S03E115 The Challenges of Creating Social Media in the CrossFit Community

No one doubts the awesome power of social media, especially for businesses. But how does an affiliate owner navigate the complexities of managing a gym's social media presence, balancing authenticity and effectiveness, all while trying to maintain a steady stream of engaging content? Join coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic on this compelling journey as we dissect the impact of social media on CrossFit, and the challenges faced by gym owners, coaches, and athletes.

How do CrossFit owners and coaches navigate the dicey line between showcasing their achievements and staying true to their values? We explore the impact of sponsorships and promotional opportunities on content creation, and the role of social media in establishing connections. The conversation gets even more fascinating as we delve into the impact of a coach or staff member's social media presence on a gym's brand, and the delicate balance between protecting a business's image and respecting freedom of speech. Tune in for this insightful exploration of social media's role in the CrossFit community.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness

00:00:05 Social Media's Impact on CrossFit

00:14:44 Running a Gym's Social Media Challenges

00:18:52 Social Media Authenticity and Post Effectiveness

00:24:41 CrossFit Games and Social Media Integration

00:31:06 Social Media for CrossFit Athletes

00:41:15 Social Media Impact on Personal Accountability

S03E115 The Challenges of Creating Social Media in the CrossFit Community

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the HerdFit podcast. I'm Coach David Syvertsen.

I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Rhee today and next week. We have two really interesting. Topics to talk about that, quite frankly, many people just don't want to talk about. But to me, I think it's something that is underused and has an enormous influence over our lives and something that we should all be talking about and have open conversations and make ourselves vulnerable and admit things and talk about things to really help.

Everyone kind of listen to different perspectives and have them maybe shape your viewpoint on a certain topic. And today's and next week's topic is social media and the influence it has on not the world. I don't wanna go down outside of CrossFit outside of health. So it's really gonna, we're gonna try to center this around CrossFit, health, fitness, healthy living as much as possible.

I'm sure we might have go off on a couple of tangents, but proof of. How hard this can be to talk about, I, I asked two or three people to come on, and this has been something that we've been talking about for about a year doing episode, and everyone said, no, really? I don't think it was, no, I don't wanna talk about that.

Maybe some of it was schedule or some of it's like, eh, I just don't feel like I have much to offer. But I think it's, it can be very uncomfortable to talk about. Mm-hmm. And. Social media is something that predominantly most of us, I think the last stat I saw is 65% of the world is on social media, and you think about, you know, third world countries and everything, like factoring them in in that number as well.

Um, It's, I think it was over four and a half billion people. You know that it's everywhere, and it's one of the few things that we do every single day, right? We go to the bathroom, we drink water, we eat, and we're on social media. You know, those are the things that we, and sleep, those are the things that we do every single day.

And

[00:01:53] Sam Rhee: the people that don't are the weird ones. Yes. Like when someone tells me, oh, I'm not on Instagram or Facebook, I'm like, Huh? Yeah. Okay. Or you're one of those. Alright, no problem. I mean, not that it's bad, I just No, it just, it

[00:02:04] David Syvertsen: sticks out a lot. Right? You are not in the norm if you're off of it. And so I, I want to get into some of the business side first.

Bison's Instagram and Facebook and social media as CrossFits social media presence. Uh, Sam has some really interesting numbers to share for me there, and I kind of wanna start off with that because CrossFit has a, had a lot of different leadership. Over the past five years now, huge changes that people are just getting sick of, and it seems like right now the ship is studying and new, new leadership's doing a very good job.

They still have a long ways to go to hit the goals that Don fall was in this room, at this table talking about numbers that he wanted to hit. And they're still very far away from that, but I do like the direction. But Sam, what happened in 2019? Yeah.

[00:02:52] Sam Rhee: Uh, in 2019, CrossFit Corporate, and at that time, Greg Glassman owned, um, the company, it was his company withdrew from social media.

And I don't know if you, a lot of us do remember that. Mm-hmm. Uh, it was. The excuse was that there was some sort of, um, Facebook group that was talking about paleo or a certain way of eating, and, um, Facebook took them off or blocked them, and Glassman used that as an excuse that there was censorship in social media.

And so he wouldn't engage in anything that was involved in censorship. Mm-hmm. Um, at the time, the CrossFit. HQ's Instagram had 2.8 million right now in 2023. Yesterday, 1 million followers. Wow. Yeah. Basically cut in third. Yeah, a third. CrossFit Games. Instagram at the time had 2.4 million followers. Today, 1.8 million, so they have lost a tremendous, tremendous amount of, Publicity, media presence, information that they could be sharing to people because they withdrew back in 2019, and I don't think it's a.

Mistake that people keep saying, why can't we be more like 2018? Mm-hmm. You know why? Because we were really popular back in 2018. We were ascendant. We had a lot of, uh, push, a lot of momentum, a lot of exposure. Um, and I'm sure you'll talk about E S P N this year as well. Mm-hmm. But I'm telling you, we shot ourselves in the foot so badly withdrawing from when CrossFit withdrew from social media.

And I don't know if we've ever. Recovered or

[00:04:34] David Syvertsen: how we're going to recover with that. Yeah, and you might not. I think that's something that you say you just don't recover like those years. Those years where he took it out is also coincided with where CrossFit, they took away the media team. They completely changed the CrossFit regionals, the CrossFit game season.

And everything that we knew of CrossFit at that point was essentially just kind of taken out from underneath us. And then you had the pandemic, which CrossFit did not make it through without. Some, some battle scars from that. We can get into that as well from Twitter, you know? Mm-hmm. And that's the one, you know, the one thing that Greg Glassman did not get rid of, that, you know, maybe he's still c e o right now.

If he, if he didn't make that one single tweet back then we, we will get into that at some point. But 2018, I remember that was the peak of cross it sport and. I say that be with the number of, that was the most amount of people that I had ever signed up for the open since that time it took a nosedive, and now again, it is on the steady incline as well, but it is still now, today, not even close to what it was in 2018.

And there's a lot of reasons behind that. So there's just a huge change in the CrossFit landscape back then, and social media was one of the main reasons why, whether you love it or hate it, You have to acknowledge it's incredibly important, maybe even vital to the way that our lives are set up right now, where we get information, where we put out information, where people express themselves.

