Fittness Blogging With Lisa Johnson
July 17, 2011
I connected with Lisa Johnson on twitter and started chatting about doing an interview here on the PR Communications blog. I'm glad I did because I learned some things about the fitness blogging community, I would have never learned. That's one of the fascinating things about different blogging communities on the web, everyone is different, and you can always learn something from each one.
John: What’s the current size of the fitness blogging community?
Lisa: I get 100,000 page views per month and almost 14,000 uniques, so I have a lot of repeat readers.
John: What different types of bloggers do you see in the community?
Lisa: Health & Fitness bloggers really are a broad spectrum, there are other fitness professionals like me, a good smattering of nutritionists, and a lot of life coaches too. The majority of bloggers in my niche though are just regular people trying to live healthier lives by sharing their stories with others. Lots of great stories there.
John: Can you describe the different types of bloggers by talking about a few of the community members? Perhaps their personalities, and what they write about? Maybe talk about your own content strategy?
Lisa: LeavingFatville is great, she is on her own personal weight loss journey and is a Mom down in Atlanta. I like Fitarella too, she just got her nutritionist credentials and is now working on a yoga certification. She works so hard to acquire information and is passing it on to her readers/viewers (she vlogs too) all the time. I'm also a fan of Stephanie Arango, she just completed 50 marathons in 50 states and is one of the youngest to ever do it. Her final marathon was Boston this past April and that was really inspiring. Now she's focusing on ultras ...
John: What social media technologies and how does the community use social media to build and maintain relationships?
Lisa: There is one group of people on Facebook and another one on Twitter. They are definitely in clumps. I talk to both groups depending on my milieu. I do like the twitter chats. I am one of the pros on the Sears fitness chat on Wednesday nights at 8:30 pm #fitstudio and it's a great group of people all trying to live healthier lives. Pretty cool.
John: Is commenting still prevalent in the community. How does twitter influence the community? What about Facebook?
Lisa: I average 10 comments per post overall. Some of my topics have gone over 60 which to me is huge! I would never read that far down a comment list to see what people had to say unless it were my own blog, lol. But people definitely find their niche and get their followers going. We are a caring community so I think we might comment more than other types of niches.
John: Tell me about FitBloggin, what’s the history to the event, and its role in bringing community members together?
Lisa: FitBloggin has happened 2 years in a row now. The first year it was about 225 people and this past year (last month) it was 350 people. Tons and tons of bloggers are sharing their weight loss journeys but there were a lot of "professionals" like me there too. I'd say the ratio was about 90% life journey / 10% some sort of professional relationship.
The sponsors sold out and included Sears, ArcticEase, some food companies, New Balance (one of two repeat sponsors) etc. The conference itself was a combination of workouts (sponsors demo-ing new equipment) and speakers (I spoke about blogger responsibility) but there were topics ranging from how to get better SEO to writing compelling copy. It's a lot of fun and I'll definitely go again.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any follow up questions. :-)
John: Thanks Lisa!