How can you keep a community engaged, when all the gyms are closed?
When COVID forced people to stay home, FitX suddenly lost its most important physical touchpoint: the studio itself. Social media had to do more than fill the gap — it had to keep the community active, entertained and connected to the brand.
Our task was to turn FitX’s social channels into an always-on system built around the lives of its members — not just their workouts.
We segmented the FitX community into different training and lifestyle personas and built an editorial system around their wider interests.
Instead of only talking about workouts, the content expanded into nutrition, home workouts, entertainment, motivation and everyday fitness culture — giving the brand more reasons to show up in people’s feeds. A dedicated interest matrix helped translate those audiences into recurring formats, visual territories and topic clusters.
To feed the new system, we significantly increased FitX’s social output and developed a modular production approach designed to create large volumes of reusable content. The first production was shot overnight in a FitX studio in Krefeld. The second was produced during the height of the pandemic in a transformed agency office in Hamburg under strict hygiene restrictions.
The strongest formats and editorial principles outlived the initial lockdown period and remained part of FitX’s social communication afterward. What started as a response to closed studios became a more flexible way for the brand to show up around the everyday lives of its members.
This project taught me a lot about building adaptable social systems under pressure.
As part of a three-person social unit, I worked across concept development, visual identity, format creation, copy writing and production — often moving from strategic thinking to execution to client presentation within the same day or hour.
Over 500 assets produced and significantly increased output within 4 weeks of takeover.
More than +100% increase in impressions across all channels starting in October without using a media budget.
+170% increase in followers across all channels without using a media budget.
The result was not just more content, but a more flexible way for FitX to communicate with its community at a moment when the brand’s physical spaces were suddenly unavailable.
Project Summary
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Optimist Inc x FitX Germany
2020 -
Senior Art Director
Social Media Concept
Social Media Management
Strategy Support
Analytics
Format Development
Production Lead
Art Direction
Copy Writing
Creator Briefs
Social Activations -
Creative Team
Steffen Pferr (Director Social)
Denise Dümdüz (Copy)
Production
Robert Hörnig (Photo/Video)
Nicolas Kleemann (Photo)
Isabel Baron (Styling/H&M)