Um, a lot of people, some more than others, like really live for social media and what the content they put out are the content that they take in to be a worldwide brand and take yourself out of the picture. You are going to be fighting uphill on mud, like you're just not going to be able to get back up to the top.

You're just gonna keep on slipping back and forth while everyone else is on the way up. They n they did not take themselves off of social media. Put yourselves in Greg Glassman's shoes. I'd say you're the c e O of Cross in 2018. 2019. Sam, things are starting to go a little too sporty, not enough fitness, you know, whether you agree with that or disagree with that.

We've talked about that to nausea so far. Um, throughout, throughout the a hundred plus episodes that we've talked about. Would you have any desire whatsoever to take your company off of social media, even if there was some controversy around you?

[00:06:49] Sam Rhee: Absolutely not. Mm-hmm. I, I run a business. Mm-hmm. I have a medical practice.

I see how important social media is every day. I see what people are doing on social media every day. I see what other people, other businesses are. If you are someone who has designs on being successful in business, and you are a forward facing company, or front facing company, you're not, you know, B two B or something like that.

Like obviously if you're, you know, not. Involved with clients or service, then maybe you're not really that involved with it. Mm-hmm. But if you have clients, if you are servicing a group or um, customers, how do you not engage in social media? That is the worst idea. Especially when you have controversy.

Mm-hmm. That is when you need to double down on social media. This is a very powerful tool, like probably the most powerful tool we've maybe encountered in terms of communication with humankind. Yeah. And I see how my children consume social media. It's actually generally generationally changing as well.

Like I can't even keep up with the changes that are going on in social media at this point. Right. Like, um, We are a, you and I are mostly an Instagram generation. Yep. But Sasha is a Snap Snapchat generation.

[00:08:07] David Syvertsen: Never touched it in my life. I know

[00:08:09] Sam Rhee: they are TikTok. Yeah. And so the amount of content that they consume with their friend, like between their friends and communication on Snap and what they see on TikTok has, will define their values, what they consume, what they choose to buy.

Uh, Every, every day. Mm. And if you're a business and you're not involved on that level, you've

[00:08:35] David Syvertsen: lost, you're selling yourself short. CrossFit has

[00:08:37] Sam Rhee: lost. I do not understand why. Sasha is not telling me that she's seeing CrossFit on TikTok or, you know, like I don't, I don't understand it. Right. It blows my mind.

I have to be, I'm going dragging, I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming into TikTok. Ah, and I've had for your business? Yes. Okay. And I've had someone start posting some stuff on there and even the, um, most initial things are getting hundreds and hundreds of views. Wow. And this is where. You can't afford to miss on this.

Mm. I mean, let's look at, um, CrossFit bison right now. Yep. So there are 3,143 followers on Instagram. Yep. 1,390 posts. That's pretty good. I would assume. I don't know. How do you feel about CrossFit bison and, and business, social media and what that role

[00:09:31] David Syvertsen: plays for you? So, I to, to really. Give an answer on that.

I look back on why I started it, and we started it in year one, and I, I've never been a huge social media guy. I was, I was late to Facebook. I was, didn't have my own Instagram account until 2018, but when bison opened up in 2014, I was like, oh, I'll make one. I put it under my name and our early posts. I, I was writing posts as David Verson, not CrossFit bison.

Eventually I got rid of that and. I, I've always been on the other side of it saying it's probably not that big a deal, but the amount that cross, uh, sorry. The amount that social media has grown from 2014 to now is unbelievable. The numbers that of people that use Facebook's, uh, Instagram back when we started to now I think it's over quadruple.

So it's a, it's been a huge jump since that period. So my perception on it right now is different than it was in 2014. I got it. In 2014 to use for free marketing, you know? Yeah. And that's one thing that a business, it's almost foolish to not be on it. It's free. And another side of it was, this is back when I was a little judgy on social media.

It's like, man, like do I really wanna scroll through pictures? See someone doing an overhead squat. Squat clean, pull up. Cool. And the caption is always Sam Crush in pull-ups, hashtag cross it, Sam crush in Overhead squats. I thought to me like that was lame. And so I, I got it and I was like, this is, I want people on the outside that are gonna see CrossFit bias and Instagram to still know what we do and what we're all about.

We've, we did an episode on culture. And we built a culture, we defined a culture, and we, we built it and then we're continued to try and build it, massage it, make it better. I wanted anyone on the outside to be able to go read through 10 posts and, and get a good vibe for our gym. That was the purpose to me until even to this day.

That's kind of 90% of what I like to use social media for, for the business is because I know I do this as a consumer. If I'm dropping in somewhere in North Carolina, we're gonna North Carolina in, uh, October for a week. I'm gonna probably look at two or three different gyms on Instagram to see what, which one I want to go to.

Yeah, I do that. And so you there there, and I know there's a lot of other people that do that as well. So if I wanted to be like the Fire Breather gym or the top athletes in the world train, that's what my Instagram would be all about If I was, no, we hate people that like to compete. We just wanna work out and take it easy.

That's what our Instagram would be. My, the thing that I've always wanted to put out on social media is that we're both, we love people that wanna get after it. We love the people that are just coming in to check that box and live healthy and exercise. We want people to push the boundaries. We want people here that don't wanna push those boundaries.

Uh, we like people that compete, we support them. We love people that don't compete. We'll support them as well. Guys, girls, old, young, experienced, inexperienced. And that to me, if I go look from an unbiased perspective, I'm biased. I'll admit it right about my own. I've made, so 1,390 posts. I've made 1200, sorry.

I've made 1,389 of them all. But one of the posts on Cross at Bison's Instagram is from me. Oh, I didn't know that. Every single one and. You can see because some of 'em are really long and wordy. Right.

[00:12:50] Sam Rhee: Well, those I knew were your

[00:12:51] David Syvertsen: Yes. And I, I think that I've always wanted someone to be able to read any 10 random posts from now or from three years ago and get a vibe for a gym.

What is the culture like there? What do they teach there? What are their, what morals there? What is the leadership like at that gym? And I'm confident that if you look through 10 different posts, you'll get a good vibe for what we are. You also

[00:13:12] Sam Rhee: use it as a message to. The gym itself, don't you? Absolutely.

