You hear the term “social media network” and you instantly think of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and StumbleUpon. Wonderful! It means that the creators of these colossi have achieved their goals. But in 2013 there are a number of new, promising but not so known social media platforms that may just sweep you off your virtual feet. Reputable agencies have frequently talked about the importance of utilizing social media to its full extent. Let’s take a look at a few lesser known platforms that can have a huge impact in the days to come.
1. Pheed
Facebook and Twitter offer the possibility of sharing content free of charge for the whole world to see (should you choose to) but as both celebrities and entrepreneurs have come to realize, there is a niche they hadn’t yet discovered. Why would you simply offer pictures, videos or share opinions free of charge when subscribers can pay you to see them? And it is exactly this principle of monetization that has created “Pheed” - the social network that seems to have a little bit of everything but with a subscription fee and content availability only to those who have paid to see your shared material.
2. Medium
The creators of Twitter also made a leap forward and asked themselves if the emergence of all these social media platforms was not a reason for the constant decrease in social media platform content quality. So they decided to put their theory to the test and came up with “Medium”, an invite-only platform where the posting is limited to a very select few, so as to limit the risk of tacky, meaningless content. Viewing and commenting is however 'open to all'.
3. Chirpify
Ease of use has become the main focus in today’s social media market, so combining a purchase site with a social media platform and bringing ecommerce down to ‘one click and one word’ would surely not go unnoticed. Hence, Chirpify. A simple idea that allows users to sell their products and buyers to own them by simply typing the word “buy” as a reply. Nothing more, nothing less! I personally find it exquisitely simple.
4. Chirp
But by far the most original is “Chirp” as its principle of sharing is based on sound. Chirp offers you the possibility of instantly connecting with a roomful of friends and share content easily, without all the steps in-between, such as entering email addresses, connecting to Facebook, turning on Bluetooth and pairing devices. It works by creating a high-pitched sound that other phones pick up on when in range of the emitter and triggers the download of content by those who wish to do so. Easy, elegant, and let’s face it, quite the opposite of mainstream.
As witty and promising as these new platforms may be, they still cannot trump the veterans- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, but they will surely either grow rapidly because of the unique features or force already established platforms to widen their feature list and become worthy adversaries.
The good news for us users is that it will be us they will be fighting for to win over so we’re clearly bound to witness advancements and improvement in our social media life, and this means that our overall experience gets better no matter how things develop.