How MyFitnessPal Initiated A Whole New Social Networking Category

Love it or hate it, social media platforms have taken networking to a whole new level. We keep track of friends on Facebook, share our lives on Twitter and upload our photos on Instagram (a mammoth 1 million selfies are taken everyday) so it’s no surprise that businesses are looking for ways to utilise the expanding market and boost company profits.

Earlier this year, Under Armour Inc. acquired nutrition-tracking platform MyFitnessPal for $475 million. As the largest online fitness community in the world (with over 75 million users) MyFitnessPal is widely regarded as one of the pioneers in the sector, but its success as a tool for communication wasn’t initially part of the company’s core strategy.

Instead, co-founder, Mike Lee told KPCB: “weight loss is a funny thing. People when they first start dieting are very private about it, but when you succeed you tell everyone and people notice. He adds “and so [consumers] really become walking billboards for us, they talk about how they did it and people want to try it and that’s really how we’ve grown from the very beginning.”

Ten years on, what began life as an organic thread within MyFitnessPal’s food tracking platform now sets the bar for competitors. However, as consumer attitudes have evolved so have emerging fitness apps. Today, keeping fit and staying healthy has become a way of life and consumers are demanding apps that integrate and/or emulate the structures of social networks like Instagram and Tinder in order for them to effectively communicate their lifestyle choices.

The recently launched Sprinter app by sports brand, Bjorn Borg supports the growing trend. The app, which helps users find a workout buddy is just like Tinder, but adapted for sporty and active people looking to build new relationships around fitness.

Callum Sneddon, MD at Bjorn Borg UK told Welltodo that consumers are encouraged to “Sweat, Swipe and Socialise in order to be matched with new workout buddies that share the same sports interests.”

He explains how the app allows consumers to unlock key functionalities such as swiping through users and instant messaging as well as connecting to Facebook and Instagram in order to make it easy for them to share both pictures and workout videos on their profiles. A user’s location is also visible, so they can find either workout buddies close to home, work or their hotel while travelling.

“Essentially, Sprinter is a social workout app that connects active people with each other,” says Sneddon, who argues that its premise is based on scientific research proving there’s a direct correlation between motivation and working out in groups. Sneddon claims that feedback from customers backs this research up, with many agreeing that training together is fun.

But whilst this may be true, the fitness apps dominating the social media arena are those that offer their users a sense of instant gratification and Bjorn Borg certainly hasn’t neglected this functionality.

Unlike MyFitnessPal, the digital spaces these type of apps offer haven’t grown organically, they are a product of a carefully thought out strategy, of cultivating specific environments for consumers to share their lives in.

The Healthy Selfie app allows users to track and compare their selfies quickly and easily by publishing them in a social networking environment – that way the images, which are marketed as a self-tracking tool also act as an instant badge of honour, garnering admiration similar to that of likes on Facebook or ‘double taps’ on Instagram.

“The photo element has been the huge attraction for our users,” Founder Charlotte Li told Welltodo. “Although there are many people confident enough to use the traditional social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, there are just as many who don’t feel comfortable stripping down for family members, friends and colleagues to see! So we created a ‘socially acceptable’ environment to do that all within a supportive community.

“Since first creating the app, it’s become evident that the social interaction element plays a huge part in the whole process and since launching in January 2015 the growth has remained consistent.” she added.

Like My Healthy Selfie, PumpUp App has also jumped on the ‘fitspo’ image trend by encouraging its users to share photos. And as a result of its success, last year it closed a $2.4 million seed round led by General Catalyst Partners. But according to Li, aside from the gratification users experience when posting photos, the sharing of selfies also introduces an element of ‘accountability’. “If a user puts a photo of themself out there in a social environment and shares their goal with other people, then they’re much less likely to fail,” she argues.

Actively encouraging users to explore this sense of accountability or ‘peer-pressure’ is a functionality many fitness apps have integrated into their models in order to find a space for themselves within the competitive sector.

The RunKeeper app lets users compare activity levels and even includes a shaming icon next to a user’s name if they have become inactive, while FitBit allows friends to digitally ‘taunt’ one another.

But, while all of these apps and their functions rely on the mimicking of human behaviour in a digital arena, consumers are fickle, demanding constant innovation and interconnectivity between digital platforms. With relatively new social media networks like Snapchat (1 million users daily) and Viber (over 6 million global users) gaining more traction, how will businesses respond?

“It’s clear there are thousands, if not millions, of people who are looking to social media to track their fitness journeys,” says Li, but the race is on when it comes to established and new fitness apps harnessing that on-going demand, capturing, and most importantly maintaining, consumer interest.