5 Key Considerations for Building a Community on Strava

Camp Strava is an annual event that brings together thought leaders, content creators, brands, and devices that drive human movement across the world. As part of this celebration of movement, Strava hosts a series of panel chats, inviting experts in their fields to discuss the future of human movement.

One of the highlights of this year’s event was the panel around Best Practices for Creators & Clubs on Strava, featuring panelists Savannah Sachdev, Curran Swint, Izzy Seidel, Kayla Jeter and Adrienne Adhami.

You can watch the whole chat here, and in the meantime, we thought we'd take this opportunity to summarize five key ideas that can help you cultivate a successful community on Strava.

Everyone wants to be part of a community

Izzy Seidel - Sad Girl Track Club: There are so many people who want to feel like they are part of a community… and a Strava Group is amazing for that. A Strava Group doesn’t need to be about you, it is about the group. So if you’re thinking about starting one… why not? I know people who have started groups that have three people in them and people who have started groups that have thousands of people in them. They all serve a purpose. 

Curran Swint - Kings Rule Together/Queens Rule Together: It’s hard for you to find friends as you get older, so once you have a common denominator where it's like ‘okay hey, it’s something I'm interested in’ - which is cycling - okay now you all come together and go out and have a good time - whether it's riding a bike, going bowling whatever. 

Let the community power your content

Izzy Seidel: The [content] creators are the community members - Strava is a platform where I'm actually consuming the content. I'm not making it like on all of the other platforms where I am accountable for creating that content. 

On Strava, there are people posting daily about the most random things and it's so cool. Because it shows their location - some people like to post their maps from their workouts - you're like ‘Oh my god somebody in France just posted a run’. It just really gives you perspective on where your community is, how big it is, and then also allows them to partake in being part of the club.

Don’t try and be a role model, be a possibility model

Kayla Jeter - 100 Miles of Summer: When I think about Strava, there's so much inspiration there, especially when you don't see yourself in spaces - you can't be what you can't see. I think each of us on Strava - no matter how large the community is - we're all possibility models. It's not a role model, you don't want anyone to follow you directly, but you want people to see you and be inspired and that's what I think makes Strava really special.

Tailor Events to the needs of your community

Curran Swint: We allow people to start off from the bottom. We have beginner rides, ice cream rides, mountain Monday rides - where it’s like hill repeats for people who don’t want to do the hill ride on Tuesday, and we also have foodie rides. So a lot of this stuff is gearing people up for success pretty much. A lot of people might not want to jump right into racing or jump right into hill rides, so we’ve got a slow walk them in. 

By doing this, it wasn't necessarily [about] trying to expand into other cities, but people seeing what we're doing they say ‘would you be interested in doing something like this in another city?’... Then two months later we had 50+ members out in Virginia and now we have 30+ members out in LA and stuff like that just by simply just doing what I love to do.

Know ‘the why’ of your community, and bring your partners into that

Izzy Seidel: I will say one of the greatest things I ever could have done was start a community because brands want to work with people that have a community and have something that is bigger than yourself. As a full-time creator, I would say about 50% of the paid deals that I do involve Sad Girl Track Club.

Adrienne LDN: Having that community and knowing the purpose of that community - knowing the why. Brands want to work with communities but what does the community want, will they benefit from the brand? I think it is an opportunity there when it's authentic and it feels aligned - then this is additive for the community.