In this 2016 video, fitness creator Rob Lipsett shares a comprehensive, step‑by‑step guide on how anyone—whether a personal trainer, restaurant owner, makeup artist, or any other self‑employed professional—can grow a social‑media presence and eventually secure sponsorships. He begins by emphasizing that social media is the most cost‑effective advertising channel today and that even modest followings can unlock travel, collaborations, and business opportunities. He then outlines a series of practical tactics: (1) be patient and trust the snowball effect; (2) use analytics tools (Iconosquare, Social Blade, Followers App) to identify high‑performing content; (3) develop a personal, unique voice; (4) prioritize high‑quality visuals and lighting; (5) maintain a consistent posting schedule tailored to each platform; (6) collaborate with peers of similar size to create synergy; (7) make all of your accounts cross‑promote each other; (8) consistently deliver value‑driven, "content is king" material; (9) actively engage with comments and likes to boost algorithmic visibility; (10) stay authentic and passionate about what you love. After covering these growth fundamentals, he shifts to sponsorship advice: never compromise integrity, keep a clean public image, personalize outreach emails rather than mass‑mailing, and wait for offers from brands that truly align with your values and audience size. The video ends with a call to action for viewers to comment, like, and subscribe.
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Sup? Eyedrops. Getting pumped for a video. Let's go, let's do this! Why was my camera in the fridge? Sick. Alright everyone, so much requested video, alright? I swear I'm not just making that up. You guys actually did want to hear this. Now, today's video is going to be about social media, and I miss the days where I would just sit in front of the camera and talk about a topic, 'cause the last couple of months I've been doing loads of vlogs, and honestly, I take tremendous joy out of just sitting down and talking to the camera, as insane as that sounds. So, today's video is gonna be focused on how to grow your social media. And now, just because I am in the fitness industry and I'm all about, you know, improving your health, your lifestyle, your body composition, all that, doesn't mean that you can't take these tips and use them to whatever business it is that you run. Just a friendly reminder that it is 2016, and if you are not a business owner that is utilizing social media to improve your business, then that— I don't know what to say. You have my sympathy. Before we start, I also want to say I don't think I'm amazing. I don't think I'm some Insta-famous internet celebrity. This is just kind of my advice, how I've I've grown over the past year and, you know, a few tips, my take on it. Social media is now the most effective form of advertising. Like, you know, compared to putting an ad on the side of a bus or in a newspaper or on TV, you can only do it once. You have to pay every time. Social media is like, you can post whenever you want, how many times you want, whatever you want for free. Literally, it's actually insane when you think about it. Like, so getting a social media following, if you are a self-employed business owner, is just— is, is an extremely helpful thing. I've been given some amazing opportunities to travel all over the world, work with some great like-minded people and some awesome companies. So, right, let's get into my main tips for growing social media. It also doesn't matter what category or niche your business is in. If you're a restaurant who wants more customers, if you're a personal trainer who wants more clients, if you're a makeup artist who wants more clients, anything. It literally applies to everything nowadays. You know, all the people at the top of their game are utilizing social media. So it is very important for me to say that these are in no particular order, but we got to start somewhere. So first of all is be patient. There's something called the snowball effect. Your first 1,000 subscribers or followers will be the hardest to get. Okay. Simple example of this is someone will click onto your profile. They'll see you have like 900 followers. And then let's say compared to they click onto a profile with 100,000 followers, they'll be like, oh my God, this person's got something about them. You know, they'll click follow without even looking at your posts. So it's a lot easier to get followers the more you grow, but you will get there and you've got to be patient. Think about it. Have you ever seen that picture? And it's like two people, they're in like a diamond mine and one gives up just before they're about to like strike gold and get all the diamonds and the other keeps going with it and then reaps the benefits. So it's literally just like that. So be patient. Next is analytics. Do your homework. There are like tons of apps such as Iconosquare, Social Blade, Followers App that will show you what videos or posts have done the best and what have done the worst. Also, there's that quote from Albert Einstein, is insanity— the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. So if you're doing like some posts, you're getting no interaction, just maybe you should say I should probably do less of these. And then look at your posts that do great and do more of them. It's not that complicated. Next is get personal, be unique, especially in the fitness industry. Like, everyone's got a six-pack, literally every— everyone. So what can you do that's gonna set you apart from the crowd? Everything's being done. It's about putting your unique spin on it, you know, make people say, oh, this guy's kind of different, you know, I like him. So Be unique and put your own spin on it. Okay, next is quality. Don't be posting just blurry pictures taken at like some weird angle or, you know, the selfies where you got like a double chin. Don't post them. Get a nice clear lighting. Even when you're doing a Snapchat, get up off your ass and go find some good lighting. Okay, this will make all the difference. Like, think about it when you're scrolling through your feed. Okay, people, there's some people, they follow like thousands of accounts. You have to make your photos jump out. You have to be different again. So make your photos pop so people will see them. And same with YouTube. You know, I've got like 2 big lights set up here. I've kind of got a nice plain background behind me. So, you know, make it easy to watch and quality. Next is consistency. And I'm, you know, talking about consistency right after quality because there is a fine balance to strike in between them. Obviously, it would be great if you can just come out with quality, consistent posts every single day, but it's obviously very difficult to do. I think with YouTube, the sweet spot is between 3 to 5 videos per week. If you just post too little, you know, people, what's the point in subscribing to you? And then you can also post too much. So with something like Instagram, for example, I think 1 to 2 posts per day is the sweet spot. And then something like Twitter, you can do plenty of tweets per day. Snapchat, plenty of snaps per day. So