Poparazzi, BeReal: Social media’s new generation

The emergence of new social startups such as Poparazzi, NewNew, Capcut and BeReal may mark a shift in how young consumers use social media.
Poparazzi BeReal Social medias new generation
Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images

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Rather than pose for a selfie, social media is hyping your friends, promoting individuals you admire and inviting like-minded people for creative collaboration.

That is the premise behind a new wave of social media startups, including Poparazzi, NewNew and BeReal. They want to turn creation into a social activity and take the spotlight off me-me-me culture. The accent is on the spontaneous and the natural, presenting all kinds of challenges for luxury brand marketers used to a highly polished and precisely calibrated approach.

Just days after its launch in May, photo-sharing app Poparazzi shot to the top of Apple’s most downloaded apps in the US, above TikTok and YouTube. It has reportedly raised funds from venture capitalist investors, including Benchmark, the VC firm backing Snap, Twitter and Uber, with a valuation on the company said to be already in the region of $135 million. Poparazzi founders Alex and Austen Ma and Benchmark did not respond to requests for comment. The app has already won over some high-profile investors. Chris Paik of Pace Capital says the app will “define Summer 21”, while Josh Constine of SignalFire describes it as “the perfect app for Hot Vax Summer”.

Poparazzi marks an important shift — from solo broadcast media like Instagram to a more collaborative environment considered by many Gen Z users to be more authentic. That creates a challenge for brands because “they can no longer treat the feed like an advertising space”, as Constine puts it.

Values-based marketing is coming to the fore, says Paul Greenwood, head of research and insights at We Are Social. “What we’re hearing from a lot of brands is that they want to be less interruptive [on social media]. That’s become a real focus this year, having historically used paid media to interrupt people’s feeds to get their message across. Brands now want to do it more organically and be part of the culture.”

Brands are advised to learn about these new formats and platforms and how young consumers engage and interact online, says Constine. “They can’t just take media they’ve already made and have been pumping out to a mass audience through large social networks.” Content and marketing should feel “truly native” to the new platforms, whether through shooting within the app or working with creators on the network.

Preserving authenticity

On Poparazzi, a user’s profile is made up of photos taken by the user’s friends. There’s no front-facing camera, so selfies aren’t a thing. Users can restrict who takes photos of them and which photos show up on their profiles — and those profiles don’t show likes, captions or comments. “We built Poparazzi to take away the pressure to be perfect,” the company wrote in a Medium post announcing its launch.

Another photo-sharing startup is BeReal, which encourages users to document everyday moments, sending a simultaneous notification to groups of followers, giving them two minutes to snap a picture — hardly enough time to pose or polish shots. Last week it closed a $30 million capital funding round backed by Andreessen Horowitz, DST, Accel and Kima Ventures.

Poparazzi is a new social network that only lets users take photos of other people.

Collage by Josh Constine

The rise of Poparazzi and BeReal comes a year on from the launch of Clubhouse and a few months after Dispo. Multiple advertisers severed their ties with Dispo in March, following an accusation of rape levelled at a former associate of co-founder David Dobrik, who has since stepped down from the board. Dispo is now readying to make a return: the app has raised a Series A funding and taken on new advisors, including Annie Leibovitz, Cara Delevingne, Sofia Vergara and Kevin Durant, among others. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Liss declined to comment on the amount raised or valuation.

Photo sharing companies alone have raised $86 million in funding this year to date on top of $129 million in 2020, according to Crunchbase data. Social media companies, in general, have raised $1.8 billion this year on top of more than $4 billion in funding in 2020.

Critics of social media have long slated its lack of “realness”. This includes its obsession with self-image, the pressure on users to portray an idealistic view of themselves, and a fixation with likes and views. A change of tack may be on the way, with even Instagram now letting users turn off “like” counts from their news feeds.

“After a tough year, social networks are waking up to the fact that making people feel good is important. They need to respect boundaries,” says Constine. “The next generation really sees and identifies themselves through their friends, not just through what they do, but by the company they keep. The next wave of social experiences will need to be something shared that you can partake in collaboratively.”

Invest in your idols

The social media-driven creator economy has existed for little more than a decade, but more than 50 million people worldwide now consider themselves creators. It’s become the fastest-growing type of small business, according to a 2020 report by SignalFire. But as the market gets more competitive — and the platforms and their algorithms increasingly unreliable — creators with big online followings are starting to experiment with new revenue streams, such as the introduction of paywalls.

