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Strava is a platform where users can find, map or record workouts and the app keeps track of the user’s performance and training goals along with speed, distance, elevation change and more. Strava can even recognize if you are running the same route and the app can tell you if your pacing was slower or faster than the previous workout.

While this app is great for athletes to record and analyze their performance, Strava offers an entirely other aspect to their app. The gamification and socialization features make working out fun, social and competitive. Strava users can see other individuals who may be friends or complete strangers who did the same workout that they previously completed. Now users can see how they compare to someone else. This creates friendly competition and can even foment a new friendship between strangers.

Furthering more into the socialization aspect, Strava has a mixture of Facebook and Instagram features. Each Strava user has an activity feed that shows your friends’ activities that you can “like”, give kudos to or write a comment on. Similar to Facebook, Athletes can craft “posts” where they can add photos, headlines, and descriptions and other friends can share. There are also different groups users can join and challenges such as the “November 30-Hour Challenge.” In addition, Strava has a “Clubs” feature that uses your geographical location and allows you to join different clubs in your area.

Strava is an app that is taking over the fitness industry while allowing people a place to communicate, create new relationships, have friendly competition all along with getting the data that one needs to improve their own performance. Strava currently is growing at a 1 million rate of new members every 40 days¹. Their member rate will keep rising as they continue to bring in new exercise features along with social sharing features. Strava will continue to gain popularity as there is no fitness app that is giving the same amount of data while at the same time, promoting challenges among people globally along with trying to gather people with the same interests in their own community area.

Sources:

Gross, M. (n.d.). How strava became the only fitness app that matters. Men’s Journal. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/how-strava-became-the-only-fitness-app-that-matters-w501209/
Hall, C. (2022, January 1). What is Strava, how does it work and is it worth paying for? Pocket-Lint. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/154854-what-is-strava-and-how-does-it-work

Coronavirus had a major impact on the way that we purchase, and businesses had to quickly innovate and solve how to now sell and market to their customers during a period with an ever-changing environment. 4.2 billion people worldwide are active on social media and alone in 2020, social media gained 490 million users².

Social media platforms have quickly turned into a way for consumers to tap and purchase a product they may see on their feed, ad or on an influencers page. This is known as social selling. Social selling is the modern way to build relationships and engage with potential customers. A new user to each platform is a potential customer. Social selling has now become the new innovative way for customers to find new brands and to purchase them through that platform.

For example, on Instagram you can instantly purchase from the app and while many users may not feel comfortable leaving their payment methods on Instagram (yet), potential customers still tend to follow the brand and end up on that brand’s website to check out their products. There are also other ways brands and business can sell on Instagram as well. PlusBKLYN, a plus sized clothing sure located in Brooklyn, New York goes “live” on Instagram every Thursday night to sell products and throughout the week posts products on their story and consumers can “DM” to purchase. Owner Alexis Krase reports that 50% or more of her daily sales total come social selling.

Social media and word of mouth increases engagement with new people and cultivates new relationships between the brand and the customer. Business can use social listening tools to respond and engage with customers directly. Not only does this create authenticity, but it also builds trust and in turn creates customer loyalty. Social listening also is a unique way for businesses to collect data and information about their customer and their desires when it comes to the products that the company offers.

Social commerce continues to evolve at a quicker rate, as social media networks keeps advancing and growing so will the potential revenue. In light of the pandemic and supply chain issues, there has been less products in person while online shopping has a more variety and items in stock. While in-person shopping will never go extinct, social selling is still in its early stages in developing and it will be interesting to see how it evolves over the next few years.

Sources:

¹ Hutchinson, A. (2022, January 18). New report highlights the rise of social media shopping [infographic]. Social Media Today. Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/new-report-highlights-the-rise-of-social-media-shopping-infographic/617315/

² Newberry, C., & Olafson, K. (2022, April 5). Social selling: What it is, why you should care, and how to do it right. Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/what-is-social-selling/#:~:text=using%20social%20media.-,What%20is%20social%20selling%3F,selling%20as%20modern%20relationship%2Dbuilding.