free trial today to see the power of design in action.