Still not convinced?
For those of us who are health & fitness professionals, blogs can be an inexpensive method of marketing our services and learning what our clients need in an effort to better serve them. A blog allows professionals to build credibility by establishing themselves as experts in the fitness industry. Similarly, fitness facilities can utilize blogging for the purposes of client acquisition and customer service. Featuring special programs, highlighting outstanding members, employees, or facility features, and allowing customers to provide feedback is an excellent strategy that could ultimately enhance any facility.

Blogging in the fitness industry is currently a differentiation strategy. Sure Biray and I have found social media being used in various fitness-related forms, but a consistent trend has emerged...more of the consumers of our services and expertise are participating in this type of correspondence than those of us who are providing the information. Simply put, this discrepancy creates a marketing opportunity, for you!

Just BLOG it!

Although neither the concepts nor tools of social media are necessarily new, utilizing these tools is new to me (I guess I’ve been so consumed with completing my masters thesis, I failed to recognize the world was evolving around me? I’m back….and ready to blog). Over the past few months I have been researching and experimenting with different social media tools and how they are used. Although I was instantly intrigued, I must admit it is easy to become overwhelmed (don’t feel bad you are not alone - let my experience…or lack thereof, help)!

Where to begin?
Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog. Did I mention blog? That’s what we’ve done. It’s simple, effective, and fun! Plus, there are more than 57 million blogs to date. Why shouldn’t you have one?

What is a blog?
Short for web log, a blog is an easily updatable website designed to allow users to interact with it. To my surprise, blogs are more than an online journal allowing individuals to share their opinions, thoughts, perspective, and experiences. Although there is nothing wrong with a blog that does just that, this tool, from a business or professional perspective creates a ‘human connection’ with competitors, distributors, suppliers, not to mention customers.

Do you have specific questions concerning social media? Let us know!

Who's Coming to IDEA!!

The brochures for IDEA World have arrived and the excitement is brewing!

All the sessions sound fantastic, the presenters are phenomenal, and choices will be endless!

Ah, decisions, decisions!

Who's coming!?

Introduction: Lyndsi

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears

It's a world of hopes

And a world of fears

There's so much that we share

That it's time we're aware

It's a small world after all….

The wonderful world of social media has put a new spin on the phrase “It’s a small world.” The advent of social media has allowed people all over the world to forge new relationships (nearly 60 million blogs exist to date!).

Health and Fitness meet Social Media, Social Media meet Health and Fitness -
With the adoption of this technology by health & fitness professionals, the world can become a fitness studio. I look forward to sharing laughter, tears, hopes, and fears with you not only through this blog but at the 2007 IDEA World Fitness Conference in San Diego! Our challenge to you will be to celebrate 25 years of fitness by taking the opportunity to connect with your clients/participants in a new medium. Our session is designed to equip you with the means to do so!

Introduction: Be Fit With Biray

I thought it might be nice to introduce myself in hopes of establishing a familiar connection with you prior to arriving at IDEA. This way, if we come across one another in the halls of the convention center, we can enthusiastically reminisce about how we met online! LOL.

Below is a peek at my fascination with social media and internet trends...

I remember back in 1994 (when AOL was barely hitting a mainstream audience), I convinced my dad to let me have my first email address! Still in high school at the time, I found this to be a victory in favor of my independence towards connecting to the ‘outside’ world. Unfortunately, my connection was short lived because none of my friends had email accounts back then (nor even knew what AOL was!)

Needless to say, things have come a long way since then.

Cut to 1999: post-college, fresh 20-something fitness professional struggling to find work in Los Angeles. It was a time when web-based technology was evolving to where even the average person with limited technical expertise could create an online presence.

So, that's what I did.

I first explored the idea of using listservs to create a community for over 60 L.A.-based fitness instructors requesting subs for their classes. It effectively eliminated hours of phone calls and avoided the mass-email approach to finding subs. Essentially, instructors would post a sub request online and all instructors subscribing to the listserv would get the post. Simple.

On October 25, 1999, I created “AerobicsInstructorsTalk” on Yahoo!Groups (which is still active today with over 400 members). And eventually, (like so many people) I jumped on the internet 'bandwidth' and created my first official website (http://www.befitwithbiray.com/) which (to my amazement) is still operational today.

Today, email and websites are said to be 'old-school' - can you believe that? Words like wikis, blogs/vlogs, podcasts/vodcasts and virtual communities are part of the current vernacular. How to integrate these social media tools within the fitness industry is just the fun part...