Best Influencer Marketing Strategies for Fitness & Nutrition Brands

Influencer marketing in the Fitness & Nutrition world isn’t just riding the wave—it’s creating a tidal wave of change. With the influencer market projected to soar to $32.55 billion by the end of 2025, it's clear that brands are doubling down on influencer partnerships to connect with today’s health-conscious consumers. Just look at how Gymshark and Alo Yoga have flipped the script on traditional fitness apparel giants like Nike and Adidas.

And with the wellness economy set to hit $7 trillion by 2025, influencers are now more crucial than ever in making those authentic connections. But it’s not just about pushing products; it’s about creating genuine, relatable content that resonates on a personal level.

A standout example? Premier Protein’s #PumpkinSpiceYourLife campaign, which used influencer collaborations to blend fitness and nutrition with fall vibes in a way that felt real. Keep reading to dive into the strategy behind this campaign and discover the best influencer marketing tactics fitness and nutrition brands can use to take their efforts to the next level!

1. Using the Power of Content Creation to Boost Engagement

When it comes to influencer marketing for Fitness & Nutrition brands, it's no longer enough to simply send a product and ask for a post. To truly engage your audience and drive results, you need to give influencers the freedom to create content that feels personal, authentic, and aligned with their lifestyle.

One highly effective strategy? Encouraging influencers to showcase how your product fits seamlessly into their daily routines through creative, campaign-specific content that sparks excitement and creativity.

Namely, it’s not just about showing a protein shake next to a dumbbell anymore. The goal is to integrate your product into the influencer’s life in a way that’s real, relatable, and irresistible to their followers. Whether it’s cooking up a new recipe or sharing a fitness routine, the idea is to get influencers to “spice up their life” with your product and make it part of their unique story.

A fantastic example of this strategy in action is Premier Protein's #PumpkinSpiceYourLife campaign. Premier Protein knew their audience was diverse—busy people who were balancing fitness goals, nutrition, and hectic schedules. To align with this, they activated a variety of influencers, from macro to micro-creators, who showcased how their Pumpkin Spice Protein Shake could be incorporated into daily routines.

But here’s the twist: Rather than just a product plug, Premier Protein empowered these influencers to get creative and show how they were spicing up their life with the product.

The result? Influencers didn’t just take the shake and drink it; they made chia pudding, baked goods, mocktails, and even incorporated it into their workout routines. They showcased how the product could fit into their lifestyles, blending health, nutrition, and a bit of seasonal fun into their content.

This freedom to create not only made the content more engaging but also ensured it resonated authentically with their followers. Influencers used humor, trends, and day-in-the-life formats to promote the product, leading to diverse content across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube.

@girlgonegrilling Who says great BBQ has to take all day? 🔥 This hot and fast pulled pork on the pellet grill is smoky, juicy, and ready in just 5 hours. #bbq #bbqtiktok #porkshoulder #porkbutt #recipe #recipesoftiktok #pelletgrill #pelletsmoker ♬ original sound - Katherine Salom

With 78 influencers creating 144 original pieces of content, the campaign reached over 23 million people and generated a total of 2.7 million impressions and 130,300 engagements—resulting in an average engagement rate of 5.2%.

What makes this strategy so effective for Fitness & Nutrition brands is the emphasis on authenticity and creativity. By encouraging influencers to experiment with your product and share it in a fun, personal way, you get content that feels genuine and compelling. It’s no longer about just pushing a product—it’s about creating an experience that the audience can see themselves participating in.

Additionally, this approach taps into the power of seasonal relevance. The #PumpkinSpiceYourLife campaign worked because it aligned with the fall season, a time when people are excited about flavors and new recipes. Fitness & Nutrition brands can leverage this tactic by aligning campaigns with current trends or seasonal shifts, making the product feel timely and in demand.

Key Takeaway: Encourage Creativity with Clear Campaign Guidelines

When you partner with influencers, don’t just tell them what to do—give them the freedom to tell their own story. Provide a broad campaign brief, outlining your objectives and the general direction (e.g., recipes, fitness routines, etc.), but leave room for them to experiment with formats and ideas. It’s this balance of structure and flexibility that leads to authentic, engaging content that both the influencer and their audience can connect with.

