Social media these days can have a negative reputation, often deservedly so. Today, Strava kicked off an advertising campaign that touts the social media app's unique focus on athletic community and shared physical activities. Clearly toying with Facebook, Strava has ads with slogan like "Strava’s for giving respect, not creeping on your ex" and "Strava's for personal records, not political rants."
Strava's campaign will appear on billboards, bus shelters and wall barricades in select cities around the world.
Strava says it has more than 31 million registered users. Additionally, the company touts some big numbers:
- More than 1.5 billion activities uploaded
- 25 activities uploaded every second
- 1 million athletes join every 30 days
- 2.3 billion kudos given between athletes last year
As with Facebook, Strava has a thumb icon that you can click for every activity post. On Strava, it's called giving kudos.
"Kudos are all about recognizing the effort of hard work, supporting friends and community, giving them a virtual high five," Strava communications lead Andrew Vontz told BikeRadar. "As you’ve probably gathered, this [campaign] is really a way to have a little cheeky fun and highlight what is happening inside of our community. Giving kudos is aimed at harnessing the positive power of our community, and using it as a motivating force in the real world."
While the vast majority of posts on Strava are activity uploads, you can also upload posts with photos, links or just text.
"'Social' in our world is the equivalent of what it feels like to be on a team: you lift teammates up, you keep them going and you propel them to the finish," Vontz said. "Part of what makes Strava special is that we're a place for anyone who sweats. People keep people active. One of the themes I think this campaign highlights is that our goal isn't to maximize the amount of time you spend in our app — it's to get you to put your phone down and go sweat."
BikeRadar has a Strava club, now with 13,775 members. That's almost as many products reviews (14,756) as we have on site! One thing we at BikeRadar - or at least this author - appreciate about Strava is the window it provides into the myriad cycling cultures around the world. As from total distance or high speeds or whatever, we appreciate seeing photos in the BikeRadar Strava club from rides in India, Zimbabwe, Japan, Switzerland and many more countries.
