How To Stand Out As An Online Yoga Teacher
It's no secret that yoga teaching is becoming a saturated industry. And since the 2020 pandemic, more and more teachers have moved into the online space.
Teaching yoga online offers many benefits, from saving time to making more money. However, with so many platforms for teaching yoga and so many instructors providing online services, how do you stand out?
I taught yoga online during and after the pandemic and learned how to master this style of teaching. So whether you're just about to start teaching online or have been struggling with it for a while, I'm here to help. Here are 5 ways to stand out as an online yoga teacher, no matter how much experience you have.
Be Visible
Of course, becoming visible is the most essential step to standing out online. This means choosing where to market and host your offerings and ensuring yogis can find you there.
While Zoom was the go-to platform for teaching yoga classes a few years ago, there are many more options today. You'll find dedicated platforms where you can host and advertise your classes, run membership programs, and build a library of on-demand content.
Many of these platforms, such as Momoyoga also manage the scheduling and payment of your offerings, allowing you to focus solely on what you do best. Alternatively, some yoga teachers prefer managing all aspects themselves and choose to teach on Facebook and Instagram Live.
As a result, they are much more likely to continue practicing with you as they see the value in what you offer.
Show Your Personality
Once you figure out how you will be visible online, the next step is to infuse your personality into it. This is easy to do on social media and your own website. However, if using yoga platforms to host your classes or videos, you might be limited in how much of your personal style you can add.
Luckily though, as online yoga teaching is evolving, more personalization options are becoming available. For example, Momoyoga recently added a feature called "Teacher View" to their online booking software. It's a new appearance in the account that revolves around the individual yoga teacher, helping them make their unique personality stand out.
With this new feature, you'll have more than a page where yogis can book your classes. It also serves as your own online studio and a place where you, as a teacher and yogi, can feel at home and share your uniqueness with the world.
How does it work? Momoyoga’s Teacher view allows you to display your upcoming classes, videos, and pricing from one place. You can upload your logo and photo, write a short introduction about yourself, and utilize the many customization options such as hiding or reordering specific sections. This not only makes you stand out from other teachers, but it allows yogis to see your personality and learn who you are.
Create A Sense Of Community
Many yoga teachers feel that online teaching lacks the community feel of in-person classes. However, this doesn't have to be the case, as there are ways that you can recreate community in the virtual world.
One way I do this is by hanging around online for a few minutes after class, giving my yogis a chance to chat or ask questions, as I would in a studio setting. As a practitioner, I've always found it a little off-putting when the teacher rushes off straight after class, both in-person and online.
However, whenever a teacher stays around to ask how I found the class, it makes me feel seen and valued. Thus, I always want to give my students that same feeling, and they greatly appreciate it.
One reason doing this is important is that many students won't speak up in class if they don't understand something. Usually, this is because they don't want to interrupt you or disturb the class flow.
Thus, creating a dedicated time to ask questions allows students to voice their concerns and better understand things, significantly improving their practice.
If you want to take it further, you can market your classes as "yoga and chat" sessions. For example, you can do a 45-minute practice followed by a 15-minute tea time.
Check In With Your Students After Class
When I first started teaching in-person yoga at studios, I would only communicate with my students when they were in front of me before, after, and during class. Then, after a while, I started building my email list, so I would ask my students for their details.
This significantly changed the relationship I had with my students. I was no longer just someone they would see and speak with once a week. Instead, now I would send regular newsletters to them revisiting topics from recent classes, giving updates, and generally checking in with how they were doing.
The great thing about online teaching is that you get a student's email address as soon as they sign up for their first class. Thus, to stand out among all the other yoga teachers online, I recommend using this to your advantage by building a relationship with them beyond the virtual studio.
With their consent, you can send check-in emails after class asking how they found the session and if they experienced any challenges. You can also share further information or resources about what you taught during the session.
When teachers cultivate regular communication like this, their yogis' experience is much more profound and transformational. As a result, they are much more likely to continue practicing with you as they see the value in what you offer.
Let Go of Perfectionism
One thing that will hinder your success with online teaching is wanting everything to go flawlessly. For example, if you're filming a pre-recorded class and you mess up a cue or lose your balance, you'll likely be tempted to start over. However, I really recommend not doing it.
Online classes, whether live or pre-recorded, feel much more authentic when there are a few flaws, just like in an in-person session.
Online yoga teaching should be about recreating that human connection of in-person classes. So what would you do if you messed up in a studio class? You'd likely laugh it off, joke about it, and then carry on. This is exactly what you should do when teaching or filming online classes too.
Final Thoughts On How To Stand Out As An Online Yoga Teacher
Starting out teaching yoga online can feel overwhelming initially. While it offers enormous potential for your reach and income, standing out in the mammoth space of the web can take time and effort.
By following these tips, you can get a head start and build your new virtual community of yogis in no time!