When influencers feel excited and trusted, they’ll bring their best ideas to the table—and that’s when the magic happens.

2. Building an Always-On Brand Ambassador Program for Consistent Growth

For Fitness & Nutrition brands, one of the most effective ways to foster long-term relationships with consumers and continuously generate engagement is by launching an always-on brand ambassador program. Unlike one-off influencer partnerships, an ambassador program involves cultivating ongoing, authentic connections with creators who genuinely believe in your products and can continuously promote your brand across various platforms.

This strategy helps establish a dedicated community, drives sustained engagement, and boosts sales—all while creating content that feels personal and trustworthy.

The key to success in an always-on ambassador program is finding the right creators who resonate with your target audience, providing them with the tools to succeed, and ensuring that the content they produce aligns with your brand values. Unlike the traditional “one-and-done” campaigns that focus on a single, large push, an ambassador program allows for a steady stream of content that can be measured over time, providing ongoing value for both the brand and its creators.

A standout example of this approach comes from the wellness brand Care/of, known for its personalized nutrition and wellness products. Previously, Care/of had focused on one-time influencer campaigns with macro-influencers, which helped with brand awareness but came at a high cost and proved difficult to scale.

Recognizing these limitations, Care/of turned to an always-on brand ambassador program powered by Aspire, which not only allowed them to maintain consistent influencer relationships but also made it possible to scale their efforts efficiently without adding extra staff.

By using Aspire’s influencer marketing engine, Care/of’s marketing team, consisting of just two members, was able to easily filter potential brand ambassadors based on location, demographics, and even aesthetic preferences.

This saved them countless hours of manually scrolling through Instagram hashtags to find influencers. With the help of automated workflows and product fulfillment, the team could efficiently manage hundreds of ambassadors and their content—without being bogged down by administrative tasks.

What made this strategy truly impactful for Care/of was the ability to track performance and sales through Aspire’s built-in analytics. By utilizing the platform’s sales tracking capabilities, Care/of could directly connect influencer activity to conversions, allowing them to measure the success of the program in real-time.

For example, they found that Instagram Stories, a format that had previously underperformed for other brands, became one of the highest drivers of engagement and sales for them.

Care Of UGC Post

The always-on ambassador program resulted in impressive outcomes for Care/of. From Q4 2022 to Q1 2023, the company saw an 80% increase in the number of creators they worked with and an 85% increase in product-related posts. Most notably, the campaign saw a 313% increase in impressions, quadrupling their engagement compared to traditional, one-off campaigns.

Key Takeaway: Streamline Your Ambassador Program for Scale

If you’re considering building an ambassador program, one of the most crucial steps is to streamline your operations so that you can focus on relationship-building instead of administrative tasks. Tools like Aspire can save you significant time by automating key processes such as product fulfillment, content approval, and performance tracking. This allows your team to manage more ambassadors with fewer resources, leading to better scalability and more impactful campaigns over time.

Start small with a core group of creators and refine your process before scaling up. By continuously tracking and analyzing data, you can make more informed decisions, ensuring that your ambassador program not only increases engagement but drives tangible business results.

3. Subtle Product Integrations

When it comes to influencer marketing, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a dedicated video or heavily scripted ad will always lead to the best results. But for Fitness & Nutrition brands, the key to maximizing engagement might not lie in creating overt advertisements—it might just be in how seamlessly you can integrate your product into content that feels natural and authentic.

This strategy, often referred to as subtle product integration, involves having influencers incorporate your product into their everyday content without a forced sales pitch, allowing it to feel like a genuine part of their routine.

This method capitalizes on the idea that consumers, especially those in the health and wellness space, are more likely to trust a product if they see it integrated into the daily lives of influencers they already trust. Instead of relying on influencers to create content around your product with a script or a clear call to action, let them use your product while doing what they do best: storytelling, sharing their journey, or showcasing their lifestyle.

This approach allows for organic visibility without disrupting the flow of the creator’s content.

