Life Time Fitness recently faced a social media issue that many other clubs will face if they have not already—an employee tweeting something unflattering about another employee. In Life Time’s case, a cycling instructor tweeted a picture of a McDonald’s bag on another employee’s desk with a comment about how this lunchtime fare did not fit the Chanhassen, MN-based company’s brand as the “healthy way of life company.”

Life Time has a social media policy, a company representative says. However, most health clubs do not, says Darren Kincaid, a certified digital marketing consultant for WSI Pro Marketing in Smithfield, VA, even though he estimates that about 75 percent of health clubs have websites and Facebook accounts and about 50 percent are on Twitter.

“Social media has come upon businesses so rapidly that most companies are trying to grasp how to engage in it,” Kincaid says. “Most clubs have a social media presence, but they don’t have a policy that instructs and guides employees on what to do and what not to do.”

In today’s business environment, businesses must publish and execute a social media policy, he says. All employees should be required to read and sign this policy, which should identify who within a club is allowed to engage in social media related to the fitness facility. In addition, certain tools allow managers and supervisors to review posts before they go online.

Once club operators establish a social media presence, they can discover perceptions about their club’s brand and their competitors’ brands through eListening, also known as social media monitoring. After doing so, club operators can define their social media and marketing strategy and possibly discover new revenue channels, says Keith Vera, a marketing strategist for Penton Marketing Services in Washington, DC. (Penton Marketing Services is a division of Penton Media, which owns Club Industry.)

eListening audits will reveal positive and negative customer reviews, so club operators must learn how to handle the critiques carefully and sensitively, Kincaid says.

“If you greet an emotional response with another emotional response, then you will have a bad outcome,” he says. “Also, if you are on the defensive, then it sounds like you are admitting that you are guilty. That can ultimately be worse for your business.”

One way for club owners to protect their brand and reputation is by setting up an official business page at review sites such as Yelp, Google Places, Bing Local, Yahoo Local and City Search. To get a better rating, fitness facility operators should consider running internal promotions to encourage members to review their club on these sites, says Leslie Nolen, CEO and president of the Radial Group, Dallas.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.