Hi everyone! This post will be a summary of my Individual project for the semester, which analyses the performance of KFit through three of its social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

So what is KFit?

KFit is a Uber-like fitness platform, founded by Joel Neoh – the ex-founder of Groupon. It gives users access to the best fitness studios, classes and gyms in their respective cities. The company was founded with the aim of providing the most affordable fitness options for people.

KFit offers two membership subscription options – a monthly Fitness Pass membership at SGD 99/month, and a free membership where users “pay-per-use” for a service. KFit also recently launched its new Beauty and Wellness section, offering beauty services from over 100 merchants to complement their range of available fitness activities.

Initially, KFit offered its users an unlimited pass to a variety of fitness classes at SGD 99/month. However, it recently informed users of a new pricing structure, limiting memberships to 10 activities per month for the same rate, which is equivalent to SGD 9.90 per activity. If users want to attend additional classes, he or she would have to pay for it ‘a la carte’ on the app or website. This led to dissent among KFit’s users and many took to Facebook and Play Store to voice their concerns.

This change was initiated to aid KFit in ensure the sustainability of its business model without compromising the original goal of providing affordable fitness options. KFit may not be doing as well as it seems to be, racking in less subscriptions than needed to break-even or profit on their investments.

Research question

Hence, my research paper seeks to answer the following research questions: 

How is KFit using its social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram & Twitter) to gather attention and listen to what current and potential customer want?
And leveraging on that knowledge, how can KFit build better relationships with current users to retain brand loyalty, and improve brand perception to increase subscription numbers?

Data collection

My data collection mainly tracked the number of followers each platform has, number of daily posts and how many likes and comment each usually garners. This is to measure their brand awareness, engagement and perception among their users and followers.

While KFit enjoys consistent increases in following across all three online social media platforms, there is inconsistency in its posting and there is, in short, inefficiency in the utilisation of the platforms. In addition, I found that KFit does not promote a strong brand community, and there is a very weak emotional connection between the users and the brand, which may thus result in low brand loyalty and support. 

Recommended content

Therefore my recommended content will seek to help KFit build an emotional connection with existing and potential users, build and strengthen brand community, and improve customers’ perception towards KFit:

#MyKFitStory campaign
Medium: Instagram / Facebook

KFit can encourage users to share their experience with KFit and what made them start with the app. KFit can selectively pick out the more heart-wrenching or relatable posts, contact the respective KFitters and share it on their Facebook and Instagram. This will gather more people who may be going through the same issues, and would see KFit as a solution to aid them. Through this, it would also strengthen emotional connection between users and the brand, as well as the brand community as they seek comfort and advice from one another.

#PeopleofKFit campaign
Medium: Blog / Facebook / Instagram

#PeopleofKFit is developed with the idea of introducing the humans behind KFit, be it the staff or the various partners, to humanise the brand. Using their Facebook or Instagram, KFit can occasionally share a story from one of KFit’s staff since they are also the brand ambassadors. They can also post “A Day in the Life of…” series via Facebook to show users what goes on behind-the-scenes.

 On the blog, KFit can share posts about instructors in the partner studios, and share their story about how they discovered the sport and why they picked the particular studio. They can also do introductory posts for every new partner coming on board – to put a face to the studio.

#MyKFitness
Medium: Snapchat / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter

Firstly, riding on the trend of Snapchat where most of KFit’s target audience is on now, KFit can customise their own location filter for users and partners’ instructors to post short snippets of their experience with a particular KFit activity etc. #MyKFitness is developed with the idea of not only humanising the brand, but also to make use of UGC for potential subscribers to have a peek into how it could be like for them.

Secondly, in conjunction with World Mental Health Day (WMHD) KFit can collaborate with Silver Ribbon (Singapore) to promote greater awareness of its services. Research on anxiety, depression and exercise shows that the psychological and physical benefits of exercise can also help reduce anxiety and improve moods. By associating itself to a cause so relevant to its activities will definitely help create emotional connections with users who suffer from mental illnesses and portray KFit in a positive light.