The life and death of a social media platform and being a part of the next big thing

Should you be an early adopter of the next big social media platform? Or should you focus your presence on proven channels? Or even ditch one? After all, no one is friends with Tom from MySpace anymore.

One of the main goals with any marketing campaign is to reach as wide of an audience as possible. A strong social presence is key to a great marketing campaign. You need to make sure you focus on using the channels that will be most effective in helping you grow. It might sound good to join the latest platform because “it’s going to be the next big thing, bigger than Twitter!” But instead it may make it look as if your company is just desperate.

But of all the new social media channels blowing up currently, which should you be learning to take advantage of? Is Hive just a Twitter copycat? How do you “BeReal” in a world of inauthenticity? And just what is Mastodon?

BeReal

BeReal is the biggest breakout social media platform of 2022. The concept stems from the idea that every social media channel is filled with inauthenticity and lies. From airbrushed photographs, to staged scenarios, you can never know what to believe. BeReal solves this issue by making everyone post a photo at the exact same random time every day. The photos are also deleted from your feed after 24 hours. 

You can’t update BeReal when you want to. This makes it tricky for your company to create a planned output on the platform. This doesn’t make it bad by any means. It can be a fun daily activity to find out what you’re doing in that exact moment. However, its random nature can make it very difficult to plan for and even harder to take advantage of.

Has the bird left its nest?

By now, everyone will have heard about the ongoing situation regarding Elon Musk and Twitter. After an impromptu purchasing of the Social Media platform, Musk has made some pretty radical, unpopular changes to how it functions. His ideas range from de-prioritising your tweets if you aren’t a part of their premium service, to introducing paid verification (which has resulted in the mass-impersonation of corporations and public figures).

It’s quite obvious why many companies and advertisers are sceptical to continue using Twitter to interact with customers. The way Twitter works is one of the main reasons it became so large as a platform. Trending pages, less wordy posts and hashtags have been massively influential on the world of social media and have become essential in marketing campaigns over the last decade. With so many people wanting to leave Twitter, but not wanting to lose out on what it has given us, where are they to go?

Hive and Mastodon

In recent months many people have been migrating to other social media platforms with a similar focus as Twitter. Two of the biggest names to gain prominence are Hive Social and Mastodon. It can be very tempting to jump ship and take advantage of the fresh, new platform. You want to appear modern and up to date. However, over-saturating your audience with content on every platform can turn opinions on you.

Mastodon was the first name to gain traction in the weeks following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, however it lost that traction just as fast with the rise of Hive Social.

Focusing on Hive, it has been described as a hybrid of features from Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. It is impressive how fast the platform reached one million downloads. This isn’t hard to see why. With how many have been vocal about enjoying their time on Hive. It has reached over two million users and seemingly has the potential of a successful future. It is still too soon to determine whether the success is warranted or just a reaction to Twitter’s recent shortcomings.

You could see many influencers creating accounts on it while also encouraging their audience to do so. This has helped it to be pushed to the top of the App Store charts. In the following weeks, while seeing a slow climb overall, the initial hype of the platform was not what it once was.

Brands have seemed hesitant to jump ship from Twitter despite its issues. Many users have abandoned their accounts due to the platform’s own problems. The lack of a web app and Android users only having access to a beta has given the impression to many users that it is too early on to be considered a powerhouse in the industry.

Sometimes it works better to wait for hype to calm down. You can then decide on how and where to run your social media strategy. Sometimes having more people see your posts isn’t what helps you grow, but instead how you interact with them.

TikTok, however, has had enough time to show what it is capable of. It’s evident that this caterpillar became a social (media) butterfly.

TikTok

TikTok was the fastest-growing social media platform of 2022. Its focus on producing videos as opposed to imagery and text-based posts can be quite a jarring prospect, especially with it having an unpredictable algorithm. However, thanks to short-form content and a constant stream of random posts flooding people’s feeds, the TikTok algorithm makes it easier to reach a wide audience, as opposed to other video content sites such as YouTube. We have seen many brands, such as Duolingo, flourish on the platform, so what is stopping you from being the next company to make your presence known?

Understanding trends and adapting to the ever-changing landscape of the platform can seem like a daunting task, however, you will quickly find yourself scrolling and learning about what sounds, songs, inside jokes, video formats and niche subcultures are getting the most traction at any given time.

It is also the perfect platform for engaging with Gen Z. With over 3 billion downloads and nearly 31 million active daily users, a massive 60% are from Gen Z. With this generation being notoriously hard to market to, learning the ropes of TikTok can help you optimise and expand your brand strategy to a whole new, and necessary, audience.

TikTok had its doubters for its early years, but after seeing it not just create viral jokes, but also celebrities, it’s safe to say it is here to stay.

Not every new platform can be the next titan in the industry, so by waiting and watching from the sidelines, you can make an informed decision on the next basket to put your eggs in.