Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / How Strava Built a Fitness Community That Markets Itself
Transcript
- Lucas: If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used, a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. Luna: Yeah, it's a small group, but it keeps the whole thing ad-free. Feels right. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of communities that run on a different kind of fuel — let's talk about Strava. Luna: The fitness app. But we're looking at it as a marketing engine, right? Lucas: Exactly. Strava is this fascinating case because it's not a brand that built a community — it is a community that became a brand. Founded in 2009, it now has over 125 million users. But the really interesting number is this: 80 percent of new signups come through word of mouth. Luna: Eighty percent — that's almost all of them. So they're not really buying ads to acquire users? Lucas: They do some performance marketing, but the core growth loop is entirely community-driven. You go for a run, you post it to Strava, your friends see it, they want to compete or just cheer you on. That social proof is the ad. And Strava doesn't have to pay a dime for it. Luna: So what's the specific mechanic that makes that loop work? I've used Strava, and I feel like the kudos button is part of it, but there's more. Lucas: Kudos is the lightweight engagement — it's like a Facebook like but more meaningful because it's tied to effort. But the real engine is the segment leaderboard. You run a stretch of road, Strava times you, and you get ranked against everyone else who's run that segment. Suddenly your morning jog is a competition. Luna: And that competition drives daily active use. I've definitely gone out of my way to try to take a segment crown. Lucas: That's the hook. Strava calls it 'social fitness.' The company's head of community once said in an interview that they deliberately designed the product so that your workout is better when you share it. That's not an afterthought — it's the product itself. Luna: So the marketing is baked into the experience. You don't need a separate community platform because the app is the community. Lucas: Right. And then there's Strava Clubs. That's where local running groups, cycling teams, even brands like Rapha or Nike host challenges. The clubs feature creates sub-communities within the larger network. Rapha, for example, has a club with over 50,000 members. They post routes, organize rides, share photos. Rapha gets direct engagement with serious cyclists every day. Luna: So brands can piggyback on Strava's infrastructure. But does Strava itself monetize those clubs? Or is it pure community? Lucas: Currently it's mostly free for clubs. Strava's revenue comes from subscriptions — about 4 million users pay for Strava Summit, which gives advanced analytics, route planning, and safety features. That's roughly $60 million a year in subscription revenue. But the community layer is what keeps people paying. Luna: It's a classic freemium model. The free product is the community, and the paid product is the data. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a tension there. In 2023, Strava raised its subscription price from $5 to $8 a month, and there was backlash. Some users felt the community features were being paywalled. But Strava argued they needed the revenue to keep the platform ad-free and build new features. Luna: That's the balancing act every brand community faces. You want to keep the community open so it grows, but you also need to make money. Lucas: And that's where Strava is interesting as a marketing case. They've managed to keep the core social loop free — kudos, segments, clubs — while monetizing the power users. The community itself is the marketing funnel. Non-users see their friends' activities, get curious, join, and then a fraction convert to pay. Luna: So what can a brand that's not a social fitness app learn from this? I think the key is making the product inherently shareable. Lucas: Exactly. Ask yourself: does your product create something that a user would want to show off? For Strava, it's the map of your run, the elevation gain, the segment badge. For a brand like Headspace, it might be a meditation streak. For Duolingo, it's the daily streak and the leaderboard. The common thread is user-generated proof of effort. Luna: And that proof becomes free content. When a friend sees your 10-mile run on Strava, they're not thinking 'this is an ad.' They're thinking 'I want to do that.' Lucas: Right. Strava's head of marketing has said that the company spends almost nothing on traditional advertising. Instead, they invest in features that make sharing natural — like the auto-generated activity post, the photo tag, the beacon safety feature that lets a partner track your ride. Every feature has a shareable component. Luna: And that's a design principle, not a marketing tactic. It has to be built into the product. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the lesson for brand community managers. You can't bolt on a community after the product is built. It has to be part of the user's core experience. Strava's community isn't a Facebook group or a forum — it's the activity feed itself. Luna: So if I'm a brand that's considering building a community, where do I start? Do I need to build my own app like Strava? Lucas: No, most brands don't have the resources for that. But you can borrow the principle. Look for a behavior your customers already do that they might want to share. For example, if you're a pet food brand, maybe customers love posting photos of their dogs eating. Build a hashtag campaign or a simple photo contest that rewards sharing. The platform doesn't have to be yours — Instagram works — but the habit needs to be triggered by your product. Luna: So Strava's real innovation wasn't the app itself. It was understanding that athletes already wanted to share their workouts. They just gave them a better way to do it. Lucas: Exactly. And they made the sharing part of the identity. When you get a segment crown, you want to show it off. That's not a transaction — it's a status symbol. And that's the holy grail for a brand community. Luna: One thing I'm curious about: Strava has had its share of controversy — privacy concerns with heat maps showing military bases, the subscription hike, the removal of some free features. How has that affected the community? Lucas: It's a test of community resilience. In 2018, Strava's global heat map inadvertently revealed secret military patrol routes because soldiers were using the app. That was a huge privacy backlash. But Strava handled it by improving privacy controls and being transparent. Most users stayed because the core value — tracking and sharing — was still strong. Luna: So the community can survive missteps if the product is sticky enough. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the double-edged sword. A strong community can forgive a lot, but it also means you can't make too many mistakes. The community is your marketing, but it's also your responsibility. Strava knows that if they betray user trust, they lose the engine. Luna: So the question for any brand building a community is: are you willing to be held accountable by that community? Lucas: Right. And Strava has shown that when you build a community that markets itself, you also build a community that watches you. But if you serve them well, they'll bring in the next 80 percent of your users for free. Luna: That's a pretty good trade-off. I think the takeaway for marketers is: don't just build a community — build a product that makes community inevitable. Lucas: Yeah. And then get out of the way and let them share.