“Strava is the social network for athletes. We’re a global community of millions of runners, cyclists and triathletes, united by the camaraderie of sport. Our website and mobile apps bring athletes together from all walks of life and inspire them to unlock their potential — both as individuals and as communities. From Olympians to weekend warriors, we’re out there on the road and trail, all over the world, day after day.” Strava, a self-proclaimed “global community” of athletes, has been able to build a successful platform, particularly for its newcomers. However, there are several ways that Strava can improve their application to improve overall user experiences, particularly while new to the community. However, there are many issues that the online platform currently has to deal with to provide the most pleasant interaction within its users. Using the works of Robert Kraut and Paul Resnick’s book, Building Successful Online Communities, along with evidence from other scholars, I will dive deeper into how Strava is successfully building a community online, where they are falling short and what they can do to craft a better community.

Strava was first launched in 2009 by two former Harvard crew teammates. (And, no, it wasn’t the Wiklevoss twins of Facebook fame.) Co-founders Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey sought to build a “virtual locker room” after leaving behind the real-life locker room of Weld Boathouse. They first talked about the initial idea in 1996, but the two tabled the idea until the technology, namely GPS and mobile devices, could meet the needs of their idea.

As of March 2015, there are over 1 million active Strava users and around 200 thousand Premium (paid subscription) users. But do these numbers prove that Strava has built a community for athletes by athletes?

What Strava Is Doing Right

When co-founder Michael Horvath was asked how Strava acquired early adopters, he responded, “Word of mouth in general is the best way. For the better part of our beginnings in 2009 it was just the six of us telling our friends and getting them to sign up.” In fact, Kraut and Resnick agree with Horvath. They state that, “Word-of-mouth recruiting is substantially more powerful than impersonal advertising.” By using existing in-person networks and influential members of a community, a digital platform can experience rapid growth. Kraut and Resnick note that existing members can reach out to potential users whom they identify as likely candidates. In this regard, the recruitment is very strategic and aimed toward building a cohesive community of like-minded individuals. And for a platform like Strava, one built entirely around a sport or activity, similarly passionate people can continue to push the community forward. As Horvath stated, “With Strava you need to be pretty passionate about running or cycling that you care enough to capture your training. You need to understand what’s different about Strava and the social interaction with like-minded people.”

In a similar vein, Kraut and Resnick also state that “some of the best sources of new members for a community come from the social network links of people who are already members of the community.” They not that sites like Facebook and LinkedIn often solicit new members by enabling current members to send invitations by connecting to their email address books. In a way, Strava uses the same method. When looking at your user profile and friends list, there is an option to invite via SMS or Email. By clicking that button on an iOS device, the platform provides icons to either SMS/iMessage, Mail and more to share a signup link with friends. By providing this functionality, Strava is enabling users to engage in recruiting friends and fellow athletes on their behalf. Kraut and Resnick explain that “these approaches leverage users’ credibility with their friends in a way that is more powerful than any message that appears to come directly from the community itself. With the more personal touch of a message coming from a user rather than a platform generated message, potential new members may be more willing to join the community.

Another powerful method of interpersonal recruiting is by enabling content to be shared across networking platforms. “Making it easy for users to share content from a community site with their friends (e.g., via easy email, Twitter, Facebook, and similar links) will increase the visibility of the community among the users’ friends and thereby increase the likelihood of them joining,” Kraut and Resnick explain. Strava has been able to seamlessly enable this kind of cross-platform sharing for their users. Users can opt to have each run, ride or activity automatically posted to different social networking platforms upon completion. Another option allows the athlete to post, email, or message their workout to their networks on a activity-by-activity basis. This feature is built directly into the application. When looking at a finished activity, there is a “Share” button in the upper right hand corner. Clicking the “Share” link opens a number of sharing options and allow the athlete customize the commentary that accompanies the social post. Increasing the visibility of the use of the platform and the activities you as a user are doing on the site can increase curiosity, draw in more potential users and encourage friends or connections with similar interests to try out the application. As more community members begin to fill their other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, with these activities, the visibility will begin to grow and increase the likelihood of their friends to join the Strava community.

While Strava has done well recruiting new members to their platform using interpersonal methods like word-of-mouth marketing and social sharing, they also set themselves apart by playing on athletes’ sense of motivation. While many athletes identify with intrinsic motivation, which Kraut and Resnick explain are “ones that directly fulfill some basic desire.” These desires, for athletes, often lie in self-improvement and mastery in their respective sports. Yet, Strava’s Horvath shares how extrinsic factors, such as teammates can play a huge role in performance in motivation as well. “So what motivates you are your teammates and the people around you which drives you to push your limits. When I left that environment I thought “oh no, I don’t have my team anymore!” My business partner and I wanted to recreate that feeling of being on a team even though we couldn’t physically train with our friends anymore. The impetus was trying to recreate that feeling of training with your friends to motivate you to new heights.” Strava’s key way of building this team-like atmosphere within the application is by using Kudos. Kudos, as Strava explains, are “similar to “Liking” a post on Facebook, Kudos are a quick thumbs-up you can give to your fellow athletes to congratulate them on a noteworthy activity, an achievement, entering or completing a Challenge, Race, or Goal, etc.” By encouraging users to connect with one another on the platform, Strava has built in a motivation mechanism. This motivation can, in turn, keep users coming back time and time again to log their workouts. And while some workouts may be dreaded, they can be turned around using social connections. “It is possible to make otherwise-tedious tasks more engaging by combining them with social interaction,” Kraut and Resnick share. With this engagement, there is an increase in possibility for retention of new members joining Strava. It is, after all, only with retention of community members that Strava could have surpassed the 1 million active users mark in early 2015.

Where Strava Can Improve

The main point where I see room for improvement within the Strava application is through the socialization of new members. Kraut and Resnick explain that “by using formal, sequential, and collective socialization tactics, new members are likely to become more committed to the community, learn how to behave in it, and contribute more.” When joining the application, users are prompted to create their profile and, if they have connected their account to Facebook, can follow friends who are already on Strava. However, there is no formal socialization method beyond that. Strava is filled with jargon that may not be common knowledge to users first entering the community and there is no place for these “newbies” to discover what a “KOM”, “segment”, “Kudos” or “challenge” are (to name a few). With the addition of, at the least, a resource center for knowledge and frequently asked questions, new members may better integrate into the Strava community and begin adhering to the inherent social norms of the platform. Another possibility for this could be a simple tutorial within the application upon creating a new account that takes members through the different features of the app and also provides descriptions and use cases for the various lingo that is often thrown around amongst the more established members of the group.

Strive On

As Strava explains in the About Us section of their website, “Strava is the Swedish word for “strive,” which epitomizes who we are and what we do: If you’re striving to improve, no matter your goals or ability, you’re one of us.” While there is much that they are doing exceedingly well in their recruitment and retention of new members, I hope they strive to improve certain aspects of their digital community of athletes. With improvements to socialization and inclusion of new members, I believe that Strava could see increased active users and improved retention rates.

But overall, Kudos to Strava for creating a digital space and community for runners, bikers and all athletes alike.