It only takes the first step to get started, but in what direction should you take that first step? Whether it's running, working out or just living a more active lifestyle, Runtastic has you covered. We combine educational and inspirational content on our Runtastic blog and social media channels to give our users a holistic, authentic approach to achieving their fitness goals.
Through collaborations with other companies, athletes, guest authors and in-house fitness experts, we're able to give users free, high quality content that supplements our running and training apps. Every video and picture we publish is selected and crafted by our Media and Brand Design teams, both of which work in-house. Our language specialists then localize almost every asset to make the content easily digestible in a reader's or follower's mother tongue. As of now, we offer fitness guidance through our channels in six different languages.
By taking a content marketing approach, our users are not treated as singular entities, but rather as a community of engaged users who know they can trust us to give them honest, comprehensive answers and digitally coach them through every plateau or struggle.
Approach
Our content marketing strategy at Runtastic works as a matrix, and every single blog article, Facebook post or Instagram story must meet the following criteria. First of all, one of the key areas of fitness must be covered: Cardio, Strength, Nutrition or Daily Habits. We see fitness as a lifestyle, which means tackling topics that affect all facets of someone's life — not just what happens during a run. Secondly, we assign an action to each post that it must fulfill: Inspire, Educate, Entertain or Persuade. By assigning these actions, we are challenged to ask whether we are providing valuable content for our user rather than just going through the motions or promoting our own personal interests. Furthermore, we visualize who each article is written for based on data-driven personas, which encompass fitness levels, interests and potential habits.
Striving for Excellence
To provide the highest quality content that inspires a sense of community and trust, we are constantly testing and researching what already exists in the field. We analyze how our competitors write, publish and interact with their users and find ways for us to push the industry standard further. We perform A/B testing to discover what interactive features perform best on our page thus improving the user's experience with our blog. Blog articles contain interactive elements, such as polls, quizzes and calculators, and in 2018, we enhanced our blog even further by embedding Instagram Stories, utilizing their engagement boosting features.
Multi-Channel Content Creation
Based on this matrix and labeling system, many pieces are cross-created. For example, a blog post about the most common squat mistakes is written by our in-house fitness expert. Then, our social media team optimizes the article for short and long video formats, which is sent to our media team who then films our fitness expert performing said mistakes and how to correct them. This approach is a multi-channel, multimedia approach that allows our team to tackle topics in the best medium for each channel while maintaining the highest quality possible.
Easily digestible content performs best and helps our users the most, which is why we implemented a new blog design in March 2018. Now with a mobile first approach, our users can get supplemental coaching and guidance in the palm of their hands, and when paired with our apps, there's no need for an overly expensive gym membership!
2018 itself was a huge year for content marketing at Runtastic. In twelve months, we accomplished:
Furthermore, we created and published an unprecedented 1,500 pieces of content this year — all created in-house and through collaborations. Towards the end of 2018, we also implemented a campaign structure for our channels, in which a single content topic is created in multiple formats and published across 5+ channels within a window of a few days. We have found that this workflow not only creates the highest quality content for our users, whether they be on social media or the blog, but also increases efficiency. As of today, with a follower count of approximately 5.5 million users, we actively reach over 80 million people each month across all of our social media channels. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a team to help a person achieve their fitness goals.
"Through sport, we have the power to change lives."
