In Front of the Curve

Australian Cycling Brand rides their way to business wins through Social Media

Interview by Dan Willersdorf

Owners: Steve Varga, Jesse Carlsson and Adam Lana
Business Years: 2013 to present
Website: www.curvecycling.com.au
Instagram Followers: 3,800 and counting
Facebook Page Likes: 3,419 and counting

 

In only 18 months, Curve Cycling took their brand out of the velodrome and their custom, cutting edge bike components into the hands of bike enthusiasts across Australia. The company has gone from startup to a large player in the market in such a short time by harnessing online and Social Media (they use no traditional advertising).

Curve Cycling was created to offer cutting-edge bike components for emerging trends to bike enthusiasts. Their products are available online via their website—they have no retail stores.

One of their products is a “Grovel”, a newer type of bike that is a hybrid between a mountain bike and road bike. “Our customers are the more savvy bike riders who want quality and unique/cutting edge gear, but at a reasonable price,” says director Adam Lana.

Adam, himself a long-term competitive cyclist, joined the company just prior to their official launch in 2013 and was quick to utilise his online marketing expertise to build their brand.

“We don’t want to put a boring ‘big brand’ message out there. We would much rather tell stories and keep our marketing real than being too sales-y.”

FINDINGS

Social Media Tying In with the Curve Cycling Brand

Curve Cycling has hardly used traditional advertising. They believe using Social Media gives them a bigger edge in promoting their product. “We don’t want to put a boring ‘big brand’ message out there. We would much rather tell stories and keep our marketing real than being too sales-y,” Adam explains. “By being more real, this keeps us clear of our competition.”

Facebook Advertising

“We kicked off with a Facebook campaign – a $50/day spend for 1 month – to build the brand initially. This had an immediate effect; we grew the Facebook likes to 3,000 inside a month. These were valid/targeted likes. It took the brand from nothing to something and people were going ‘wow, look at this brand’ after just one month,” Adam says.

Instagram And Changing Trends

Adam also shares how Instagram is so important for them because of the changes in Facebook (drop in organic reach for businesses), and because “all the cool kids are on it.” Instagram users have also become the trendsetters. Whatever they post about, for instance a new product they happened to like, they influence others to follow suit. Our product is “aspirational” – we are selling an adventure and a cool product that people want,” Adam shares.

Facebook & Video

“We’ll continue to use more video on Facebook as that is what they want to see, and videos get great engagement and reach on Facebook,” Adam advises.

Monitoring on Social Media

Adam adds that monitoring your efforts is very effective with Social Media. “Traditional advertising is hard to monitor and you don’t know what you are getting out of it,” he says.

Social Media Tips for Businesses
from Adam Lana

Find a voice and stick to it

Know what your brand represents.. For example, Adam will not post a photo without a bike on the Curve Cycling page. “It has to have a bike/road – always relating back to cycling.”

Context and relevance

Always keep the posts in context. “Otherwise, you’re creating confusion to your followers. People follow you because they want to see your brand, not your dog,” he says.

Make the right connections

Continue to grow . Find the right partnerships online – connect with users that have over 5,000 followers so they can cross promote. Curve Cycling only follows people over 1000. He will go in and like their bike photos to have initial engagement.

Use Apps and tools to your advantage

Curve use Iconosquare for statistics on Instagram, users, who’s engaging, what’s working. Adam says it allows them to get a snapshop of their engagement week to week. The tool also plugs into shopfiy (their ecommerce platform).

What’s next for Curve Cycling?

“Our vision is to be a global brand based here in Australia. There are currently no large global bike component brands based in Australia.” Adam says with their marketing efforts so far they are meeting targets and well on the way to their end goal.