Social networks are making it easier for creators to monetise. In May, Twitter introduced new monetisation features, such as tipping. Platforms like Rally help users to create their own social tokens that followers can buy into. New generation social startups are helping influencers to take things a step further and monetise different areas of their life. Los Angeles-based NewNew, for example, enables creators to share customised polls with followers, giving other users the ability to weigh in on anything from wardrobe decisions to daily activities. The company has raised seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Canaan Partners.

While popular creators are starting to monetise directly from fans, brand sponsorships remain the number one source of revenue, says Constine. But Greenwood suggests the new revenue streams encourage creators to stay honest because they are prompting a pivot to the creation of content that adds value to their followers’ lives. “If they’re able to generate money themselves and be less reliant on brands, then the creators who are producing mediocre content won’t have a business model that is sustainable.”

Subscriptions may also become an interesting benchmark for brands to watch. “In the past, it was difficult to understand how successful an influencer was. Today’s creators have lots of different metrics that show real sales,” says Greenwood.

As consumers seek greater authenticity, brands will, in turn, reflect that. “Influencers with millions of views don’t translate to millions of sales,” says Constine. “Instead of having creators making the lowest common denominator content that appeals to the widest possible audience, work with creators that are making things that they love for a niche audience that shares their esoteric passions. Brands might see a sales lift by helping creators make something that a small audience loves.”

TikTok: Not just a channel, but a format

Second to Poparazzi on the chart of most downloaded apps in the US in May was Capcut, a video-editing platform launched by TikTok owner Bytedance. The app acts as an accessible Final Cut on the go and allows users to add stickers, filters and effects to make videos look sleek and professional. Capcut has exceeded 250 million installs globally to date from across the App Store and Google Play and nearly 9.5 million from US app stores, according to Sensor Tower.

The app highlights the rise and rise of short, fun and snappy videos, which range from 15 to 60 seconds, says Brian Mandler, co-founder of The Network Effect, a digital agency focused on short-form content. “TikTok has grown exponentially, and we’re seeing the evolution of it as a platform to become an entire format.”

Last week, Instagram rolled out the ability for brands to host ads on Reels, a feature that enables users to create and share 15-​second videos. YouTube recently came out with Shorts, which lets users watch short, vertical videos. Twitter plans to enable brands to add full-screen ads to Fleets. “You’re starting to see big tech companies launch features or standalone platforms for short-form video amid a definite shift in how individuals create and consume,” says Mandler.

YouTube Shorts is a new short-form video experience that began rolling out in March 2021.

YouTube

TikTok and these new functions put the accent on entertainment rather than connection with friends. “The biggest difference with TikTok compared to other large social networks is that you’ll probably follow and engage with people you don’t know. TikTok is less of a friend-based social network and is more of an entertainment channel that people use to explore new, interesting things,” says Greenwood.

Influencer Alyssa McKay grew her YouTube audience through posting Shorts, using short, vertical videos and community tab polls. Her YouTube audience surged from 40,000 to 380,000 in under five months, increasing her views from 500,000 to over 85 million.

Platforms are recognising the potential of creators themselves: in May, YouTube announced a $100 million fund to distribute to creators of the most engaging clips for its new feature. TikTok plans to distribute to creators over $2 billion over the next three years. And Instagram is promoting its first-ever Creator Week initiative this month.

In the new social media environment, brands have a number of options. They can choose to run ads, partner with creators on branded content, or voice their own presence by creating their own content. While all three support a brand’s marketing mix, the latter two are most important, experts say. For brands, this means leveraging the right creators that are native to specific platforms to help market their products, says Greenwood. He points to English soccer star Marcus Rashford and high-profile American medic Dr Anthony Fauci, who are emerging as “reliable idols” because “they’re doing good in society”.

All of which poses dilemmas for luxury brands and their usual ways of marketing. “Luxury brand marketing is usually very polished. The quality of the content and advertising, just like the product, is high-end and developed,” says Greenwood. “But we’re increasingly seeing that Gen Z doesn’t want that kind of pristine visual anymore.”

One option is to meet with creators halfway. “Ultimately, you’re hiring the creator to engage with their existing audience, so give them the freedom to layer your campaign into their existing content mix,” says Mandler. “Otherwise, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

Editor’s note: The story was updated to include the news of Dispo’s Series A funding. (8 June 2021)

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