Yeah. In terms of who you feature mm-hmm. Who you put on there. Mm-hmm. And I think you are very scru you, you, you've told me you're very scrupulous in terms of keeping track of who you put on. Mm-hmm. On the Instagram. Yep. Um,

[00:13:30] David Syvertsen: and I started doing that, yeah. In 2015 because I had someone say like, why is it was Britney Page?

She goes, why are Britney? Why is Britney page in like every other one of your posts? And I was like, no, she's not. And I went and I did. I think at that time we were like 200 posts in. Okay. So it was probably like a year, maybe a year and a half, and she was in like seven of them. But I think whoever, if you were just on Instagram that day or that day after, and like you skipped the other nine, but you saw her over and over.

You were like, why is Dave keep putting her on that social media? I mean, she's not a bad person to feature all the time. No, not at all. And photogenic, very pretty. Britney Brittany, ey now, but also she moved, well, she was a big presence of our gym as well. She was a big part of who we were early on. And yeah, you want people to know like that's the kind of person that's coming here right now.

She's still coming. Yeah. And but like that was why she was on it probably more than others early on. Mm-hmm. I see. But even now, to this day, what I'll say one thing that. Can be hard is. Um, I take the picture, you know, like we don't have a, a media team here. I take pictures, so there are certain classes I teach more than others.

Yeah. So like when I teach a random midday class or a night, a late night class, I always try to get someone in, or if it's someone I don't normally see, try to get pictures. I have thousands of pictures on my phone and computer of people working out. And eventually when I'll like a new post, like I'll scroll back three months and use that picture.

Mm-hmm. You know, because you wanna make sure as a business, if I'm gonna say, we don't only highlight the best athletes. You gotta make sure you go through that Instagram and every other post is one of your best athletes. And that can be a challenge because in a lot of cases, they're also the ones that move well.

Mm-hmm. Like there's some people in this gym I love, they're good. I ain't posting a picture of them doing an overhead squat, you know, because it looks terrible.

[00:15:13] Sam Rhee: Or at least just a static photo of

[00:15:15] David Syvertsen: them not moving. Right, right, exactly. Or the overhead position where everyone looks okay before they actually start squatting.

But that's, I think that's been one of the biggest challenges of the, of, of running a social media for a gym. And I am by no means an expert on it whatsoever. Like I still don't even fully comprehend. The usage of hashtags and timing of posting all this stuff,

[00:15:35] Sam Rhee: should you be farming this out to somebody else?

I've thought

[00:15:38] David Syvertsen: about it, um, and I, it would not be a control freak about it. But my fear on it would be that we would lose kind of some, like, some of like the ethos behind the posts of, I still, no matter what, five years from now, I still want people to get a vibe for the gym by reading the posts. And a lot of the posts that I see, even from good gyms, it's just, it's too plain.

Like it's a cool picture, but it's, it's just there. There's no feel like you don't get a vibe from for the gym by reading the post.

[00:16:07] Sam Rhee: I think what you could do, and I'm just throwing, I'm spitballing and Yeah, we haven't talked about this is you should get other people, not me, but other people to contribute posts to you and then you could sort of pick through them and it's be like, it's point, it's good idea.

You know what I'll, you know, and save some of the grunt work so that, uh, you could be like, oh yeah, and you know, they could start a, and then you could put your own little spin on it or whatever you wanted, you wanted. Right.

[00:16:30] David Syvertsen: Or you just give someone else access to make posts whenever they want. Like, and you know, I mean, Uh, should a business be putting content out?

Content out every day?

[00:16:40] Sam Rhee: Ideally, yes. Mm-hmm. I think there are so many algorithms, uh, I mean, algorithm gurus out there, which tell you what time to post Yep. How many times a week to post all

[00:16:49] David Syvertsen: that reels versus pictures, right? Like all this stuff, all

[00:16:52] Sam Rhee: that. So I don't think we need to go down that rabbit hole, but I feel like.

Um, I mean, for my, my own business, if I can try to get, I, I, I struggle with mine, so I'm not even gonna talk about mine. Right. 'cause there's just so many different issues there. Right. But, um, I think it should be at least a couple times a week. Mm-hmm. It needs to be mixed up. Agreed. And there should be a mix of personal as well at like, kind of more touchy feely versus ethos.

Right. And performance and, you know, all those kind of things. Like it needs to be diverse and, uh, And like you said, not corporate-y feeling. Right. But

[00:17:26] David Syvertsen: really, um, not too templated, you know? Yeah. Not templated. And like, I, I think it's just like, it's a very unique way to give a personality. Uh, of what we do here.

And that's like what I always circle back to now, something you mentioned earlier that I didn't really get to yet. Mm-hmm. We could talk about, do I try to give messaging to our current members? Oh, yeah. Through our social media. Very

[00:17:47] Sam Rhee: much so to everybody. It's very messaging and

[00:17:50] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I, I've had you like, I think it was you, Sam, or someone else.

I think there was a stretch where I think like two outta three or three outta four posts were a little like on the aggressive side, like almost like on the coaching side. Mm-hmm. And it was like, Someone was about scaling. Mm-hmm. Someone was about suck it up and go harder. Yes. Some of it was like mm-hmm.

Get the most outta yourself. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna get into the consumer side of CrossFit in the next episode, so, but we can touch on it briefly here that if I remember correctly, and you can tell me I'm wrong, but I. I think you were not like in the best place at that time. You were upset or angry about something.

Might've been like an injury. Mm-hmm. Or some, some performance. Mm-hmm. My question is always this, like I know how I get on social media. I'll talk about my own social media as well coming up. Mm-hmm. Not afraid to talk about that at all. I do get message preachy maybe, and if you're not in the right mindset, If you're anti something, anti me, anti programming, anti gym, anti CrossFit, my shoulder hurts.

Mm-hmm. And you read that? Yeah. That's a huge deal. In terms of what that, the influence of the message itself. 'cause I've been in that case. Mm-hmm. And I'll, and I'll give examples later in the consumer episode of like, if I'm not in a good place and I read a post that is coming from a good place. Mm-hmm.

