Snapchat and Strava Unite to Let Their Users Run for Stories

Strava is making fitness social. Snapchat is making social life exciting. Why shouldn’t they join efforts? And so they do now, creating a unique experience for Snapchatters. A new Snapchat lens created in collaboration with Strava lets users show off their fitness activity almost in real time, demonstrating updates in visual, spectacular style.

The new lens by Strava can be found in your lens carousel or by search in the Snapchat app. The idea of it is to let you share your achievements in a few taps, so your friends can see the story of your workouts, running or hiking routes, or anything sport you want to show off.

The lens fetches your data from strava.com, so it doesn’t matter whether the Strava app is installed on your phone right now. So you can use Snapchat on one device and Strava on another, it doesn’t matter. When connected, the lens allows you to post your results on your story, along with your face or a video from your workout.

Both Snapchat and Strava have over 100 million users, so the collaboration is going to be fruiful. It’s easy to imagine how someone who’s already chosen Strava (over, say, Adidas Running or Map My Run) because of its social features installs Snapchat as one more way to connect to more people. Another scenario is a Snapchatter joining Strava just to show off before friends, using this new lens, and getting more and more involved, the lens being the motivator.

It seems to be just one of the many efforts Snapchat will make to diversify its audience. Extremely popular among younger users, Snapchat feels now the need to cater to other groups as well. It need to stay relevant for its core audience as it’s growing and at the same time find new users, and adding new activities to share on Snapchat seems the right idea.

Have you already tried this lens? Does your result impress and inspire your friends? And what about yourself? Is any of your Snapchat fellows using it too? We’d like to read what you think about it, so welcome to the comments!