Unravelling how Gymshark ‘lifts up’ their social media presence 🏋️♂️💪
Exploration into Gymshark’s online strategy across social media platforms.
Gymshark co-founded in 2012 by Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan, primarily uses online platforms to interact B2C and foster various types of engagement. Gymshark create a culture of health and fitness through a strong social media presence with millions of followers across multiple online platforms including: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter/X Linkedin, TikTok and Reddit. Each platform varies in strategy and content format to target various demographics with the primary psychographic of an active lifestyle. Gymshark’s online strategy uses user engagements and strategic partnerships to develop a consumer community; data insights formed this community are capitalised on in future innovations fostering surveillance capitalism. A Mintel report highlights that Gymshark consumers ‘seek a sense of belonging’ using the brand to connect like-minded people. This emphasises the significance of their online community to add value by building an emotional connection B2C and consumer commitment.
User Engagement
Gymshark employ a variety of digital engagement approaches ranging from passive, synchronous and asynchronous to promote a consumer community.
Asynchronous digital engagement is promoted through posts, emails, direct messages, comments and sharing user-generated content. Gymshark often uses emojis to overcome sensory limitations of digital engagements and increase inter-personality. Marketing campaigns such as #Gymshark66 challenge promotes users to share content related to the their personal fitness progress through interacting with filters, posts and video content and in response to be part of the exclusive community. User-generated content is a cost-effective method to assist the brands message to empower. Online content is also used to market physical events (analogue engagement) such as ‘Gymshark run club’.
Moreover, asynchronous content is encouraged through interactive polls and reactions on LinkedIn and Instagram to capture and store valuable data relating to market trends and behaviours with ‘this or that’ polls, this data can be capitalised on in future R&D demonstrating customer-centricity. This approach is explained by Gymshark’s chief data officer Gemma Hulbert “The better we know our community, the more incredible products and experiences we can create that consistently exceed their needs. As a data-led business, we want to unlock this value for our community by striving to become world-class in our data and insight capability”.
Gymshark promotes synchronous engagement through the online platform Instagram feature of live-streaming videos often collaborating with influencers to offer educational content and responses to consumer queries.
Gymshark varies content type across platforms to tailor to the platforms audience demographic. YouTube, is predominantly used for education with playlists offering workout tips and motivation. Twitter/X displays memes and humorous relatable content for gym-goers, Instagram demonstrates motivational content featuring influencer marketing and use of hashtags to support organic growth.
Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnerships with established athletes and opinion leaders within the fitness industry on online platforms are a tactic used to heighten Gymshark’s brand identity as a high quality, empowering and credible brand. This approach uses hashtag features and shares to reach new consumer segments. As a result, Gymshark is ranked 8th in the top leading brands on TikTok globally in 2022.