And it is a good message. Yeah. I'm be like, fuck that. You know? It's like, yeah, you're right. And so how much should that weigh into the producer, the content creators? Idea of, is this a good post to put out? Albe Sam might be in a bad mood, or these 18 people might be in a bad mood. Mm-hmm. It's hard to measure whether or not a, a post is effective.

I'll say that.

[00:19:26] Sam Rhee: Well, let me put it this way. I think the best post elicit a reaction, right? And whether it's a, and some people would say, well, if it's a bad reaction, it's still a reaction. Right? It's when they don't care about your post at all and ignore it, right. That you're not. It's not working right. So, um, I think your posts can be polarizing in a certain way.

Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I would say that's fine because. That's on. You can't understand where my mindset is. Right. You can't predict it. Right. You can only speak truthfully from where you're coming from. Right. And that's why I, I actually like, I was gonna kind of make fun of you a little bit, but not real.

You make fun of me. No, like this whole, the, the, the whiteboard one here? Yeah. Like if you look at it like, so it's like one, two, like two full screens of. Text. Yes. And

[00:20:18] David Syvertsen: I, and it was for my YouTube readers. That's one Instagram post right there. It's super

[00:20:22] Sam Rhee: long. And I was like, are you allowed to write that much on a single Instagram post?

But you are, and, and

[00:20:27] David Syvertsen: I, I've been word limited before, and

[00:20:30] Sam Rhee: I will say this like, but, and it's because I know you, this isn't. Um, bss, this is what you truly believe. Everything you've written, I honestly can say you truly believe it a hundred percent from your heart. 100%. And I will take that any day of the week from anybody, right?

Anybody out there. Like, I would much rather read that and have a reaction. Good badder than be indifferent to it. And if I'm in a, and if I'm not in a good place, so be it. But if I'm in, you know, but I should. As a consumer, look at it and learn to. Know that this is authentic and real, and, and that's how I should be dealing with it.

And I think I have started to do that better when I look at things and, and realize, you know, what, where is this person coming from? I follow them because it's real, right? Not because I agree with them. Right? It's because it's a viewpoint that. I understand they truly believe, and so that's okay. Mm-hmm.

Like, it's okay if on a particular day I'm like, Dave's workout sucked. And he was annoying and Right. And so what he's writing right now is kind of annoying, right? Like, that's okay.

[00:21:40] David Syvertsen: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And like I think that's something that you, when you put yourself out there in a social media post as a business, right?

Content creator, producer, whatever you wanna call yourself, right? You have to kind of know two things. You're not gonna make everyone happy. You're actually gonna piss some people off, even if, even if your intentions are correct. And if you can't accept that, like if you, if you do everything for likes, right?

I, in my opinion, it's a very dangerous route to go down because to me, like it's like a cheap show of appreciation. Oh. Or, or it's not real. Yeah. Like if you're ever walking around and you're like, oh, I got this many likes on this, that many likes on this. Now I'll say this, as a business, I'm very much aware of what.

Kinds of posts get the most likes. Yes. I'm looking at one that I made about Dan Coda. Yeah. Um, on June 23rd about a lifetime PR that he hit on Fran. Yeah. As a 40 plus year old. Yeah. With kids and jobs and like I wrote a few things about Dan Yeah. In that thing that I started crossing with him as People love to hear those stories.

Yeah. Of someone really accomplishing something. Right. Fighting through adversity. Right, right. Like in my opinion, some of the most common posts that people get a lot of attention on are like someone that says, oh, I had a body image issue. I had an eating disorder. Now look at me. I love my body. Like everyone loves to hear that.

Right. You know how reel's the message, I don't know, but like people still love to hear that. The temptation

[00:23:03] Sam Rhee: is when you get a big. Response like that. Mm-hmm. They're like, oh, I'm gonna feature more people like that. Right. And then you start going down this rabbit hole where you're, it's such a bad thing for, I mean, bad thing personally, if you're posting, but also bad if you're a, a business.

Right. You can't chase that. Chase the likes. Yeah. You cannot. And, and I think that that is a, such a, Important message to give, you know, just because that one hit hit, you know, big for you. Right. Like,

[00:23:30] David Syvertsen: don't, don't keep doing that. No. Yeah. I mean, and our, our biggest posts that the, the most likes that our CrossFit bison Instagram always gets is about like the gym accomplishing something or like the holiday, the bison bowl, the murphs, you know?

Mm-hmm. I mean, I hate to say it, sport gets a ton of attention on Instagram. Let's talk about that a little bit. As you know, CrossFit. There's CrossFit and then there's CrossFit Games. Mm-hmm. Right? CrossFit bison just has one account. We don't have CrossFit bison and then CrossFit Bison Sport, you know, Instagram.

Like we're all just, we're all together. We'll all do this together. Why? Why should they be separate CrossFit and CrossFit games, and should a gym like us separate the sport and the fitness component? On social media.

[00:24:14] Sam Rhee: That's a really good and interesting question. D Uh, I think there's arguments for and against.

Okay. And did you hear Don fall on, um, the Jocko Willink?

[00:24:23] David Syvertsen: Yes, it was, it was a long ass, it was long. I actually haven't finished it. Yeah, I did the first hour

[00:24:27] Sam Rhee: and a half. Yeah. And I think it was really interesting. I, I would. It actually dove a ton into his marine career, which if you're interested in that, is it, it's actually really interesting, right?

He actually served and he was in Afghanistan and all this sort of stuff. Um, the one part he, he did talk about with media and with CrossFit and just organizational, um, principles is that he said how siloed. CrossFit HQ was. Mm-hmm. There was the sport, there was the, um, affiliate side. Mm-hmm. And then there was the teaching side.

Right. And he said, that needs to change. Okay. And absolutely CrossFit Sport has been siloed, separate from CrossFit HQ or, or, or CrossFit, um, affiliate stuff. And, and so there is an argument to be made. If you are one brand, you should brand it all together. Right. Um, Yeah. That being said, it depends on what you're using CrossFit games for, right?

Like if, if you really wanna make it huge, like rival U F C, you know, um, make it an entertainment juggernaut, then. You kind of have to silo it and yeah, make it its own Instagram, because they're not gonna want the people who are interested in watching or seeing lifts from Laura, Laura Horvath, or you know, Roman Koff, like, you know, destroy a workout, are not gonna wanna watch.

