Is it Time for a New Social Platform?

If you’re anything like us, your social media activity consists of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and, the occasional flick through Snapchat. Embarrassingly enough, we can’t remember the last time we went a day without checking in with at least one of these platforms.

But recently there’s been a lot of backlash towards the world’s favourite social networks. Facebook have come under fire numerous times after their algorithm enabled the rapid spread of fake news. Their engagement has been dropping and in January, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will be changing the balance of the news feed, showing users more content from family and friends, as opposed to professionally made content from brands and businesses. Instagram similarly will need to change their ways if they want to keep their users on side. Those who make their living off the platform have reported a huge loss of engagement and reach, while unwanted adverts continue to irk users on a daily basis. Finally, Twitter have faced backlash for refusing to ban certain users for spreading hate speech and threatening violence, while other less prominent users have had their accounts deactivated.

The Rise of Vero

The end of February saw something unusual happen in the social media world. Instagram rival Vero started to climb the App Store rankings despite the fact that, well, it didn’t really work.

Although it launched back in 2015, Vero never quite managed to take off. Before it’s sudden surge in popularity, Vero had fewer than 150,000 downloads. The past few weeks however, has seen the download number skyrocket to over 3 million. Why? Well, Vero displays posts in chronological order, it doesn’t have adverts, it allows users to share links, current location and book recommendations. Users can share posts with only specific friends — a feature which Instagram doesn’t allow. It was instantly hailed ‘the new Instagram’, encompassing all the best features of the photo-sharing platform — rejecting the worst.

With Vero beginning to trend on social media platforms, some users decided to dig a little deeper. Unfortunately for Vero, it didn’t stand up to the scrutiny, and shady practises as well as concerns over what Vero did with the customer data were brought to the surface. Perhaps Vero could have worked with this, but the fact that the app didn’t actually work did little for their already diminishing reputation. Users complained that they didn’t know how to log in, and the social media app was buggy and difficult to use. Once users realised that they couldn’t actually delete their accounts, the game was over. #DELETEVERO began trending on Twitter, and the app fell from grace almost as quickly as it had risen.

What Can We Learn?

While Vero’s journey from zero to hero, then back down to zero can hardly be considered a success story, what it does do is highlight the need for a new social media platform, which many may find reassuring. Vero has proved that social media users are looking for something more — they just need to know that others are doing the same thing. Despite the fact that the app didn’t really work very well from the outset, users still flocked in their thousands towards the new platform. This highlights the importance of a good campaign which evokes feeling of FOMO — the belief that everyone else is doing something and not wanting to miss out yourself.

Vero knew why they were different to Instagram, and they actively told users why they were different. The time has been and gone to attempt to replicate Facebook — unwanted adverts and all. It won’t work. Instead, find out what it is that users don’t like about Facebook, or Instagram, or Snapchat, and let your target users know that you won’t do the same.

What Could Vero Have Done Better?

Vero highlights the importance of having a product that can withstand pressure — whether that’s a web page or mobile app. The rise of Vero was picked up by The Independent, the BBC, NME and Time, among many other huge publications. With exposure to potentially millions of people, it looks as if Vero were quids in, as they rapidly gained momentum. Unfortunately, there’s only so far that social media hype can get you, and the platform soon crumbled under the pressure.

We’d love to know what you think — is there space for a new social media platform? If so, what do you believe is most crucial to its success? Let us know in the comments or tweet us!

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