Bloom Nutrition provides a perfect example of this strategy in action. Rather than pushing for influencers to create specific product-centric videos or pay for ads based solely on influencer reach, Bloom has taken a different route.

They’ve adopted a subtle product integration strategy by simply asking creators to keep making their regular content—but to use Bloom products while doing so. The beauty of this approach is that it allows influencers to stay true to their own voice, while also giving the brand visibility in an organic, unforced way.

The result is a more authentic, personal touch to the brand’s presence, as it becomes a part of the influencer’s daily life. This aligns perfectly with TikTok’s unique algorithm, where content is pushed to users based on interests rather than who’s posting it. TikTok’s For You Page thrives on fresh, engaging, and organic content—rather than highly polished, traditional ads—and Bloom is leveraging this to make sure they show up in front of more viewers.

@nobeefonlychicken these are in my opinion, specific to me😘✌️ @Bloom Nutrition #bloompartner ♬ Bossa Nova jazz that seems to fit in a cafe(1433079) - TAKANORI ONDA

The results speak for themselves. By integrating Bloom products into regular, non-salesy content, the brand has become a fixture in countless TikTok videos. The beauty of this approach is that the content doesn’t feel like an advertisement, which leads to higher engagement and trust from viewers. Since these videos show up naturally on users’ For You Pages, Bloom’s product doesn’t feel intrusive or sales-driven—it simply becomes a part of the conversation.

Key Takeaway: Let Influencers Do What They Do Best—And Just Integrate Your Product

If you want to replicate Bloom’s success, start by simplifying your influencer brief. Instead of overloading creators with requirements and expectations, focus on letting them share their natural experience with your product. Encourage them to use it in their everyday content—whether it's a fitness routine, a recipe, or a casual chat—and ensure they feel comfortable doing so without being scripted.

By allowing influencers to maintain their creative freedom, you’ll end up with content that feels authentic, relatable, and far more likely to engage their audience. Plus, when you pair this strategy with a smart paid media strategy (such as boosting these organic videos), your brand will organically reach more eyes—without feeling like an advertisement.

4. Leverage Evergreen Content

When most brands think about influencer marketing, they focus on one-off sponsored posts or brief partnerships designed to generate quick buzz. But for brands looking for sustained growth and engagement, a more strategic approach lies in leveraging evergreen content—content that remains relevant and continuously generates value over time. This can be particularly effective in industries like fitness and nutrition, where long-term brand loyalty and education are key to success.

The concept of evergreen content in influencer marketing revolves around ensuring that the content influencers create continues to serve the brand long after it's first published. Instead of treating a post as a one-time advertisement, the strategy is to make the content part of an ongoing conversation—encouraging influencers to create content that continually drives traffic and sales.

By integrating product mentions into a wide range of content that influencers continue to produce, you turn each video, post, or piece of content into an asset that generates value long after it goes live.

GFUEL, a brand positioned as "The Official Energy Drink of Esports," is a standout example of how to leverage evergreen content. The company has strategically partnered with YouTube gamers to integrate their product into ongoing content over long periods. Rather than relying on a series of one-off sponsored posts, GFUEL ensures that every video from a partnered influencer links back to their product with discount codes and special landing pages.

Here’s how GFUEL takes evergreen content to the next level:

• Long-Term Partnerships with Influencers: Instead of fleeting collaborations, GFUEL commits to long-term partnerships with gaming influencers. For instance, they've worked with ClintusTV since 2006, sponsoring every video on the channel. Over time, this has resulted in an enormous catalog of content (3,242 videos by May 2020) that all include GFUEL mentions.
• Linking Every Piece of Content: Every video produced by their influencer partners features a unique GFUEL link and discount code in the caption. This ensures that no matter when a user watches a video, they can easily access GFUEL’s product and promotional offers.
• Maximizing the Value of Back-Catalog Content: Since YouTube is an evergreen platform where old content can continue to gain views, GFUEL benefits from the longevity of each sponsored video. This continuous exposure—combined with the discount codes and direct links—drives both impressions and sales far beyond the initial partnership.
  