Um, Cap affiliate

[00:25:54] David Syvertsen: programming posts or something like that. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah. They don't wanna see old people get off the couch carrying milk jugs. Right. Like they just don't, that's not what people wanna go on social media for. But on the other hand,

[00:26:01] Sam Rhee: as hq, how do you integrate all of that together?

Mm-hmm. And how do you do that with social media?

[00:26:07] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know either. I don't have the solutions to that problem. I could just only speak from the affiliate owner side is that, and it's much easier to do on our scale. You know, we don't have millions of people looking at our con our stuff.

Um, But to me, like again, what's, what is the culture? If he says he truly wants to combine it, then in my opinion, you gotta put your money where your mouth is. Like, that sounds like a great PR statement. Oh, we want everyone to be together. But if you have all these separate Instagrams and, and accounts, then you don't, you, you do want it to be separate.

And I think there is still some truth to two CrossFit not running the games. Well, let me

[00:26:41] Sam Rhee: ask you this, if you had.

[00:26:44] David Syvertsen: Six game

[00:26:46] Sam Rhee: quality athletes here. Yeah. You know, which would be like your biggest fantasy. Yeah. Like, would you not need to sort of have some channel to publicize and, and, and feature them that wasn't just part of CrossFit Bison?

[00:27:03] David Syvertsen: I think, I think about this a lot and I think at certain points of the year, Those six games athletes, like let's, let's say, let's say four, let's say we had a games team, we had four games athletes that made it as a team. I still want it to be gym like they're, they're a part of the gym. The community, like I wouldn't wanna have their own, but at certain points of the year, they'd be getting.

A huge amount of the attention, like that's, uh, let's use on a lesser scale. Let's use our quarterfinalists right? When the open comes around, you know, at the end of the open, a lot of people are like, all right, I'm done with this. Like, you know, done with the team scoring. I'm done with the, where did our rank in today's wad, like, you know, uh, no reps, reps, scale, foundation was our ex, and then a month later, We're making nonstop posts about people qualifying for quarter, for quarterfinals, making stories about them doing their quarterfinal workouts.

People show up and support them and, and give them, and kind of raise them up and put 'em on a pedestal. And then we make a post after about them and it gets a lot of attention, you know, and then a week later it's back to normal. You know, it, it's, it falls off pretty quickly. If we had that kind of situation with games athletes, I wouldn't want to create my own Instagram for them.

You know, I, I would want them to be a part of the gym, but them being a part of the gym, especially in a highlight part of their season, they are going to be the presence of the gym for a long time. We are gonna highlight them more than you doing, you know, the P V C overhead squats on Monday morning, and you need to be okay with that.

But at the same time, those game, like those high level athletes, I think if you start giving them their own everything, their own everything. It can easily create a culture of them versus us where they think they're better or they actually maybe start thinking they're better. 'cause I've always told this to some of our competitors that do really well on things.

I was like, just so you know. After your competition's over, you're like, let's look Legends, for example. Yeah. Like you get almost an uncomfortable amount of support and you don't know what to do with it sometimes. And but the Monday after, and I hate SA saying this because it sounds harsh, but no one caress anymore.

Like that's, that shit was last week. Mm-hmm. And you have to be okay with that. And I think sometimes if you create this culture of, Hey, you're really good, we're gonna highlight you for three weeks straight as you train for the games you compete at the games we, you know, go out with you after the games.

The next week, like you're no longer the highlight and you need to be okay with that. That's why I don't feel comfortable with Sep always separating some, like some a situation like that. I.

[00:29:27] Sam Rhee: How about your own personal brand? You are a brand yourself, you, you, I'm never one is, yeah. You offer coaching? Yep.

Next level coaching? Yep. You programming services? Mm-hmm. Uh, your personal Instagram, is it private or is it Uh, public? It's private

[00:29:42] David Syvertsen: because I, I was public for a long time, but I honestly don't even know. I'm gonna check right now. I think because you

[00:29:47] Sam Rhee: have 208 posts. 1,073 followers.

[00:29:52] David Syvertsen: Uh, a thousand are my mom, by the way.

No, just kidding. Wow. She's, uh, she has a lot of accounts, so, and 850 and I, and I follow 850 and you follow 850, so it is private. I, I've been getting, I don't know if anyone else is getting, I'm getting like a lot of weird messages, like bots, like, like, come check out this, like sell my supplements and stuff like that.

Yeah. I get a few, not many, so I get less when I'm private. Uh, so that's why I'm private right now. Okay. But

[00:30:17] Sam Rhee: then what if someone wants to see what next level's

[00:30:19] David Syvertsen: like, or, I mean, I do struggle with that back and forth a little bit. I mean, you're gonna have to follow, honestly, if you wanna see it. Request follow.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever turned someone down on that stuff. I just, there is, I'll get into some personal stuff with Instagram, with like Brock and. Some stuff that's like coming into light right now that I'm getting a little worried about, like future wise, but mm-hmm. Stick Keeping it to your brand.

My brand, myself. I hate calling myself a brand. You are a brand, but. Yeah, owner, head coach, CrossFit bison, co-host her fit podcast, workouts, coaching, and lessons I've learned through CrossFit, nothing more or less, so I made a decision in 2018. I had to get it, I had to get Instagram in 2018 to prove that I was working out at Coliseum.

Hmm. One of the avenues to prove to CrossFit, because I was at. I was coaching bison and on a team that back in the day, to be on a team, you had to train there. The, the gym's 35 minute drive away. It's by Woodbury Commons Coliseum strength. One of the ways to prove is that you can timestamp a post of you working out there.

And we also did some other stuff too, uh, to prove that I was going there three days a week. This was really

[00:31:25] Sam Rhee: important 'cause there were some members that actually got disqualified from teams for not meeting

[00:31:29] David Syvertsen: these qualifications. I had someone reach out to me after they knew I was on that cossum team asking me how I was able to do that.

They were thinking I was cheating. And I was like, the rule is this, I have to train there three days a week. I went there every Saturday, every Sunday, and then once during the week and every time you go there, you would make a post about it. So I go from not having Instagram, my own personal Instagram to making three posts, uh uh per week about myself working out, right?

