Social Media for Jiu-Jitsu Gyms (3 Parts)

This article was originally published by BJJ Weekly in three parts. The impetus for writing it came from both my jiu-jitsu travels and my work as a fight writer. I've had the pleasure of networking with a great many students and instructors, which has exposed me to their marketing efforts and their social media efforts. I see a lot of talented instructors with awesome students struggling to attract new students to their gym. That makes me sad. I believe that jiu-jitsu can be for everybody, and the fact that there are people out there that may never get the chance to try it because nobody told them about it is tragic.

I owe my humble success to online communities. Were it not for the support of Charles Pearson at Lockflow.com and the support of the Lockflow community, my writing career may have never gotten off the ground. I will also take a little bit of credit for Lockflow's expansion on to social media, which included weekly podcasts and fight of the week videos when I was working there full time.



When the Cauliflower Chronicles came out, social media is the singular reason that I sold books. The people that knew my writing from Lockflow, from Ultimate MMA, from Fight! Magazine, and from the Escapist had connected with my social media properties and were kind enough to share the book with their friends. I developed a myriad of campaigns to leverage my following of course, but the goodwill of the people that liked my writing was the key driver.

Now social media has become an even larger part of my professional career. Managing and executing social media campaigns is a big part of my work for Ideahaus among a variety of copywriting responsibilities, and social media marketing continues to be a part of my freelance work. I recently completed a social media marketing campaign for Junior Achievement, which you will read more about shortly, and I am currently doing social media marketing for a higher ed consultant.

I want to use this odd overlap of skills, jiu-jitsu and social media, to help jiu-jitsu grow, so I present to you a three part series on using social media to grow your jiu-jitsu gym:

Part 1: What Jiu-Jiteiros Can Learn from a Non-Profit’s Social Media Campaign
Part 2: Online and Offline Communities
Part 3: Empowering Advocates