GFUEL’s approach has delivered remarkable results. Over the years, they’ve amassed 74 million impressions from 49,000 mentions through 214 influencer partnerships. The beauty of this strategy lies in its ability to keep generating value without requiring constant new content creation. The videos and content created years ago still drive traffic, sales, and brand visibility as new users discover the content, driving incremental results over time.

For Fitness & Nutrition brands, this strategy is particularly effective because it allows you to tap into the educational nature of the industry. For example, influencers can continuously educate their audiences about the benefits of your products, recommend how they integrate them into their daily routines, and create new content around your products over time. 

Key Takeaway: Build Evergreen Partnerships with Your Influencers

To replicate GFUEL’s success, focus on building long-term relationships with influencers rather than one-off collaborations. Work with influencers to ensure that all content they create includes tracking links and discount codes that lead back to your brand’s website. Over time, this can create a catalog of content that continually drives traffic and builds brand loyalty.

The key to maximizing the potential of evergreen content is ensuring that every piece of content—whether it's a product review, workout routine, or recipe—features a clear call to action that leads to your product, making it easier for consumers to act when they’re ready. 

5. Harness the Power of Education and Entertainment with Influencer Partnerships

To truly connect with your consumers, your campaigns should offer value—something that goes beyond product promotion and provides real insight or entertainment. One of the most effective strategies for achieving this is through educational and entertaining content, where influencers educate their followers about the benefits of your products while keeping the content engaging and fun.

This strategy works particularly well for fitness and nutrition brands because it allows you to target audiences with content that helps them meet their goals—whether that’s building muscle, increasing strength, or improving overall health. By leveraging trusted voices to not only promote products but also teach their followers how to use them effectively, you build credibility, trust, and long-term engagement.

Six Star Pro Nutrition, the #1 selling sports supplement brand in the U.S., is a great example of how educational and entertaining content can drive both awareness and sales. Looking to expand their reach and educate Americans about the benefits of their supplements, Six Star Pro Nutrition teamed up with 13 influencers from the fitness and professional athlete communities.

These influencers, ranging from macro to micro-level, helped communicate the value of Six Star’s products, particularly their pre- and post-workout supplements, to an engaged audience.

Instead of merely posting promotional content, these influencers created educational pieces explaining the science behind the products, how to incorporate them into daily fitness routines, and the tangible benefits of using them consistently. They shared personal stories about how Six Star Pro Nutrition helped them achieve their fitness goals, offering real-world advice about improving performance and muscle recovery.

In addition to the educational focus, the content was designed to be entertaining. Influencers incorporated Six Star products into engaging workout routines, challenge videos, and fitness tips. This combination of education and entertainment ensured that the content not only informed the audience but also kept them hooked and excited to learn more.

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The results were nothing short of impressive. Through this influencer campaign, Six Star Pro Nutrition reached over 1.6 million people across social media platforms. The blend of educational content, authenticity, and influencer relatability led to high engagement rates and increased trust in the brand.

By leveraging both macro and micro influencers, Six Star Pro Nutrition was able to target a wide range of fitness enthusiasts, from casual gym-goers to professional athletes, while keeping the messaging consistent and effective.

What made this campaign particularly successful was its focus on value-driven content. Rather than simply pushing a product, Six Star positioned itself as a brand that genuinely cares about helping people meet their fitness goals.

Key Takeaways: Combine Education with Entertainment for Lasting Engagement

If you want to apply this strategy to your own influencer marketing efforts, consider how you can combine educational content with entertaining elements. Instead of focusing purely on promoting the product, think about how you can educate your audience on how to use your product effectively to reach their fitness goals.

You could collaborate with influencers to create “how-to” content, tutorials, or workout challenges that integrate your products, making the learning process enjoyable. Remember, people are more likely to engage with content that not only teaches them something valuable but also keeps them entertained and inspired to take action.

By offering education through the voices of trusted influencers, you’ll create a more meaningful connection with your audience, leading to increased brand loyalty and higher conversion rates.