A little uncomfortable early on, but I actually got used to it and I actually kind of liked it after a while, like watching, like I still can go back and watch these videos and training with Matt, Elise, Nicole, and like, it's fun. It brings you down memory lane. And so I kind of got into doing that because it's like a nice little, like not a training log, 'cause I'm not logging scores on there, but it's like, oh, that's what I was doing, or that's what I used to look like when I left.

That's what I used to be able to do. I can't do it anymore. Sometimes it's upsetting, but I. That carried over into, I didn't stop posting after that, like, after that whole period was over, I, I kept being posts and then you had a couple people reach out. No matter what apparel, if you make one post a week, you tag us in this, you get x percent of your sales per shirt.

And then we had a supplement company do the same thing. So you start kind of building this. Desire slash almost need to make a post once a week, once every two weeks. Mm-hmm. And then it got to a point of like, all right, I don't, I no longer want to be told I have to make a post because I am big on, same with bison Instagram.

I want there to be a reason there's something on my mind or something that occurred in my life that I, I would like to share. So the question comes down to that I, that still have a lot of discussions with other people that kind of go through the same thing, is what are you trying, why do you make a post?

Whether it's a story, a reel. Um, a still shot of yourself working out, and do you ever worry about the line of coming across as bragging thirst trap? Yeah.

[00:33:14] Sam Rhee: What's, what's thirst trap? Uh, I don't know. It's, my kids tell me like, if you post something where you look really good in it Yeah. Or no, Hawkinson is big on, uh, saying thirst trap.

I don't even, I don't even know what thirst trap is. Yeah. It's, you're showing off and like, everyone's like thirsty

[00:33:26] David Syvertsen: for you or something. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't think so. Um, but that's where I think. We talked, I had a conversation with one of our coaches about this last night that to me, social media, especially your personal, is a representation.

It can be a representation of who you are and what you do. My post, I made a decision a long time ago, it's only gonna be about CrossFit. Like I don't really use my Instagram to talk about political views. Um, even my family life, other than like stories and stuff, that's stuff that like disappears. Nothing ever disappears, but like if you look through all my posts, it's all CrossFit related.

And I use, if I wanna make something outside of cross related, I use Facebook for that. Like ashes, birthdays, Brock stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But my posts are all about CrossFit, and I want, again, it to be another resource. For people to see that go to our gym or don't go to our gym of how I train, how do I view CrossFit?

I take it seriously, but it doesn't define me right? Like I, I've never been down that role and I want people to see that, that, um, I also have always said like, I don't consider myself a very good athlete, naturally. Um, But I know I do work hard and I know I've, I've gotten close to mastering a lot of skill components to CrossFit, and I want to, I always like to use my own social media saying if I can do some of the stuff that I've accomplished with CrossFit, I know you can too, because you're probably a better athlete than me.

Naturally, you're probably more mobile and flexible. Like I just did a video of myself doing overhead squats last week, Nancy. Oh yeah, I saw that. And. If you knew anything about my family and the level of flexibility that these people have, you know, like those overhead squats don't come by just showing up.

Like I put a ton of work in over the years. Yeah. Ankles, hips, shoulders, thoracic wrists, you know, all this stuff. And then I write the message. I'm 37. I just prd a time on a workout that I haven't done in a few years that just has two movements in it and it's a kind of a hard workout to PR by. And it was over a minute.

And am I bragging about that? I'm sure some naysayers will think that, but I'd rather use it as something like, you can do that too. And here's the question. I know there's people that don't like that stuff. I have been on the consumer side and not like what someone else is supposed as well. We're gonna get into that next week, by the way, so I don't wanna sound hypocrite.

I've been on that side too. But now that I'm on this side where I'm creating posts about myself, jumping over boxes, doing muscle up, doing snatches, I'm not impressed with myself. But I am trying to say if this, I am in a, in a position at the gym where I talk about this a lot. If you don't walk the walk, in my opinion, you don't have the right to go talk in front of the class.

And I want to show people that you can do that. That's the coaching side of it. The other, the athlete side of it. You know, someone who's never made the games right. But like very open. Like that's one of my lifetime goals. I want to get there and compete there. I don't mind sharing what I do. I'm not secretive about what I do.

I'm not Matt Frazier who's like, Nope, can't tell anyone what I'm doing. Like I'll tell you any day what I did for a workout. And one of my favorite things about creating some Somewhere to content is that it's, it creates conversations with other people. Uh, the amount that will comment, Hey, what was that workout?

What was this? And it, it can really connect a lot of pieces together. But you also have to accept the risk that you are gonna come across as braggy, cocky into yourself. Thirst trappy. Is that what it What it is? Yeah. I guess. And if you're not okay with that, if you don't wanna come across that way to anybody out there, then you probably shouldn't do it.

[00:36:55] Sam Rhee: I think the danger is, is when they don't know that person. Right. So if I didn't know you mm-hmm. It would, I could misinterpret it that way. Absolutely. Or any different ways. Yeah. But when I know you and I look at these posts, I'm like, Man, he couldn't even bend his knee like a year ago.

[00:37:11] David Syvertsen: Not, yeah, seven months ago.

Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:37:13] Sam Rhee: couldn't, or he's running. Mm-hmm. I can't believe he's actually running. Yeah. Right. Like, or doing, like when I saw you in class LA like doing double unders. Mm-hmm. So I know where you are with it. Right. So when I see that and I'm like, Okay. That's, I see that on your post. I'm like, that's why he's posting.

Right. I, but it's because I know you.

[00:37:35] David Syvertsen: Yeah. It's, and a lot of people don't know me. Yeah. A lot of people don't know you. Even in this gym. Yeah. You know, like if you're a new member, right? And I did your beginning class on Tuesday, and all of a sudden you see me doing that and like, oh, he's one of those guys.

He's one of those guys

[00:37:46] Sam Rhee: who's showing off that he did Nancy in a pr, any pr Nancy. Woo.

[00:37:49] David Syvertsen: Like,

[00:37:50] Sam Rhee: I mean, so yes. Um, but that's the danger of social media. It is. All. And again, all you can do is be honest with yourself. Right. Not worry necessarily about, I mean, to a certain degree, not worry about whatever everyone else is thinking.

Right. And just keep doing you. It's hard though.

