Granite Fitness Blog’s Review Of 2015

Greetings to all subscribers, followers, readers and guests of the Granite Fitness Blog, clients of the Granite Fitness programmes and digital books, and customers of the newly launched Granite Fitness Store. I trust that this finds you well and that you have benefitted from your exposure to the world of Granite Fitness.

Oh how time flies, hasn’t it? Granite Fitness first started with a vague vision in late 2014, and here we stand in 2016 with dozens of successful weight-loss clients, hundreds of fanatic followers, and thousands that have come across the blog and read one or more of the articles. And the number keeps on growing by the day too!

You are probably anticipating that first blog post of the year will cover the topic of New Year Resolutions briefly. However, this is not quite the case because this topic will be covered in more detail in the coming weeks. I’m sure you are looking forward to that one. Be patient, young grasshopper, because it will come, and you will be duly notified about it as long as you are an active subscriber.

Although the Granite Fitness Blog wing of the Granite Fitness world is mainly active as nothing more than a hobby blog, our team recently put out a recent survey to a random sample of subscribers from this blog as well as some of our existing clients and customers from the Granite Fitness website and the online store. So it would be fitting for us to announce some interesting findings.

However, before we proceed, we have to be clear that this is just a couple of observations. We did not do comprehensive statistical analyses because, after all, this is only a hobby blog. We also should declare that the methods used are not free from biases, especially because our clients and customers were disproportionate represented in this sample. I mean, hey, any honest business will tell you that current customers will always receive priority treatment, right?

Here are a few of the findings:

Granite Fitness’ strong points:

One: The Content

The feedback received indicated that the respondents generally liked the content that is presented on the Granite Fitness Blog. In fact, they were appreciative of the fact that most of the content was original, albeit having inspiration from different sources. They appreciated and recognised the hard work involved with coming up with this.

Two: The Article Balance

Respondents indicated that there was a good balance of fitness, health and interest-based articles. This follows a strong shift from the editors moving from a strictly “weight loss” perspective towards a more holistic “health-based” blog with also covers mental health.

Three: The Digital Products

The E-books provided as part of the Granite Fitness packages were described as being authentic, simple to follow, and having a very personal voice. This, of course, made sense because it was written by a real person with firsthand experience, and not stolen from some internet forums or anything like that.

Four: The Recommended Products

Readers appreciated the product recommendations at the end of most articles. Some of them have purchased these products and are making progress with their weight loss goals. They have cited that Granite Fitness is unselfish for recommending other products that can be used in conjunction with their own programmes for increased effectiveness.

Five: The Social Media Engagement

Although most of the contents on the blog are solely presented on the blog itself, respondents are appreciative of the fact that Granite Fitness has a Facebook and Twitter page which would notify them whenever a new article is up. This also allows them to decide whether or not they are interested in the topic from its title.

Six: Look And Feel Of The Blog

This point is only relevant to those who have followed Granite Fitness from the beginning. A few respondents noted the change in theme and layout of the blog earlier this year. The original theme was MioMio, but a switch was made to the Point theme around the middle of the year. The only notable differences were that the columns of Point where more narrow and neater, and that the Point theme does not have an image slider on the home page.

Points To Improve Upon, And What We Will Do About Them:

One: The Frequency Of The Posts

Subscribers have indicated that the frequency of blog posts is a little bit higher than what they would have liked. Understandably, this is more so for those who have subscribed using Jetpack as opposed to subscribers of the Broadfast weekly digest. As a result, from 2016 onwards, we intend to only release one or two blog posts a week as opposed to 2015’s three to four.

Two: Lack Of Physical Products Being Promoted Or Sold

Although digital products are great, some readers would like to see some recommendations for physical products. Prior to this survey, the only physical products sold by Granite Fitness are resistance and yoga bands. We responded to this desire by opening up the Granite Fitness Online Store. Furthermore, we will be committed to introducing more physical products on our blog posts from 2016 onwards.

Three: Video Podcasts

It seems like the video podcasts listed on the YouTube channel was not that much of a hit to blog readers. While it was a bit of a disappointment, it was to be expected as the surveys were conducted on blog readers and not channel viewers. Some people prefer reading, while others learn better by listening, right? Nevertheless, production of the video podcasts will resume.

Interesting Findings:

One: Typos And Broken Image Links Are Okay

Readers did not seem to mind typos, grammatical errors and broken image links on blog posts. This was probably because they understood that the Granite Fitness Blog is run as a hobby by volunteers, with some of the articles being original. Having a few mistakes here and there is part of the beauty of having a blog and keeps it personal.

Two: One Four Three Seven

Out of those who answered the relevant questions, respondents reported visiting the Granite Fitness Blog once in every four days. They also read only one of three articles in full, which makes sense because they self-selected the articles to read. However, only one in seven had ever written a comment on the blog. Only one in five respondents had ever shared a Granite Fitness Blog article on their social media.

Three: Femme Power

From the analytics by Google, 75% of the active readers on the Granite Fitness Blog are women, even though over half of those who ‘liked’ the Facebook page were men. Just like the blog, the majority of Twitter followers are also women. For some reason, quite a lot of YouTube subscribers are ‘gamers’.

Did you find the statistics interesting? And do you think it reflects your current opinion on the various aspects of the Granite Fitness Blog? We’d love to hear your feedback so that we can make our readers happier. Apart from that, we’d like to thank you for reading the articles and we hope you continue to enjoy our content.

Mark