3 Tools Every Yoga Teacher Should Be Using

by Virginia O’Connor

You finished your yoga teacher training, and your super psyched to start sharing your love of yoga with room and rooms full of students. Now is the time to figure out how you will run your yoga business.

If you cringed just a little at that business part, take heart. While your real passion lies in teaching yoga, spending a little time thinking about the details of how you are going to approach students, how you are going to find places to teach, and what methods you are going to use to attract students is all part of the work that goes into teaching.

Lucky for you, there are some great tools you can use to help you stand out in a crowded market and gather students that are committed to yoga and want to practice with you.
 

1. Meetup

This online site is a great way to create a following and engage students in your community. You can create a calendar of classes, invite friends, get reviews – even manage payments. Meetup is especially useful for yoga teachers who teach in non-traditional locations, like libraries, hospitals, and outdoors. Meetup isn’t free, but the cost is well worth the investment if you want to create your own yoga tribe without having to invest in building a website and managing all the marketing yourself – in fact, your students will find you if they are on Meetup (it’s free for them) and have interests that relate to yoga. Create a great meetup site and you have built-in features like messaging your students, gathering payments, and a calendar of classes.
 

2. Facebook

Facebook has two options for facilitating interactions with large numbers of people – pages, and groups. Pages are useful for communicating to your followers and it’s visible to everyone on Facebook; groups, on the other hand, can be made private (so the conversations are hidden until a person joins the group). Many yoga teachers have found they can run their entire yoga teaching business right on Facebook with just a little daily effort. Even better? Facebook pages and groups are free to create and manage, but if you decide to do a little local advertising, you’re sure to find new yoga students quickly and for very little money.
 

3. Phone

Your smartphone is an exceptional tool for recording yourself teaching, and you should record every class you teach for two reasons. The first is to evaluate and improve your teaching, and the second is to generate additional income. Listening to your classes – and even taking your own class by following the audio – is a great way to evaluate your teaching from a student perspective. Your recorded classes can be shared online and generate passive income as well. Audible Yoga is one site where you can load your audio recordings and earn passive income, and it’s free for yoga teachers to join. Plus, Meetup, Facebook, and Audible Yoga all work right on your phone!