[00:38:08] David Syvertsen: Here's another thought. It is, it is hard and I, I go back and forth in my head, should I do this? Should I not? And like I always come back to like, what, why am I doing this? Ask myself that question. If I'm happy with that answer, nothing else truly matters.

Mm-hmm. But here is a question that. Do you ever, I had this desire, do you ever wish that your, one of your parents or people older than you had social media back when they were 20, 30, 40 years old to kind of see like what their lives like? I still love seeing pictures of like where my mom grew up in Africa.

You know, like my mom would've had a kick ass Instagram account if they had it back then. She lived in Kenya for 19 years. Like that would've been something I would've loved to be able to watch. And I look at it from a parent perspective that. If he wants to, I want Brock to look back on my social media in 15, 20 years.

And be like, that's what my dad was like when he was back then. This is some of the things he said, the things he did with his body.

[00:39:01] Sam Rhee: Could you not? But the argument would be, could you not have just kept all those pictures to private and Yeah. And then just shown them to Brock later.

[00:39:09] David Syvertsen: Yeah. But I don't think that's the way our world works anymore.

Who, who the hell has picture albums anymore? E everything is on our phones and every like, you know, he's gonna be on social media at some point. It's, that shit's not going anywhere. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, and I think it's, yeah, but yeah, the answer is yeah, you could definitely keep it private. How do

[00:39:25] Sam Rhee: you feel about when Brock is older and they look at your, their, your, his dad's Instagram account and it's like, and then whatever reaction it is, positive, negative.

I mean, it

[00:39:38] David Syvertsen: will be both, I'm sure. And, and he's like, dad, I can you just, I'm embarrassed by this. Yeah. Can you just,

[00:39:43] Sam Rhee: yeah. Like take down

[00:39:44] David Syvertsen: this post or, I mean, that's something, I'll probably cross that bridge when I get there, but I know that's coming because not. And we just had Sasha in last week. She did an awesome job.

Parent teen relationships are never just smooth. Like there's a lot of ups and downs and parents embarrassed their kids sometimes. Like I've, I've been embarrassed by my kid, my, my, my parents when I was growing up for no mature reason whatsoever, other than the fact that I was just an immature teenager.

We all were. Right? And so it, it's hard to question should you put a lot of merit into a 12, 13, 14 year old when you're making posts. Here I am as a 37 year old. You know, like should I be, like, should I be worried about that? I mean, I'll say this, I'm not very confrontational on on my social media posts.

Like I'm not talking about like Donald Trump and Joe Biden or abortion or some of the biggest issues that we have in our world right now, because I know that can set us up for a lot of different issues, and I wanna get into that as a content creator at some point. But no, I'm not worried. About anything, because I'll stand by everything that I've ever posted, whether it's cool, whether it's not cool, whether it's long, whether it's short, whether it's a video, whether it's a picture.

I don't think I've ever gone back and deleted anything off my social media. Fair enough. Um, the last thing I want to touch on, on a producer side of this, and I'm curious to see from your business, and I'll talk about my perspective. Do you have any control over people that you work with? All right. Do you have, uh, people that work for you?

Do you have any policy in place of what they are or are not allowed to put out on social media and how it can relate to your business and as a representation?

[00:41:19] Sam Rhee: For me, it's easy. I, I only really have two people who I work with closely. Yeah. And they just have their own personal Instagram accounts.

They're not like, they don't have agendas or branding or purposes or anything like that, so I don't worry about that. Okay. Um, for larger organizations, I could. Completely see that. And I've actually think I've seen that kind of controversy with CrossFit gyms and coaches.

[00:41:42] David Syvertsen: Yeah.

[00:41:42] Sam Rhee: Uh, posting, um, it's, uh, it's, I'm not sure how I would handle it.

Have you had issues with, uh, coaches or anyone else, like posting something that you thought was inappropriate or did not represent your brand,

[00:41:59] David Syvertsen: so to speak? Never, but I know of coaches from other gyms that have, Um, getting really political, like being right wing, left wing, c really like criticizing, like, I'll give an example without saying the gym, but there was a coach at a gym that was constantly on his personal account blasting, uh, anti-abortion posts, like pretty aggressive.

And I was trying to put myself in the o uh, in the shoes of the owner, that if you had a coach doing that and it was really offending a lot of people in the gym, do you have a right to tell that person? They're not allowed to post that technically. You don't have a right. You don't have a right and you can probably get in some legal trouble if you were to fire them over something like that.

You'd be like, you know, in terms of like the freedom of speech rules. Absolutely. So, but that's something. That I've thought about over the years. It's like when you do hire someone, it's not about what are they posting on social media, but it's like, how, how do they have a filter? Do they wanna go out of their way to create controversial topics?

And does that have a place in a, in a gym business where this is relationship based? It's subscription based, meaning everyone could cancel tomorrow. And think about some of the covid social media posting that even some of our members were doing where like it was just getting to a point, you are pissing off a lot of people and you were doing it on purpose too.

And if that was a coach that can, that can ruin a, a, a vibe that you have at the gym. So should a coach, should a part-time coach Sam, have pressure on what you post on your social media in relation to the people that you serve here at Bison.

[00:43:34] Sam Rhee: The answer is no, never. It's freedom of speech. And if it's your personal Instagram account, you should be free to post whatever you want.

Yeah. And your employer should not, should not. Uh, have your employment dependent on, or make it contingent on what you're posting as long as you're following, you know, rules of free speech. Like you're not advocating for the overthrow of the government or, you know, something where you're, you know, uh, advocating murder, I don't know, whatever it is, right.

Like, uh, things that are violating the law. Mm-hmm. Um, that being said, as an employer, You could have if you wanted to in your legal contract with those coaches conduct policies. Yeah. I mean, most professional sports does do that Yeah. For their athletes and so forth. Yep. Um, things where you, um, could be let go even though it's technically you're infringing on their free speech because it's, um, conduct detrimental to the league or whatever you wanna call it.

Right, right. So, um, You should be able to say whatever you want. Um, I think you have to realize your employment may depend on what you write. Colin Kaepernick. Yep. Uh, which is an unfortunate example, but True. It's it's a very

[00:44:52] David Syvertsen: unfortunate example actually. Really unfortunate example. Yes. He, he's, I mean, I don't know about now, but he was good.

