Analyzing Gymshark's Brilliant Social Media Strategy
Health and fitness are two of my many passions in life. Starting off on my fitness journey I decided to follow fitness bloggers on Instagram for inspiration and extra knowledge. I stumbled upon my top four favorite bloggers whom I have followed for the past few years- Krissy Cela, Meggan Grubb, Whitney Simmons, and Grace Fit UK.
Coincidentally, all of these bloggers eventually ended up becoming ambassadors for Gymshark. I naturally looked up Gymshark and started to check out their website and social media platforms. After all the great reviews and support of my favorite fitness bloggers, I finally decided to purchase a pair of leggings. I fell in love with the product, the prices, the brand, and its ambassadors. I was hooked.
What intrigues me most about this company is their marketing and social media. Their brand and products were marketed strictly through social media platforms, ambassadors, and word-of-mouth. Established in 2012, Gymshark capitalized on the social media phenomenon and has since grown a strong and loyal social media following. Gymshark is present on seven social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and even Spotify.
Since their brand is targeted mostly towards fitness-enthused millennials and Gen Z, their social media language caters to the wants of their audience. Their brand voice is motivational, funny, and current.
Current Lingo Examples:
Motivation Example: ​
Humor Example:
Besides keeping a consistent and relatable brand voice, they create engaging content that keeps their audience interested. They do this by asking their audience questions and polls. Gymshark almost always posts multi-media content instead of the boring text-only content. Their social media team knows that each social media platform has different 'rules' and standards. They also keep their platforms diverse by posting different content to each platform. On Twitter, they post about 3 times per day. On Facebook and Instagram, Gymshark posts about once every two days and every post is accompanied by some type of media. Gymshark's Instagram also looks more professional and includes a good mix of images and videos
Another important component of their successful social media is their responses. They not only respond to negative comments, but also positive ones. Overall, I think Gymshark has A+ content, but they do need to be careful with grammatical errors when it comes to responding.
Outside of the social media realm, Gymshark promotes its product and its brand through its main events known as its pop-up stores. They use the bait-and-switch tactic to draw in the public with activities and the opportunity to meet their favorite Gymshark ambassadors. They then switch their attention to their pop-up store and encourage the public to purchase their products. Their costumers are always posting about this event and sharing pictures with their favorite influencers. This creates an abundant amount of free advertising. They also create a hashtag that is regularly used during each pop-up.
With these pop-ups they also including a lot of behind the scene footage and give audiences that "slice of life" coverage known as Gymshark All Access.
