Fitness, Business, Fitness Business, & Achieving Life Goals

Social media sites have have expanded the internet’s reach and given us access to large numbers of people from all over the world where we can connect, discuss issues, and actually make friends (real friends, not simply “friends” or followers). And, if we want to have some great discussions, there are groups that can be formed on sites like Facebook, Ning, and Google.

My personal preference for professional discussions is LinkedIn. LinkedIn, by nature, is a more professionally oriented site. It doesn’t have the flash of videos and pictures that other social media site have and, while it now does allow status updates, it remains more clean cut and business-like. Since I (and hopefully you) have already made professional connections on LinkedIn, it also makes it easier to invite them to join your group.

LinkedIn has many groups that already exist for the health/fitness professional and you should join some that interest you, see what you like, and what could be improved upon. I joined some that seemed to be focused on the topics I was hoping to discuss, but they all seemed to lose that focus as time went on. Too many members used the audience to market themselves and/or their products to the point that any real discussions were difficult to find.

This is why I recommend starting your own group. You are then in control of what the focus of the group is, who joins, and what content is allowed. You can set up the rules for your group. (but you also need to enforce them.)

Let me walk you through how to set up a group. Click here to get started: LinkedIn. You will be asked to:

Upload a logo. If you have one, great! If not, at least throw the group name on a solid color picture file and use that. It at least shows that you made some effort. (That’s all I did.)

Add the group name: Make sure the name reflects what the group is about or who you’re trying to attract.

Choose the group type: probably networking or professional, but you make the call.

Summary: Add a brief summary about what the group is about and why someone would want to join it

Description: Here’s where you can get into detail about the group’s goal/purpose

Website: Unless you have a website relating directly to the group’s needs, I wouldn’t add one

Access: This is a big one for me. The choices are Auto-Join (anyone can join at any time) and Request to Join (you are the gatekeeper and need to approve requests). I recommend selecting Request to Join. I want to know who everyone is that wants to join my group. I don’t decline access often, but I like seeing where they are from and what their background is. It’s not that time consummingeither. I have group on LinkedIn for Fitness Entrepreneurs which has over 1200 members and I added them one by one. – Either way, once you get your group set up, go to the Manage tab and down to templates. Take a moment and set up an auto-response welcome message that also includes the group rules. It will save a lot of headaches.

As for the section in gray, what you allow done in promotion of your group, unless you want a very small select group, I would check all. Allow any and all promotion of your group.

Language: You pick it… I’m going with English.

Location: If you are the New York Personal Trainers group, you’d want to state your location. I’m personally shooting for the world, so I left this blank.

Twitter Announcement: By all means tweet’em if you got’em

Yes and you must agree to the ”Terms of Service” so check the box

Finally, do you want an Open Group or Members Only Group? Well, here’s my thought on that. Open Groups allow anyone to see the content. Members Only means that content can be seen by….. you guessed it, members only. Now while I like sharing information and seeing the content might get some people to join the group, most people don’t participate in the conversations, they just read them. If they just read them and don’t join, I have no idea if they are there at all. They are ghosts to me. I’d rather have them join the group and know who’s out there. So, my group is a Members Only.

I hope this wasn’t too long and dry for you. I don’t usually give step-by-step posts.

I’ve had some real business ideas come out of my group and I think you will find groups to be well worth your time and effort. Give it a try. I’d love your feedback and to hear about your group (existing or planned). Please tell us about it in comments below.