Like he, he, he should, he belonged in the league. He was better than I would say. There's 32 starting quarterbacks in the league. He was probably better than 25 of them, and

[00:45:06] Sam Rhee: almost every backup, that might be the biggest stain on the N F L. Yeah. Maybe ever. Mm-hmm. And I think history will bear out that, that will, will look back at that and say, what the heck was everyone thinking that this was a travesty?

Yep. Um, but yeah, I, and, and I think as a, as a gem, you say you're curating your image, you're presenting a brand, you're, you're trying to present, um, Whatever it is. And I, and I know certain gyms present different branding, like I know CrossFit Mayhem for example, they lean in on being Christian and Rich.

Froning is very open about his religious beliefs. A lot of his t-shirts have, um, biblical quotes on them. Yep. And so, Yeah. If he had someone who was like a Satanist who was on his staff and started posting stuff like that, it's tough. F free speech. He's gonna fire them. Right. And figure out a way to do it.

Yeah. Uh, I'm not sure, uh, how else you're going to manage that at that point. Right. Good thing I'm

[00:46:05] David Syvertsen: married to an HR professional. She'd figure out a way. Yeah. She'll figure out a way. Um, last thing on the content producer side. And then we'll, we'll wrap it up. Do you think it's okay? Do you think it's unhealthy?

You might have never even thought about this, but the people that do post every day, every time they're at the gym, they gotta do it. Mm. Again, some people are gonna be like, dude, get over yourself. Right. Other people, but there might be a, um, I don't wanna say a demon, but there might be something inside that person that it helps 'em stay accountable.

You know, I know a lot of people that have pro uh, produce a post every single time they work out, whether it's a selfie, whether it's a video, whether it's back and forth, and there's time that goes into it, editing all this stuff. And if it helps them stay accountable to themselves, go to the gym and like, Hey, you know, not that you have rows of people lining up, waiting for you to make your post, but you know, people will see it.

And that makes me want to work harder. Is that a bad, unhealthy habit? Again, opinion. Neither, neither one of us have really thought this much. It's not even in our outline, but I I, I'm always trying to relate social media to our health. Mm-hmm. Mental health primarily. Mm-hmm. Is it unhealthy to feel like you have to use social media to keep yourself accountable?

[00:47:23] Sam Rhee: I was that way. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I think when I first started, uh, CrossFit, CrossFit and Instagram first started like, you, to me, together, right? Like my very first post on my personal account was back in 2014 and I said, oh, check out, uh, CrossFit bison. Like awesome place. Yeah. So, so my rise in, in social media coincided with my journey in CrossFit, right?

And there was a lot of. Um, there were plenty of posts which I, some I might've taken down. Mm-hmm. Some I might've left. Um, where it coincided with my self-esteem with, you know, and a whole mix of reasons. I think, uh, most of us posts, um, because we want. The validation when a lot of people like our posts.

Right. Um, a lot of us post because we wanna show off. Mm-hmm. Like how swollen we look, thirst trap type stuff. Yep. Um, some of it is because, like you said, we have a certain message we wanna get out there. Um, I, I think the biggest issue is when it's tied to your self-esteem. Mm-hmm. And whether you're posting, uh, I mean, the daily post gets tedious for a lot of people, and I, I bet you if if someone posted every day.

Yeah. Just to try to keep accountable. Your friends are gonna be like,

[00:48:44] David Syvertsen: Get sick of this. What the, we, we had, we had a little bit of that in over Covid, you know, we had a few people posting every single day, and I think it was an accountability thing. They missed the gym. Everyone was kind of like thrown off.

And I had people not even from the gym, like, man, like you repost the same person every single day. I'm like, yeah, I know. Like, like I had kind of have to do it, but,

[00:49:00] Sam Rhee: and I don't have a problem with people posting all the time. Um, I know some people complain and I'm like, you know what? I, it, it doesn't bother me one Witt.

Right. I always just wonder. What is it that's motivating them to post every day? And if you're posting it for yourself to keep yourself accountable. Okay. Yeah. Like, I'm okay with that. But if you're posting because you're like, look at me, I'm, I'm, I'm working out every day,

[00:49:23] David Syvertsen: self-esteem needs a boost. Yeah.

Yeah. And you need a boost or dump a mean

[00:49:26] Sam Rhee: rush, right? Yes. Like, you know, I need to do this. Now, now, now not so awesome. Yeah. And,

[00:49:31] David Syvertsen: and also at some point I think you're gonna realize it's not the way to make yourself happy. Like, because it, it's kinda like a fake world. I've always said it's, it's like a fantasy more than reality.

Mm-hmm. Social media. And at some point you're gonna learn that. And if you think that you're getting all this self-worth, self-esteem likes, right. Um, That's, that's what's making you happy. And if you don't get them, you are now unhappy. There's definitely a deeper issue that needs to be discussed. You seek help with that kind of stuff.

Because of social media, it's not going to solve those problems.

[00:50:01] Sam Rhee: I think for younger people it's more of an issue than older. Absolutely. Because we didn't grow up, like you said, we started late. Yeah, so we weren't tied up with it, but if I could see when you're 15 and you started or 12 or something. Yeah.

It's

[00:50:12] David Syvertsen: a big part of your identity. Yeah. I mean we'll get into that next week 'cause we're gonna wrap this up now, but like the consumer side of it and some of the mental health issues that teenagers are now struggling with. A lot of it come from social media and um, so if you're on a lot, you just have to be very careful there.

So again, I, I just wanna wrap this up with, you know, the business side of it. You know, those that run a gym or run a social media account for a business, for a gym, I think it's a great way to. Give the perception of your culture. Um, I'm not saying I do it right. If anything, I probably get again, too wordy, too preachy sometimes, but that's the way I've wanted to do it since day one.

You don't need to do it that way, but I do think you can use it to. Show what your culture is to people that are not there. And on the personal side of it, I think as long as you know why you're doing it, you don't let yourself get too concerned with what others might think. Because you know, the, the day you realize that you're not on this earth to make everything, everyone else around you happy and fully understand you, you're gonna be much happier.

And you don't need to be understood by everyone. I think that's something that everyone needs to understand. All right. Thanks guys. We'll see you next week.