Julie Maloney
803/937-
Julie@
The Cool Mom Guide to Fitness
Website & Forums
www.coolmomguide.com
FEBRUARY 1, 2009 - WII FIT MOMMIES CONTINUE TO DRAW ATTENTION
When Julie Maloney posted her personal weight loss story on her blog, Cool Mom Guide (http://www.coolmomguide.com/
"I am the last person to think you could actually lose weight playing video games, but I did it. I live for my Wii Fit. When I travel out of town and can't be with it, I do the exercises from memory or play as a guest on someone else's. For the first time in years, I weigh less than my husband," says Julie Maloney.
Passionate about helping other women achieve their weight loss goals, Julie decided to join forces with three other blogging mommies to create the The Cool Mom Guide to Fitness by the Wii Fit Mommies (www.coolmomguide.com)
The four Wii Fit Mommies come from all over the U.S. and each are bloggers and mothers. They met up on a popular micro-blogging site, Twitter (www.twitter.com)
The founding Mommies are:
Julie Maloney - SC
www.CoolMomGuide.com
Cynthia Werry - CA
www.TheGoodEnoughWitch.com
Jenn Hethcoat - KS
www.TheCouponCoup.com
Sarah Pinnix - NC
www.RealLifeBlog.net
The Cool Mom Guide to Fitness site includes weekly Fitness Friday posts written by both the Wii Fit Mommies and members of our forum (http://www.coolmomguide.com/
Parenthood is not a requirement to be a participant in the Cool Mom Guide to Fitness website and forums. It was simply created by four Mothers who welcome all to join in to better themselves. Men are also invited (Check out the "Daddies" section of the forum).
Thus far the WFMs have held two very successful Twitter parties, a virtual online "party" during which participants sent messages or "Tweets" to engage in chat. Hundreds participate in the these popular live events and socialize with likeminded people while winning great prizes donated to the Mommies by great companies to "reward" participants for their continued support and determination. The next Twitter party will be held on Friday 2/13/09 from 8-10PM EST and is titled "The Wii Fit Mommies ‘Lots of Love (Handles) to Give' Twitter Bling Party", where the Mommies are giving away over $1000 in prizes including and iPod accessories, Gift Baskets, jewelry from Chic Execs and a Wii Fit Sponsored by AceBeach.com.
Individuals are directed to The Cool Mom Guide (http://www.coolmomguide.com)
According to eMarketer's May 2008 Report there are 94.1 million blog readers in the U.S. (50% of Internet users). "Blogging has gone from a cutting edge, mostly American phenomenon to a global main-stream activity generating an increasing larger share of the world's ‘user generated content' and the sharing economy driving up the value of search and advertising worldwide. In addition to increasing in scale, bloggers continue to become increasingly diverse become both a core economic as well as social driver online," Joichi Ito (CEO, Creative Commons).
Bloggers are the most likely to read other blogs. And while only 43% of the bloggers are women, 91% of those women are over the age of 24, when weight gain is most likely to strike.
In 2004, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked obesity as the number one health threat facing America. Obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually and costs nearly $122.9 billion. Less than half of the U.S. adults (20+ years) have a healthy weight (BMI 18.5 - 25). That means 36.7 million U.S. women between the ages of 20 - 74 are overweight to obese.
Summary
FORUM MEMBERSHIP
After our first Twitter Party on 12/10, we had 150 people registered in our forum. Several weeks later we held a similar "Grand Opening" Twitter Party on 1/3. Following that party we had 254 registered users. As of today, 2/2 /09, we have 472 forum members. That's a growth rate of over 300% in the past six weeks.
ALEXA TRAFFIC RANKING
The Cool Mom Guide traffic ranking is currently 74,592...as you know that puts us in the top 75,000 of all websites on the Internet. www.alexa.com
DAILY WEBSITE HITS
The Wii Fit Mommies section of the Cool Mom Guide currently averages between 400 - 500 hits per day. The four Mommies collectively average 1100 hits/day on their four sites. (Note:
TWITTER FOLLOWING
The four Mommies together have 6,086 followers on Twitter. Our "wiimoms" Twitter account has 595 followers...that's a whole lot of "Twitter Influence" we've accumulated. As you know Twitter is fast becoming one of the most widely used conversational tools on the Net. Individuals can search for all info regarding the Wii Fit Mommies from the Cool Mom Guide to Fitness by searching #wiimoms and they will find hundreds of individuals speaking highly of our group.
