There was a Twitter chat on #SocialFitness the other day, did you catch it?

Folks spent the hour discussing ways social media can impact real life goals – like the Olympics and, of course, fitness.

Summarizing some of the key takeaways from the @HealthJoinIn #SocialFitness chat, this blog post from the Shorty Awards offers some great tips using social media to enhance your physical fitness, including these three, which we really like:

1. Challenge yourself to become the mayor of your local gym or wellness café on Foursquare.
2. Store your workout routines on your smartphone with a fitness app like Fitocracy or simply type them into your favorite note-taking app.
3. Share how your team is staying active with hashtag #TaCTeam and check out Take a Challenge’s resources for keeping it up.

You could also start a Twitter chat, or use an existing one like #SocialFitness, to tag tweets documenting your efforts and to encourage others doing the same.

Why do we like these tips? They all involve announcing your fitness goals to a wider audience – and what is more motivating than THAT? And developing a support group for exercise, even if it’s a virtual group, may offer enough accountability to give some folks a kick in the butt to get moving.

Do you share your fitness goals on Twitter? Does it help?

(Exercise image from Shutterstock)