Are you on Twitter and Instagram? Let us know how you're inspiring fitness by tagging your posts with #inspiringfitness. Also, be sure to follow us at twitter.com/ideafit and instagram.com/ideafit!
A primary goal of IDEA FitnessConnect is to increase transparency within the fitness industry, so we decided to conduct a survey to see if verifying certifications has had any impact on false certification claims. What we found was that since the August 2010 launch of IDEA FitnessConnect, the number of fitness professionals who claim to be certified—but who actually are not—has decreased to 36%, which represents a 20% improvement.
In addition to increasing fitness certification transparency, IDEA FitnessConnect has doubled since launch the number of fitness professionals listed to over 250,000. It has also increased its certification verifying partners to more than 150, making it the single-most complete and comprehensive directory for health and fitness professionals in the U.S.
Since launching in 2010, over 3 million searches for fitness professionals have been made on IDEA FitnessConnect and 40,000 new client leads have been delivered to the listed fitness professionals. IDEA FitnessConnect is now ranked eighth in health and fitness–related sites on the web according to Alexa Internet.
Update your IDEA FitnessConnect profile here: http://www.ideafit.com/fitnessconnect/signup/pro
We're very excited to announce FitFeed! Every day thousands of fitness and wellness professionals share content with their friends and clients. FitFeed aggregates the most popular content from posts on Facebook, Twitter and IDEA's Client Share and delivers the top 10 things you should know today to form the best social media hub for fitness professionals. You can access FitFeed by going to: www.ideafit.com/fitfeed
Let us know what you think of FitFeed in the comments section!
Want to display your accomplishments on your website or blog? We just released a new badge so that you can show off your FitnessConnect credentials! You can access it by logging in and going to your private profile page. You'll see a link on the left-hand side of the page underneath your Statistics Summary that says "Create Profile Badge". Simply copy and paste the code provided into the html of your site to view the badge. Get started by logging in at www.ideafit.com/fitnessconnect
Have questions? Email us at fitnessconnect@ideafit.com
Have you connected your FitnessConnect profile to your Facebook and Twitter accounts yet? If not now is the time! IDEA FitnessConnect is about to get much more social. We will soon be rolling out a new section of www.ideafit.com called FitFeed. Keep an eye out for it later this month!
We have a new challenges & contests section on ideafit.com! We will feature the latest health & fitness challenges in this section so that you can get involved and participate. And did we mention the prizes? By participating in these challenges, you'll be eligible to win lots of prizes from great fitness companies.
Access the challenges & contests section here: http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-challenges. Have fun!
- IDEA FitnessConnect Team
Editors note: The following is a guest post by Kelli Davis, Social Media/Web Products Manager at IDEA Health & Fitness Assocation.
1. Don't just post about yourself. Your Facebook fans want you to engage with them, not just talk about yourself. You can post about your Boot Camp or yoga class, but be sure to also ask your fans questions and encourage them to comment on your posts. Not only will more people see your page this way because of Facebook's ranking algorithm, EdgeRank, but they will also be more likely to look forward to seeing updates from you.
2. Monitor your Facebook fan page regularly. The Admin Panel at the top of your page gives you useful information about your page's activity. You'll see who liked and commented on your page recently (be sure to respond to comments!), the new people who have liked your page, any private messages you've received, and specific numbers on how each one of your posts are doing. These analytics include how many people your posts reach, the number of users engaged with your posts, how many people are talking about them, and their virality.
3. Mix it up. Be sure to post a variety of updates on your page. Do your clients like motivational quotes? Great! Feel free to post those quotes, but also sprinkle in other information. Some examples include linking to health & fitness articles, posting photos, asking fitness questions or fill in the blank questions, or giving advice on how to stay on track with their goals.
4. Consider offering a discount. Recent research has shown that the biggest motivator for liking a brand on Facebook is to get access to promotions/discounts. Think about running a promotion that offers a discount on a training session or class that you host. Check out this infographic for more fascinating information about how consumers interact with brands: http://mashable.com/2012/09/24/facebook-brand-page-value/
5. Give as much information as possible. Be sure to include your facility's address, hours, description, phone number, and website on your page. You'll also want to update your cover photo regularly and claim your vanity URL. Your vanity URL is the URL that you give out that will go directly to your page (for example, IDEA's is www.facebook.com/ideafit). Facebook allows you to claim your vanity URL once 25 or more people like your page.
Bonus Tip! A recent study from Buddy Media‘s “Strategies for Effective Wall Posts: A Timeline Analysis", found that posting between 8 pm and 7am got a 14% higher interaction than those published between 8 am and 7 pm. In addition, posts on Sunday got the most interaction, while posts on Wednesday got the least interaction. This doesn't necessarily mean that it will be true for your audience though. Test out posting at different times and days and monitor your likes, comments and shares to see which posts do the best.
Good luck!
Kelli Davis
P.S. Want to see more social media posts on the IDEA FitnessConnect blog? Let us know in the comments!
If you're reading this, you probably already use IDEA FitnessConnect to separate yourself from the crowd and get new leads. But have you filled out your whole profile? Does it say 100% complete at the top of your account page? If not, now is the time to fill it out!
We want to encourage you to put your best foot forward, so in a few months we are going to start giving perks to fitness pros who have their profiles 100% filled out. Be on the look out for an email from us letting you know all the great benefits of being in the 100% Club!
At the 2012 IDEA World Fitness Convention in July, attendees were introduced to the new Client Challenges tool powered by ChallengeLoop. With this tool, fitness professionals can challenge their clients to achieve their health and fitness goals while having fun at the same time! To show how the tool works, IDEA challenged all attendees in the Expo Hall to take the TRX® S.T.A.R. Challenge. The challenge consists of a series of 7 exercises involving the TRX Suspension Trainer™, TRX Rip™ Trainer, and a Kettlebell.
Everyone who went through the challenge got a goodie bag and the two lucky grand prize winners (Shelly Graham & Kevin Cross) got prizes from sponsors including IDEA, TRX®, Subway®, Reebok®, SPRI®, and G Series FIT®. Check out the full challenge here: http://www.challengeloop.com/challenge/2caeun
- IDEA FitnessConnect Team
P.S. IDEA is hosting another challenge right now called the "IDEA Inspire Photo Challenge". The winner receives an iPad and free 2013 IDEA World Registration! Take the challenge now: http://www.challengeloop.com/idea-inspire