6. Combine UGC and Cross-Platform Influencer Partnerships

Another effective way to boost engagement and enhance brand credibility is by leveraging user-generated content (UGC) alongside cross-platform influencer partnerships. This strategy involves encouraging influencers to incorporate your products into their daily lives and share real, relatable content across multiple social media channels, ultimately creating a steady stream of content that feels natural and authentic.

When influencers create content that integrates your product into their real routines and experiences, it humanizes the brand and makes it more relatable to their audience. By reposting UGC, especially content related to healthy habits like morning routines or fitness achievements, you can tap into the authenticity of your influencers’ followers and create a sense of community.

The cross-platform element ensures that the content continues to reach different segments of the audience, enhancing visibility and engagement.

Athletic Greens is a prime example of how to effectively combine UGC with cross-platform influencer partnerships to build brand awareness and drive engagement. Instead of relying solely on traditional ads or sponsored posts, the brand has intentionally focused on using TikTok and Instagram influencers to integrate their products into organic content that feels more like part of the influencer’s daily life than a hard sell.

A standout campaign example involved working with Kate Glavan, a wellness and fitness influencer who shares content focused on sustainability, fitness, and healthy living. By allowing her to feature Athletic Greens as part of her authentic morning routine, the brand tapped into her established rapport with her audience.

Kate’s content wasn’t just product-centric; it was about her lifestyle, and Athletic Greens was seamlessly woven into that narrative. This resulted in massive engagement, with her TikTok video alone generating over 5.6 million views.

@kateglavanmanifesting spring in ALIGNE 💛🌼🧈♬ kiss me - mette

But what made this partnership even more successful was the cross-platform approach—Kate didn’t just share the content on TikTok; she also posted it on her Instagram, ensuring that her audience across both platforms was exposed to the product. This multi-channel exposure helped increase visibility and drive higher engagement rates across both platforms, proving the effectiveness of influencer content across multiple touchpoints.

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A post shared by kate glavan (@kateglavan)

In addition to influencer partnerships, Athletic Greens also leaned into UGC by reposting customer content that showcased their experiences with the product. Users shared their “green selfies,” morning routines, and unboxing moments, all of which felt incredibly personal and authentic.

The brand capitalized on this UGC by reposting it on their Instagram stories and integrating it into their paid campaigns. This approach not only increased engagement but also reinforced the brand’s authentic image, making it feel less like a corporate product and more like part of a real, everyday lifestyle.

The results of this strategy were substantial. The hashtag #athleticgreens on TikTok garnered over 86.8 million views, with #athleticgreenspartner reaching 39.9 million views. This surge in views was driven almost entirely by influencer content, which reached millions of potential customers. Furthermore, UGC played a significant role in increasing brand loyalty, as consumers felt more connected to the brand when their content was shared or reposted by Athletic Greens.

Additionally, Athletic Greens expanded its reach by sponsoring major podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience and The Tim Ferriss Show, spending over $2.7 million on podcast advertising in 2022. This move helped the brand access a broader audience, including listeners who might not have been reached through traditional social media channels.

Key Takeaway: Focus on Authenticity and Cross-Platform Consistency

To implement this strategy successfully for your own brand, focus on building relationships with influencers who align authentically with your brand values. Don’t just look for influencers with large followings; look for those whose content and lifestyle resonate with your target audience. Once you’ve partnered with influencers, encourage them to share content that integrates your product into their daily lives, ensuring it feels natural and non-promotional.

Next, make sure you’re reposting user-generated content that highlights real consumer experiences with your product. Engage with your customers and ask them to share their own moments with your brand through social media, perhaps incentivized by a giveaway or contest. Lastly, cross-post influencer content across multiple platforms (like TikTok and Instagram) to maximize exposure and increase engagement from a variety of audience segments.

By combining UGC with influencer partnerships across platforms, you can create a steady stream of authentic, relatable content that consistently engages your target audience and drives long-term brand loyalty.

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About the Author

Kalin Anastasov

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Kalin Anastasov plays a pivotal role as an content manager and editor at Influencer Marketing Hub. He expertly applies his SEO and content writing experience to enhance each piece, ensuring it aligns with our guidelines and delivers unmatched quality to our readers.