Social media is dead, and we didn't even recognize

Are you already in the summer-mood community??

We are! It’s time to share fancy holiday pictures for your social media feeds! But let's hold on for a second and think about a question that no one asked: can we still call Instagram, TikTok, Facebook & co. “social”? Between all the corporate-, celeb- or fan accounts we follow, the tons of ads and influencers there is just a little bit of “social” network left. Can we still catch the people with marketing in their private comfort zone? Or has social media become just entertainment platforms? What could be the reincarnation of real social media? Find it out! But first, let’s talk about some startups:

News from Rockets, Unicorns, and Cucumbers we want to share with you:

?? Welcome to the future of food delivery: Uber Eats partnered with autonomic-delivery-startup Serve Robotics to bring 2000 robots on the streets of the United States.

?? Soon no more unicorn? German food delivery startup Flink is "only" valued at one billion.

?? Tax start-up Taxfix fires 20% of its employees because of a restructuring process after the transfer to Steuerbot.

At the OMR festival, we listened to Phillip Westermeyer talking about social media being not social anymore, he believes it’s all about entertainment now! And he’s right:?

Entertainment instead of privacy

Do you remember: Back in the days, 65 Facebook friends consisting of a mixture of family, colleagues, that one guy you were wondering why he’s in your friend-list and actual friends. You have only seen posts that your friends have shared, so to speak, a social online platform where you can share personal stuff – social media. Let's take a look at the present. You scroll through your Instagram timeline and are almost surprised when a "friend" posts something again. Between company pages, influencers, and advertisements, the social component disappears at most into the story section of the app. Posts from our “real” network don't keep people on the platform anymore, it needs stronger content to extend the active usage times. That’s exactly why it has come to this. But what does that mean for marketers??

The new “social” media?

To answer this question, we should first ask ourselves which channels can be still considered as 'social' at the moment. Mainly messenger apps like Whatsapp, which a majority of people use simply for personal communication. Surprisingly lots of users signing up for Whatsapp newsletters recently. According to OMR CEO Westermeyer, Whatsapp newsletters are the hottest shit right now. With conversion rates of up to 50% (!!) numbers proof that marketing on messegers is working extremely well at the moment. While having a way lower conversion rate with most of the postings on Instagram, Linked In, and Facebook. With this type of marketing, you pick up people exactly where they still communicate with their “real” social environment.

Another channel that proves the importance of certain privacy throughout is Bereal. As the name suggests, the app gets you to be "real" by sending a daily message after which you have two minutes to take a picture of yourself in whatever situation you are in at this moment. This forces users to have only a few friends on the app, because after all, how many people do you want to share such private things with? The app went from close to 3 million daily active users one year ago to over 20 million today. However, it is currently of little interest for marketing, because it’s almost completely isolated from influencers and company sites. Not even advertising can be displayed on the app. It remains to be seen whether the app will open up to businesses in the future and become relevant for marketers, or whether it will remain closed off from commercial usage. It remains to be seen whether the app will open up to businesses in the future and become relevant for marketers, or whether it will remain closed off. If the social network moves further into the commercial sphere, as Facebook did back then, it could become extremely relevant for advertising.

Did you ever think about using a messenger newsletter? Do you think there will be a real “social” network again? Or are you tired of using platforms like Instagram for years? – but no matter how you answered these questions, as always in marketing: try new things and think a little differently. I hope I could help you to think a bit out of the box today!

Happy Thursday!?

Raphael and the SC-Crew ????