There’s a movement of food lovers cooking up something flavorful and fresh. Dubbed “Generation Fresh,” this movement isn’t an age group, but a state of mind. It’s a commitment to eating better on your own terms by making meals at home, because home cooking is inherently healthier and often more delicious. That’s why McCormick, a global leader in flavor, is celebrating Generation Fresh and inspiring people to make more healthful meals at home with the help of flavorful herbs and spices. Read the rest of Another Chance for a McCormick Prize Pack!»»

If you didn’t know, FitBloggin’ Speaker positions are on a volunteer basis.

It was Winston Churchill who said,

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

For FitBloggin’11, in lieu of speaker gifts, we decided to give ourselves and pay our speakers’ kindness forward.

A donation was made in the name of the FitBloggin’11 Speakers to Shape Up America.

Shape Up America is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to educate the public on the importance of achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight through the adoption of increased physical activity and healthy eating.

FitBloggin’ shares this mission. We also believe that through technology, blogging and social media we can inspire and foster a culture of health and wellness.

Today we received this… Read the rest of A Thank You from Shape Up America!»»

It is now officially a FitBloggin’ tradition to squish all the attendees into a group photo. This year we did it after the keynote address on Saturday so we lost quite a few folks but it’s still a fabulous pic of the troopers.

All the photos from the official FitBloggin’ Photographer, Carrie D, are available on Flickr. We have them separated in sets by day. Read the rest of Official FitBloggin’11 Photos are Posted!»»

FitBloggin’11 is officially over BUT we get to relive it all through your posts! Please leave links to recaps below.

We are also working on getting the official conference photos posted to facebook so everyone can tag themselves! More soon.

Monica Olivas of  http://runeatrepeat.com/ presented “Blogging 101 – Breaking into health and fitness blogging.”
Her presentation is here.

Click here for the webinar

This talk applies to WordPress, tumblr, blogger, etc.
Free blogging platforms offer your space  as a subdomain, such as YOUR-NAME.wordpress.com. Check to make sure your domain is available if moving to self hosting. It’s also a good idea to get your blog name on each platform, such as blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, etc. – even if you aren’t going to actively use them.
WIndows Live Writer is great for writing content offline. You can save links to things that you use a lot, which saves time.

Use Feedburner – it helps people follow you by making it easy.

Question: “What do I blog about?” Read the rest of LiveBlog: Blogging 101 – Breaking into health and fitness blogging»»

Jennette Fulda Make My Blog Pretty

Slides are here – with many links.

Ms. Fulda is an experienced Web designer who helps improve their blogs. Also – she sometimes gets a little splotchy and it’s nothing to be alarmed about.

What is good Web design? Read the rest of LiveBlog: Design 101 – Simple tips to Build a Better Blog»»

You don’t BRAND yourself once and call it done – you refine, revamp and return to your brand with every post. Think, “if this were the day that The New York Times/Oprah Winfrey/my grandmother saw my blog, would it fulfill my mission statement?”

Branding: Not Just For the Big Dogs, presented by Katy Widrick and Jess Milcetich, covered these topics and left attendees with a to-do list of easy, yet effective changes you can make immediately to build your brand, increase your readership, make yourself more accessible to media and better connect with your community.

Read the rest of Liveblog | Branding: Not Just For the Big Dogs»»

Session was formed partially in response to the Marie Clare article that bashed fitness bloggers as little more that woefully misguided obsessive compulsives.  Please not the author of that article had an eating disorder herself because it seemed she picked and choose information to fit an agenda she was on.  Even though that article was a hyperbole of an inaccurate situation it did help set the platform for the question regarding what responsibilities do bloggers have to their readers and themselves.

The panel was moderated by @LisaJohnson and attended by herself and @MizFitOnline and @CarrotsandCake who had intimate knowledge of the Marie Clare incident even though she is an expert on herself type of blogger. Read the rest of Blogger Responsibility – Live Blogging»»

Do you know how long people are on your site? Can you tell a potential advertiser the percentage of traffic clicks through to the outgoing links you write about? Or, how many people tried to fill out your contact me form and failed? Scott Stawarz of octavity.com, simpleweight.com, and Scott.Stawarz.com answers these questions and more during this session. Read the rest of Live Blog | Know Your Stats: Mining Your Website Analytics to Improve Your Blog»»

The Ditch The Diet: Eat Intuitively panel, Karen C.L Anderson of Before & After: A Real Life Story, Katie Heddleston of Healthy Heddleston, Christie Inge of Nourishing Circle and Shauna Reid of The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, is all about introducing you to an alternative view.

Read the rest of LiveBlog/Ditch The Diet: Eat Intuitively»»

Does Fit Blogging have to be serious? According to the panel, the answer is a resounding NO!

From the satire of Jack Sh*t, the raw honesty of Operation Shrink Charlie’s Big Butt, or the snark of MrsFatass, each participant on this panel has their own way of using humor to share their story. This session will deal with keeping ideas fresh, finding inspiration, and allowing even the most serious of messages to come through with a laugh.

Read the rest of Liveblog/Finding the Humor in It: Growing Your Blog One Laugh at a Time»»

Welcome to the liveblog of Fitbloggin’11 panel:  Move to Self Hosting: Everything you need to know to make the switch.

Have you been blogging with WordPress and Blogger, but are ready to move over to your own domain?

Or are you ready to take the big leap from the very start?

Join Gina Wright of fitblogr.com for the presentation Move to Self Hosting: Everything you need to know to make the switch, and learn to do just that! Read the rest of Live Blog | Move to Self Hosting: Everything you need to know to make the switch»»

Ben Teal discusses what if you could create curiosity and evoke enthusiasm and emotion with social media?

How do you create community and facilitate a following?

Read the rest of LiveBlog/Social Media 101: It’s A Jungle Out There»»

This session covers some basic (ethical) search engine optimization practices you can implement right away, to help search engines find you when potential readers search on the terms you wish to rank for.

But once you start getting all that traffic, the question becomes “What do you do with it?” This session covers that too.

Thanks for Matt of NoMeatAthlete.com for a great session.
Read the rest of Live Blog | SEO for Fitness Bloggers»»

Do you know how video can help your blog??  The Sky’s the limit with tips from Jendi Pagano.

The statistics are exciting and are waiting for you to leverage them!!

-          People communicate 7% by words and 55% by body language.

-          People retain 10% of what they read and 20% of they hear and 50% of what they read and hear.

-          Video gives a 53% better chance of being on first on a google search with video

-          52% of people that watch a video will take action after watching it – remember to have a call to action

Are you interested in adding video to your blog or creating a new community from video? Read the rest of Live Blog: Vlogging 101 Break into Video Blogging»»