Your yoga studio has a Facebook page and it sucks.

I know this isn’t a news flash, but for all of the energy you put into building a community, you should have an amazing Facebook presence, right? What is missing? You!

The community is only as strong as its weakest link—as the leader of your community, you have to lead by example. Think about your yoga practice and how you teach.

What inspires your students to be the best version of themselves possible? What makes your students trust you enough to try a handstand or find stillness in Shavasana? The magic you create in class, must be created on Facebook as well.

Below are three easy tips for inspiring your community on Facebook!

1. Start using Facebook personally. Get real and share what is going on in your life. When you hold back, you hold everybody back. While we like to call Facebook “The All Positive News Network,” in reality, your personal shit inspires us. When you white wash your status updates, you make it impossible to connect with you on a deeper level. Share all aspects of your life and your community will respond. You may lose a few friends who can’t handle the real you, the sooner the better.

2. Balance The Flow. Just like your yoga class has an ebb and flow, your yoga studio’s Facebook Status updates must have an ebb and flow. Vary the content from “come to this workshop” to “just another inspiring self-help quote” to “teaching point 101—releasing your gluteus maximus muscles in forward bend will deepen your stretch” to “What is your opinion of this semi-controversial question” to Pictures and Videos! Posting 3 times a week is the new minimum! If your posts are great, they will get liked and commented on. If they are mindless pandering, they will be ignored. The world of Facebook is fickle and over-saturated with content. Some of you will need a publishing schedule, others simply need an iPhone or iPad so it is easy for you to engage with technology.

3. Pictures. If you have as many yoga friends as I do on Facebook, you see a lot of yoga pictures. It is easier today than ever before to take photos and share them on Facebook. Find a photographer in your community and pay them to take photos once a month and share a few every week. These can be photos taken in class, studio shots, clowning around in yoga poses, pictures from members of your community on vacation, the yoga retreat you sponsored and whatever else you see! Last but not least, put awesome quotes in the captions of the pictures on Facebook—maybe even a link to your FB page. This will make your Facebook pictures a lot more sharable. Let the people who don’t have a business to build waste their time pinning pictures on Pinterest. You need to build a community, not a pinboard!

Editor: Brianna Bemel