Natalie Mepham: Building a health and fitness profile online

1 Jul

Natalie is an online fitness, mental health and nutrition coach and helps people with mind, body and confidence through here social media accounts on instagram and YouTube channel.

How do you find working with social media?

Out of all the apps, I find Instagram the easiest. I’ve used it before, so I know how most things work. I learnt quite quickly what I wanted my page to look like right from the beginning. I had an idea of the types of pictures I wanted to use, the colour scheme, that sort of thing.

As for YouTube, that is really hard! It’s all in the editing and I’m not great with technology, but I’m finding my feet - learning how to edit clips is quite interesting as I haven’t done anything like that before.

Do you find posting on social media easy?

No! I think people think that it's easy though!

It’s not easy because there’s so many different opinions out there and you have to really think about content that’s going to really interest people.

For example, I post about nutrition and meal plans. These might be different to the next person that posts a similar plan, so it's about keeping an open mind to what works for different people.

The main thing is trying to get across that everyone's different. Sometimes it's about trial and error, finding what works for them. So I'm just trying to be real.

That's the whole idea of this Instagram for me - being real. It’s about mental health and sharing with people how fitness can help you with that.

How long ago did you turn to fitness to help your mental health?

I started training back in 2016 when I was going to the gym and even after few months, I realised that I felt totally different. It was strange, even then, if I started to miss days, I felt down again.

If it wasn't for training, or going to the gym or doing anything like that, then I wouldn't be in a place that I am now mentally. Other people are still in that rut, so I'm just trying to reach out to them and help change their mindset to more realistic and straightforward things like the benefits of just going out for a walk.

Why did you start raising your social media profile now?

Lockdown has had a massive impact on everyone and their mental health. It has reminded me of my struggles over the years and the different ways I found to cope with situations. Being in a better headspace now I wanted share ideas on how being active can help others.

Do you feel better for being open about mental health?

Definitely!

At first I wasn’t sure if I could do it. Even now I question myself, “Am I doing the right thing?”, “Am I reaching out to the right people?” or even, “Am I reaching people at all?” Especially when there are so many other people doing the same thing on social media. When I get messages saying how I’ve inspired them, or helped them in some way, I feel amazing! It’s such a good feeling knowing that my honesty and openness about mental health has helped someone else.

It’s taken a lot for me to build my confidence, but I just feel now is the right time for me to talk openly and use social media to help others as well as a way to help with my own recovery too.

Do you always get good engagement?

Honestly, not always. Sometimes I might only get a few people joining in on one of my live follow along workouts. However, it doesn’t matter on how many people join, it matters to me that I’m helping the individual. When they send me a message after, it means the world to me. I personally don’t hold back on the workouts either, so it’s so nice to hear that people have followed along too and I’m not the only one sweating!

Is social media good for the health and fitness industry?

I think it depends on who you’re following really.

There are obviously a lot of accounts that edit every photo and that isn’t great at all and very misleading. BUT, there’s also are a lot of people sharing really good content that’s real and positive for the industry.

If there is one person I idol, it’s Sara Sigmundsdóttir!

Talk to us about giveaways and collaborations.

At the moment, I don’t have much of a following, so I do giveaways as a way of promoting myself. It works really well and it’s a way of showing people a little insight about me and what I recommend.

I’ve had a few brands approach me about collaborations, but often they are very generic invites and looks like they haven’t really even looked at my profile before sending me a mesage.

It’ll be amazing to do collaborations with brands, but I’ll wait until I find ones that I really believe in first.

And finally, what’s your long term goal?

I’d like to get big enough to be able to do it as a my main job, doing fitness plans as well as meal plans.

I’d also love to help people get back into fitness after having a baby, especially from a personal experience too. I want to be able to help Mums get back into shape, and show my own journey through that as well.