At my liberal arts college, the most popular sporting activity was the last saucer game I held every day. It can get competitive, at least by hippie artist standards, but it never gets too fierce. Until Bro Seth showed up.
Bro Seth (name slightly changed), constantly misreads the vibe of pickup games. While others might scream encouragement after a missed pass, Bro Seth will tell everyone that they are useless, fat and should just go home. Suddenly, people no longer wanted to show up. It threatens to ruin our entire game. That is, until one day, when Bro Seth came across a tree at the end of the terminal block.
I tell this story because social media is like the ultimate frisbee: amusing unexpected miracles for teenagers and college students. Lately, however, it seems like a lot of Bro Seths have twisted the game with the wrong vibe. You know what I'm talking about: branding.
Listen, I'm proponent great for social media marketing. Early adoption, when done right, makes a lot of sense. But things are getting too much. Take Peach, the latest social network that rises and falls in two weeks, like the app version of Ben Carson's presidential campaign. Starting January 8, Peach — basically Facebook Messenger with Slack commands You can also send doodles and virtual cakes. [/note] – received media attention and entered the top 100 popular free iTunes apps. By January 12, we had Our Essential Digiday Articles about how brands like Asos, J.Crew and Merriam-Webster have grown online. But today, Peach is essentially dead, nowhere to be seen among the top apps on iTunes.
Did a stream of brand activism kill Peach? In all likelihood, no – it's too hot to pick. But it's worth noting that Peach was the latest in a string of apps to gain popularity, inundated with brands and floundering shortly after. It happened to Meerkat. It even happened to Ello, banned brands explicitly but still see them engaged anyway, partly due to marketing blogs urge them to continue .
I understand the temptation to jump into hot new things. But come on, my marketing brethren: Let these social networks grow first. It is not necessary to pour a lot of resources into a social network for babies before it is two weeks old. No one is going to download an app and think, “Wait, what? Where are all my favorite brands?! “That consumer does not exist, no matter how much we pray to our lord and savior, the Old Spice Man.
I could go on — I haven't even used the expression “Don't chase shiny new objects.” But instead, I'll leave you with this great video from Adobe Marketing Cloud that makes my argument better than I could. For Peach, Ello, WooWoo, the message is the same: Until an app looks like it's going to be around for a while, stay away.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_EtMhM3fg[/embed]
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