When Katy and I were chosen to speak at Fitbloggin' 2011, we wanted to get as many people involved in our presentation as possible, whether or not they were attending the conference. That's where we came up with the idea for our newest project to gather information about the healthy living and running blogger communities. I'm really excited to share it with you, and I hope you will all take a few minutes to help us out.

As part of our branding and social media presentation at Fitbloggin’ 2011, Katy and I are launching an extensive, anonymous and hopefully transformative survey. We want to know some of the reasons why you blog, how you do it and what goals you have for the coming years. The running blog community is very unique when it comes to the rest of the blogging world and we want to know more about why we all do what we do.

The results of the study depend completely on YOU and your response. Five surveys won’t help us. 500 will. 5,000 would be better. But to get that type of attention, we need your help.

What we’re asking:

• Please answer our survey as honestly and completely as you can. We’ve allowed you to opt out of some questions by saying “Rather Not Answer” but the more open you can be, the better.
• Please share the survey link with your friends, your readers, your social networks and anyone else you can think of. We do require that people who take the survey have blogs but there’s no requirement for how you blog, how often or whether or not you make any money.

What we’re providing:

• Totally anonymity. The responses that we collect will not capture your IP address or any other information. We are asking some personal questions and understand that if you are worried about being identified, you might change your answers. Neither Katy nor I could figure out who you are if we wanted to.
• Results, both at Fitbloggin’ and in data that you may use. We will be publishing the results and making them accessible to all. In addition, if you want to be notified about the results, we’re providing a way for you to leave us your contact information without attaching it to your survey responses.

Why you should do it:

• Because you're awesome and want to help us out!
• We truly believe that the more you know, the more powerful you can be -- in your posts, in your understanding of community and in your service to your readers. This will be a way for you to see where you fall compared to others!
• It’s fun! We have tried to make the survey simple and easy to complete. You’ll see a status bar letting you know how far you have to go, and eliminated certain questions based on your previous responses.

Again: YOUR ANSWERS WILL BE COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL, and no identifying information will be stored or shared. You'll be able to opt in to receive an electronic copy of the results, but if you choose to provide your contact information, it will not be connected or attached to any of your responses.

If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please leave me a comment or send me an email to: jess@jessruns.com.

Take the survey!

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to be part of the project! And please spread the word!