there's just a few examples about how consistency applies to different platforms. But, you know, you are going to have to be consistent. If you stop posting, you will stop appearing in people's feeds and you'll kind of drop off the face of the earth, so to speak. Collaborations. Get social. Because after all, it is called social media. Let's say you're just starting out. You have 1,000 subscribers. Find someone else who's got 1,000 subscribers. Do some videos with them. Same on Instagram. Find someone else with the same amount of following as you. So it's mutually beneficial. For both parties involved. That way you can share your audience and share your demographic. And, you know, like I said, this comes back to the snowball effect. The bigger you get, the bigger collaborations you'll be able to do. So, you know, imagine both of you are on 100K, you'll both get, you know, theoretically seen by 100,000 people. So, you know, it'll get bigger and bigger. I don't know if this is like even the right word, but I like it, and that is synergy, okay? Synergy. Make your accounts work together. So I remember I started off with just a Facebook like page and I started writing articles as statuses. So people would be like, hey, this is helpful. They would tag all their friends. And that was the first thing I ever did on social media. And then from that, you know, I said, hey, go follow my Instagram. And I made my first ever YouTube video. So when I made that first video, I actually had people to watch it. So make your accounts work together. And Snapchat is also a very hard account to grow. So I of course have my Snapchat in my Instagram bio, you know, and in the description box of my YouTube videos. Go check it out, my Snapchat's beast. And so yeah, every account kind of works together. Now this is very important, okay? And you know, this is why I said that this is not in order of importance. Do things that will benefit others, okay? I put out like all all these free, you know, evidence-based nutrition training protocols. I, every single day I get sent like transformation pictures and like testimonials from people saying, hey Rob, just from watching your videos and listening to all the free advice you give, I've completely transformed my physique, changed my outlook on life, everything. I get them every single day. And like, obviously that is a great feeling to get, but because, you know, you're benefiting others, people are going to tell their friends all about it. And you know, they're going to be like, check this out, because What's the point in— they're giving you all this time, like watching your videos and stuff. And if they're not getting anything back from it, you know, what's the point in them watching? So do things that will benefit others, provide some good content. And of course, I don't think that even needs to be a point, but content is king. Do things that will get people talking about you and do things that people enjoy watching. Next up is interaction. This is basically the amount of likes and comments and interaction you get on your posts and your videos. And the more interaction you get, the more you will appear in people's search engines or newsfeeds or the little kind of recommended videos on the side. Oh yeah, if you're liking this video, give it a thumbs up, please. You probably notice that I try to reply to as many comments as I can in the comments section or even on Instagram. I try to reply to them all because also no one's going to leave a comment if they see like this guy never replies to comments. Why would they leave a comment? So Reply to comments and interact with the people watching your stuff. Next is don't be someone you're not. Don't be fake. Do something you love because if your heart's not in it, people are going to see right through you. When I have a video like edited up and posted, I'm all like proud of it. I'm like, I want to put a bow on it. I genuinely do love doing this YouTube thing. I think it's amazing. I get such fulfillment and kick out of it. And the same goes for fitness. Yo, I love hitting the gym. I love educating myself about nutrition. I love cooking healthy meals. I genuinely do live for this shit. So whatever it is that you love doing, just think, say, well, you know, what did I do this week that put a smile on my face? What do I love doing? And just absolutely smash that out of the park. All right. So they were kind of like my main points for growing your social media. And like, that doesn't matter what genre you're into. But now this is a bonus round. This is how to get sponsored, and this is kind of more, you know, for people in the fitness industry. Now, first and foremost, never ever sacrifice your integrity. I would never promote anything that I don't believe in or that I don't recommend or that I wouldn't use myself. I've been offered, you know, a lot of money to be promoting some products that I don't believe in, and of course said no because it's just never worth your integrity. Just no. All credibility goes out the window when you start promoting some bullshit that you wouldn't use yourself. Nowadays, sponsorships in the fitness industry industry, I'm going to make a bold statement and say it is pretty much entirely based on your social media following. And then I'm going to go into that now. So, you know, how are you going to benefit the company? How are you going to make the company revenue? Because like, they're not, they're not bringing you on for the good of their health. You know, they want you to benefit the company. It's a no-brainer. So of course, follow the tips that I mentioned earlier on in the video. Build up your following. So when you have built up your following, this is what I would do. Try keep a clean image. Now obviously be real to yourself and post what you want, but this kind of more applies to girls. You know, don't be putting up pictures that would be mistaken as nudes in your WhatsApp group. A company will take you on and they want you to represent them in a tasteful manner. They want to be proud of you. They want to like be proud to send you to expos, post on their social media accounts. So, you know, keep a clean image. Next thing is you can contact them yourself and just break down and tell them how you will improve their business, how you will improve their company, and make it unique. You know, say like why you like this company, why you like this product. You know, show that you've actually written them an email and that you didn't just copy and paste an email to a ton of different companies and hope for the best. Lastly, I want to say is, you know, don't just jump at the first offer you get. And there's really no point in taking on a sponsorship until you have quite a relatively large following, in my opinion. So yeah, don't jump at the first one that comes your way and wait it out until it's with a company that you really, really are proud of to represent. Alright, so I'm gonna wrap things up there. Let me know in the comments if you like these videos where I'm just sitting in my office talking about a topic. Be sure to leave the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, and I will catch you in the next one. Keep it real, I'm outta here.
