Up and Coming Social Media, are they worth a try? [Ep36]

ShowNotes

Hey, Hope you’re doing well and welcome to Quan2m. Covering the thoughts of a 21 year old physics undergrad running a startup and building a personal brand.

A little over a month ago I started using a social media app called faves. It’s some new thing for social media content curation. Has a good chunk of the valley on it. Growing pretty well. it’s actually kind of cool, but that’s not the point.

It got me thinking about whether someone should look for new Social Media being built out as a way of growing their personal brand. If it’s a good idea they will often have a lot less content than users so it could be a great place to grow a small audience.

Now there are two ways to look at it. If you are just starting out I think something like this could be a great place to get discovered and start building a small base audience. The nature of these smaller platforms means you will typically get to interact with your audience much more directly.

Faves has this feature where when someone follows you it gives you a pop up and you can send them a thank you. Little thigs like this are really cool for building a conection.

Another way to look at it could be like an investment. If you like the platform and think it has potential then starting super early can be a risk reward play where you take a chance on a small platform and if it blows up you are already established there and positioned to do well

Think about it like you would with being one of the first ten thousand content creators on tiktok. This would be absolutely massive for you given how well the platform is doing now. If you genuinely like the platform and think it has potential you could try a small social media platform this way and see how it does. Worst case you walk away having learn how to make content for a platform like that so in the future if something simular comes along you aren’t starting from 0.

This raises a big question though. Is there space for new social media platforms. Let’s look at clubhouse. Everyone has now coppied their features and everyone from Twitter to Discord let’s you do what Clubhouse does. Same thing like how Instagram coppied the stories feature from Snapchat. Now yes, all of these platforms still exist and have their popularity but I think it should create a consideration for anyone focusing on growing an audience on small platforms thinking they might blow up in popularity.

This consideration is how to convert people to more established platform. How can I get the brand I build out on something like Faves to a platform where people will stick with me even if they fail. This is a tough one.

For anyone familiar with the traditional thinking around marketing I am sure you know how atrociously bad normal convesion rates are. I’m sure it’s no different for converting followers. Just look at the ratio of followers some of the biggest content creators on one platform have on another.

Thing is if you are just starting out bringing over even just a few people can make a big difference. And the boost they give you can then lead to further growth. If this small platform let’s you engage and build a close audience and a small part of it converts to other social media then you will have a super loyal base. A fan which really likes what you are doing is much better than several thousand followers who just skip past your content. As such I think if you are starting out and have a small audience these low conversion rates shouldn’t be a worry.

The last part I want to talk about is how do you actually pick a small SM media platform to try this with. I think that greately depends on what you like. I randomly came across Faves and it really fits me cause I am the king of person who would send a bunch of posts I come across I think are relevant to different people as I come across them during the day. So having a central platform for everything I find interesting is the right fit for me and I think they have a lot of potential.

The choice here is very personal and should come down to what you think meets what you are looking for and/or you think has potential to do really well in adoption down the line.

I hope you found this interesting and it gave you some ideas about using small up and coming social media platforms to grow you brand. I would love to hear what you think so hit me up on Twitter @Quan2m2 or send a message in through Anchor. Both are in the description. Thank you very much for listening and I hope you have a lovely day. Bye!