Tonight I hung out at Whole Foods.

(And didn’t buy a thing!)

In the club.

(The Wellness Club, at the Tribeca Whole Foods.)

It was Everyday Health’s first blogger meetup. (If you’re not familiar with EH, they’re a site that empowers users to take control of their own health. How much do I love them? I interviewed there for a job last summer.)

I walked into this crowded room and didn’t know a soul. I’m generally pretty good at introducing myself to people, but a huge wave of shyness suddenly came over me, and taking pictures of food sounded less intimidating.

LIke these chocolate balls rolled in cinnamon. Amazing.

Or this sushi.

Or this mushroom on pizza crust!

Fruit at a healthy blogger meetup. Shocking, I know.

After some mingling, they moved us to a little classroom area, where we heard from a few speakers.

Everyday Health invited us here because they want to work more with bloggers–they know bloggers live and breathe what’s going on in the online health community and know what readers are looking for online.

We heard from:

Joanna Breen, VP of video at Everyday Health. YouTube’s been attempting to move beyond grainy videos of your cat in your basement, and Breen, a former ABC producer heads up Everyday Health’s YouTube channel and on-site video. Bloggers, take note: Breen said that videos are 53 TIMES MORE LIKELY to reach the top in search than a typical text post. (Photos also perform better than text in search.

Soraya Darabi, founder of Foodspotting and a social media adviser to many companies. (Including, apparently, Everyday Health.) Piggybacking on the video discussion, she recommended videos of no longer than 2 minutes in length, with a clear beginning, middle and end, like a high school essay. I didn’t know the two-minute guideline, but it makes sense. Who really wants to watch a long YouTube video?

Giovanna Miller, who runs the Wellness Club at Whole Foods. Which sounds really cool. It offers cooking and nutrition classes to help support a healthier lifestyle. Apparently it costs $40-50 a month, and you get access to unlimited classes and a 10% discount at Whole Foods. While it sounds cool, and certainly cheaper than other cooking classes, I can’t ever see myself joining something like this, especially since Whole Foods also offers some free cooking classes.

Ju-Don Roberts, editor-in-chief of Everyday Health. She also offered some tips for bloggers: use the same handle across all platforms, make sure you can be recognized from site to site (having the same or similar pics), and distribute–use as many social media tools at your disposal as possible. Another point she made, which I totally agree with, is that it’s so easy to be found on the Internet, so make sure you’re really comfortable with what you’re putting online before you put it out there. I’ve always blogged as if my boss or a potential future employer were reading.

And, Mike Keriakos, one of the founders.

I thought the meet-up was really well-organized–I liked the format of mingling and then quick presentations. To be honest, when we sat down, I got a little nervous we might hear long, drawn-out presentations, but they were great. I hope Everyday Health continues these meet-ups! We also got a certificate for a free cooking class, which I can’t wait to try.

I also met Amber of ExSoyCise, a fellow FitFluential Ambassador.

What’s your favorite health site? And would you pay for something like the Wellness Club?