Why do you weightlift? What are your goals? Some people will say it’s simply for the health benefits, or the athleticism. Others will say the challenge of perfecting technique or mastering strength on their way to the top. Still others simply enjoy the relationships and bonds they make in a niche sport such as this.
Take all those reasons now and toss them in the trash can. Then take that trash bag, tie off the end, and throw it in the dumpster. And then kick the dumpster out of spite. Those aren’t the real reasons anyone lifts at all. We all know what it’s for.
It’s all for the followers.
Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, FarmersOnly.com, or Tinder, social media is the driving force and motivation behind any top lifter. A well-constructed social media platform, say on Instagram, with only a little bit of skill in weightlifting can easily net you thousands of followers, putting you just above your average Instagram user, and mere millions behind big names like the Rock and Taylor Swift. That’s right; it’s time to gloat over your accomplishment!
What does this mean for you, budding weightlifter and follower of the #snatch50everydayprogram? A bigger social media presence could give you access to sponsorships, new opportunities, and even a wave of haters that will fuel you on your rise to the top. Read the following to learn how to maximize your performance on social media, thereby maximizing your performance in weightlifting – or at least maximizing how your performance looks according to the videos you post.
“But Caine. Do I really need a social media account?”
Is this a serious question? Because if you’re serious about weightlifting, you’re going to need social media. It can take a mediocre lifter to the next level with just a few properly-angled videos and the right hashtags.
I’m an expert on this; I’ve had the same slightly above-average amount of followers for three years running. That’s consistency!
Making Your Account
When making your social media presence, you need to have a simple and catchy username. Make sure it’s memorable or, in other words, LIT AF. 🔥💥💯 Sometimes, a name is enough to stay with someone. Other times, it’s not. Try putting an “@” symbol in front of your name; remove the spaces. How does it look? How does it feel? If it doesn’t say “your life is incomplete without viewing my posts,” it probably won’t do.
That’s when we can be creative. Start looking back on your life. Any neat anecdotes that can inspire you? A nickname that stuck, but wasn’t incriminating? You probably shouldn’t use those. It’s like an inside joke that the millions of potential followers you could win over wouldn’t get. And nobody likes a joke that has to be explained to them.
Because a joke that has to be explained is demeaning to the person hearing the joke, and usually implies that the person giving the joke did a pretty bad job in his or her delivery. It can be very draining, a bad joke between two people. It really takes the wind out of a conversation’s sails. If a conversation was a boat, you know. You get what I’m saying, right? Cool.
The trick to a good username is to feign creativity. Make it unique, but not too unique. Here are a few common things you can use or add:
- Your weight class. Just your competition weight, not your off-season weight.
- A pun of your name, or of weightlifting. It could “lift” someone’s spirits.
- The word “lifter.” So people know what you do.
- Your actual name. Do not use if your name is Jane Doe or John Smith. Or Confuscious Kristofferstinovich, the 3rd.
- Any trendy lifting word like “snatch,” “power,” “strength,” or “vectors.”
These are pointers that I wish I knew when I started the social media grind years ago. If I had, my Instagram name would be changed from @thedragonwilkes to @candycainelifter105barpathplus. 🥇🥇🥇
Music to my ears. I would have tenfold as many followers with a name like that. Or ten followers. Social media is always evolving; what’s trending today will be triggering tomorrow.
As an added note, some proficient Instagram lifters stretch out words by repeating letters. While this is a successful username tactic, I wouldn’t recommend it; no one wants to be a copycattttt.
Using Your Account
Your pages and accounts should not be any sort of helpful source of information for weightlifters and other strength athletes. Instead, it should be an over-glorified shrine to your biggest lifts; that’s all anyone ever wants to see anyway. No one reacts to relatable inspirational stories or motivational quotes, so just make sure to record many videos. Only post the ones that are 102% of your best lift or higher. The lighter lifts can be posted to your story with hashtags like #dailygrind and #followforfollow.
Women, make sure to position your lifting videos properly. It could be the difference between 100 and 100,000 followers. Men, it wouldn’t hurt to test the angle of your videos as well; some of us can get away with the booty angle. However, abort the booty angle if you notice the follower count drop immediately after posting. There’s no shame in this; I’ve had this problem before. #toomuchbootyfortheIG
This leads me to my next point. Your audience has very selective tastes. Most of your subscribers know that you made this only to show how strong you are week to week. So don’t act like this is your personal account and you can post whatever you want. Being a weightlifter, you have committed to a one-dimensional life, so avoid all other interests you may have. If you detract from weightlifting, you will lose followers. So no posts about your great relationship, your knitting side projects, or that really pretty sunset – unless you’re ready to lose your follower count. The only exception to this rule is dog pictures and videos.
If you post a picture, it better be a shot from a competition, preferably coupled with a quote. The quote does not have to make sense when paired with the picture; in fact, this will add to the intrigue. Look at this example:
Adding Pizzazz to Your Account
Two words: hashtags, emojis. Let’s break it down.
Use any and all hashtags you can think of. Instagram limits 30 hashtags on a post before it might suspend your account for possibly being a spam bot. You should be pushing this limit’s boundaries every day on every post. Some may say that the best hashtags would be ones pertinent to the post you made, but usually I will just look at today’s trending tags, and make sure to include the top ten in my post. This ensures the most traffic, and there is no greater joy than clicking on a hashtag like #photooftheday and seeing a video of you pressing out a 100kg jerk. (Want to really impress them? Try snatching 50 kilograms!) Also tag other large Instagram accounts and businesses so thatyou get a wider audiences. Most people will use weightlifting-centric businesses like USA Weightlifting and Caffeine and Kilos, but I prefer to spread my audience with celebrities like Jean-Claude Van Damme or David Hasselhoff.
Emojis 👏 need 👏 to 👏 be 👏 sprinkled 👏 everywhere 👏 in 👏 your 👏 post. 👏 Everywhere. It’s a great way to individualize your post. Plus, everyone is doing it! Specific to our sport there is a little weightlifter emoji. 🏋️♀️🏋️♂️ Never use it. Instead, lots of 🔥 to show how LIT you are, and some 💯💯 to let people know your goals for school grades. Also, having this knowledge, you can never write the word kilograms ever again. From now on they are 🔑. If you use kilos or kg instead, people will know you are a weightlifting noob. Don’t be a weightlifting noob.
Using these strategies will ensure you get, like, a few more followers. It’ll be awesome. 🙌🙌 Make sure to follow the #snatch50everydayprogram on Instagram: @snatch50everyday . And keep snatching those 50🔑🔑!