The Best New Social Media Platforms Rising in Popularity
For most internet users, we can identify the most popular social media platforms simply by swiping through our own phone’s home screen. Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok & Snapchat have dominated the social media vernacular for over two decades, but if you’re hungry for a new outlet we’ve identified where you can invest in expanding your online presence. For the topic of this article, we’ll discuss emerging platforms that are under ten years old with a significant amount of monthly active users (MAUs).
Threads
You’ve most likely heard of Meta’s text-based platform Threads created to intentionally compete with X. Over recent months, the platform has grown in usage to over 200 million MAUs. Worth noting is that 70 million of those users came within 48 hours of launching making it clear that audiences trusted Meta to deliver a valuable experience without knowing anything else about the app. Many social platforms have a longer ramp up period before they break out, but there’s benefits to having a connection to Zuckerberg.
Threads is basically an extension of your Instagram account with placements that include text posts (500 characters), photos, and videos (5 minutes in length). Meta’s original goal with Threads was to contribute to the fediverse. The fediverse is, “a global, open network of interconnected, but still independent social media servers, each with its own users, content, and rules.” This open source network for social channels allows for sharing, following, and connecting across a global audience who don’t necessarily use the same social apps.
As you may have heard, once you create a Threads account, you cannot delete it without deleting your Instagram account. You can only deactivate your Threads account.
Because Threads had such a rapid rise as a new social media platform, you have a great opportunity to explore it as a marketing channel. As of October 2024, Threads is ad-free for now, yet you can still activate an organic strategy for your business or personal brand. What this looks like is up to you, but our recommendation is to use similar content to Facebook and Instagram on a less frequent timeframe. Pay attention to your visibility metrics and note how your organic exposure on the app compares to others to identify if it’s worth your effort.
Bluesky
Recent legislation in Brazil, drove Bluesky into the spotlight. To summarize; Brazil banned X from being used within its borders and the population turned to this alternative app causing 2 million users to join the app in 1 week. Bluesky began development in 2019 under guidance from then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey with a small independent team. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, Bluesky jettisoned its parent company with no affiliations to Dorsey, Musk, or X.
It is touted as one of the best new social media platforms that is both open-network & decentralized. What do these terms have to do with likes and reposts? As an open-network social channel you can connect your Bluesky account to other accounts you own to share data and maintain a “shared identity” where applicable. In the context of social media, “decentralized” means that there is no single algorithm that dictates the feed on your timeline or when you get to see posts from your friends. Bluesky achieves this by allowing you to set filters and have multiple “feeds” on topics you adore while blocking things you don’t want to see with mute lists and labels. The communities that run these feeds are individually operated. Additionally, if a new app using a compatible protocol makes it to the app store you could hypothetically take your existing followers, handle and data to that new app from Bluesky.
As of this article’s publication, Bluesky is in the top 5 social apps in the App Store with over 13 million total users. While these metrics do not indicate activity on the app, they do show that there is a significant global audience aware of the platform. It’s mostly popular among younger demographics. Bluesky was invite only during its beta period but is now open to new users, so there is potential to investigate the value of the app. It is also ad-free, and reports say that it will stay this way indefinitely.
The best way to use Bluesky to market your brand is to hone in on smaller, unique audiences that maintain a high value to your business objectives. If you spend time developing a reputation on the platform as a trustworthy, shareable source of content you’ll be able to direct more users to your landing pages as your account grows. Keywords make a difference on Bluesky, so use your posts/profile to become synonymous with topics that are important to your customers. Brands can also create a custom domain on Bluesky which adds credibility and trustworthiness to your content. Rather than posting promotional content, join conversations that are trending with thoughtful insights or witty replies.
BeReal
BeReal is another relatively new social media platform that’s gaining popularity, but it does not carry the opportunities for brands as the others listed above. BeReal is built on a daily post framework that encourages you to journal your life through photos from your forward facing and selfie cameras taken simultaneously. When you make your account you’ll be prompted to find your friends, but you won’t be able to view their posts until you upload one of your own. You can see posts from users on the app who you have not added as friends, but again, only after you share your selfie-front-cam combo post to the “friends of friends” section. These barriers make promotional branding on the app very difficult, but this is the first app on our list to allow paid advertisements.
There are reportedly ~21.6 million monthly active users on BeReal with nearly 3 million users who open the app at least once per day. This statistic may be driven by the push notifications on the app that remind you to “capture a BeReal and see what your friends are up to” at the same time every day. Knowing that a decent user base log in daily means that you have the potential to reach a decent sized audience of 16-24 year olds who are a majority female. Products like clothes, consumer tech, and accessories have a large potential to attract attention on the app if you can match the aesthetic. Since the app is still new-ish there is not much competition in terms of advertisers but that could change. Now would be a good time to take advantage of the CPCs/CPMs before inflation and competition drive up the price to display your ads. They are currently in the early phases of this feature and are limiting access to advertisers on a case-by-case basis while requiring that they pledge to spend $10,000 minimum.
Lapse
The final emerging social media platform we want to discuss is Lapse. This app is much smaller at the moment, but we think it’s worth including because it proposes a social system that is new to our collective consciousness. Only time will tell, but it might have the potential to gain traction once it leaves its early access phase. It’s been called the “Anti-Instagram” because of its emphasis on personal relationships within the app and its ad-free nature. The premise of the app begins with requiring you to be connected to a current user to start your own profile. This means it requires an invite or for you to invite several people to the app. To activate your account you must also invite other non-affiliated users to join the app. Once you’ve shared the little known app, multiple heart-wrenching times, you can access their patented camera feature which emulates retro film printouts with a premade filter. Here’s where it gets tricky: after taking your pictures of the timeless moments witnessed from your wholly unique perspective, you have to wait for them to “develop”. It’s inline with the retro camera aesthetic, but also a bit counterproductive because you’ll have no motivation to stay in the app as the process goes on.
When your pictures develop, you can select the winning photo(s) and post them to a feed which includes posts from across the globe. It’s a UK based app, but there is a significant US user base. Instead of likes, the collective user base reacts to your posts using only emojis and short comments. Above the main feed, you can still find your friends on the app as highlights so you stay up to date with their posts. While the nature of launching an account on this app creates a barrier for commercial brands, it provides a great platform to enhance your personal brand. I’ve even seen users export the filtered photos from Lapse to post on Instagram, even though these exports are watermarked with a logo & time stamp. Something about that vintage aesthetic will always be nostalgic. The app is currently in its 12 month of release, and has its flaws, so check in as time passes to see what becomes of this micro-platform.
Check Them Out for Yourself!
If you’re considering pushing the boundaries of your current strategies by launching accounts on new social media platforms in 2024 or 2025, it’s clear that you’ve got options. The best way to start is to develop a plan on how to invest your time effectively in order to reach your business goals. There is no point in posting on your business accounts just to fill space in your social calendar. Define your message and mission internally so that followers can join you as you share your world with them in ways they’ve never seen before.
When you’re ready to redesign your brand’s image, contact the team at Gold Level Marketing. Get in touch and one of our client managers will reach out to discuss a strategy that works for you.