Emerging Social Platforms and Avoiding the Marketing Hype Hyperbole

The heartbeat of the creator economy has heightened as social platforms continue to undergo a revolutionary expansion, introducing new rosters of product updates, features and even introducing new platforms altogether. This relentless pace has prompted a dynamic dance of strategy adjustments for brands, agencies and creators alike who are all competing to keep up with ever-evolving trends.

Looking back on 2023, brands and marketers can apply insights gathered from social’s banner year to master the science and art of approaching emerging platforms in the year to come. So, what’s the state of these emerging social platforms today and how will they continue to evolve as we look toward 2024?

BeReal - launched in January 2020 The real-time, dual-camera photo sharing platform is currently reported to have 25 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of Nov 2023.

Clubhouse - launched in March 2020 The pandemic-born live audio app saw peak sign-ups at 10 million and has since reportedly declined to 3.5 million.

Mastodon - launched in November 2022 The decentralized social platform has a reported 1.8 million MAUs as of October of this year, according to TechCrunch.

Lemon8 - launched in February 2023 The TikTok sister app is reportedly not picking up steam in the US. Its active user base has reportedly reduced by half, according to Rest of World.

Threads - launched in July 2023 Threads’ extremely easy sign-up process via Instagram helped catapult its initial growth to an unprecedented 100 million sign-ups in its first week. Since then, the active user base is reported to have dropped nearly 80%.

While these platforms continue to build their footing, a consistently growing, active user base, among other things, is paramount for the long-term success of an emerging social platform. Particularly because marketers inherently shift budgets to where the eyeballs & outcomes are. This unlocks huge revenue opportunities for these platforms to fuel future growth.

At the end of the day, and for the sake of your agency team’s sanity, marketers can follow a similar playbook when we are at the precipice of emerging social media platforms. To avoid the ‘marketing hype hyperbole’, emerging social platforms can be approached in a similar capacity to The Transtheoretical Model (or the Stages of Change Model).

1. Precontemplation
Context: Almost half of marketers will try a new or emerging social media platform when they see their competitors use it successfully for marketing.
Action: This is the stage of deciding whether you will be a true first to market pioneer or a fast follower.

2. Contemplation
Context: Repeat after me: When a new platform launches to the public, there will not be traditional paid media capabilities available. But you know what is available? The ability to pay an influencer to create a sponsored post. Strategies that live beyond the traditional capabilities are likely why influencer ad spending is accelerating 3.5x faster than traditional social ad spending.
Action: More and more brands are turning to creators to develop long term ambassador programs. By cultivating these long standing relationships with creators, brands can benefit beyond stronger content and leverage creator partners as strategic consultants or creative directors.

3. Preparation
Context: From a broader context, what is the platform/feature being used for and how are creators and their audiences adapting? Is your audience on this platform? How does this support your business goal and how will success be measured?
Action: Teams must have a continuous testing framework in place to delineate innovation initiatives from lower funnel initiatives and have a measurement framework in place to measure success accordingly.

4. Action
Context: 90% of leaders correlate their company’s success to the effective use of social media data & insights to inform business strategy.
Action: Establish ownership and create both progress & timing milestones. These milestones can include check-ins on the emerging platform’s health, its active user-base, feature updates, etc. These are all usually a decent barometer on determining platform longevity and this will also inform any staffing needs on your side.

5. Maintenance
Context: Following their ban on password sharing, Netflix saw the highest account sign-ups in their company history. Conversely, after Threads’ unprecedented 100 million sign-ups in the first five days, it’s reported that their MAUs have declined nearly 80%. The point is that the consumer holds a lot of power. Consistent adoption is the first domino in the cascade of outcomes to follow, like updated features, paid media capabilities, more runway for innovation, etc.
Action: The goal with this stage is to have a process in place to make informed strategic decisions based on your action plan from the previous step.

6. Termination
Context: Creators are innovators and that innovation can apply to your business.
Action: Leave your former habits in last year’s optimization logs. Iterate & evolve from here. With this framework, you will have the processes in place and the proper stakeholders accountable.

Ultimately, a successful social networking platform is going to undergo consistent adoption, maintain a positive user experience, serve a need, and evolve with its user base as those needs change. These things are not clear in the beginning and oftentimes, it is creators and their engaged audiences that dictate the adoption and the use case of the platform. As we move into the new year, we’ll see more of this evolution for creators:

1). Creators who impact broader innovation across the social & digital ecosystems.

2). Brands leveraging creators as a channel for influencing business outcomes.

Avoid adopting a single, fleeting perspective during the initial buzz of a new platform launch. Partnering with experts in the space to establish a creator & audience-centric framework that guides ongoing strategic decisions and promotes innovation as these platforms evolve will empower your brand to keep pace with the speed of cultural change.