Mediaboss Marketing

Web3 is in a weird place. Some existing platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, are tiptoeing into the internets next phase with NFT profile pictures, the metaverse and crypto. But according to Christopher Gulczynski, one of Tinders co-founders, a former Bumble CPO and a former Facebook engineering manager, those platforms cant ever compete in what Web3 will be.

There's so much development happening in Web3, said Gulczynski, who was responsible for Tinders swipe right, swipe left on matches. All the tech startups are based and rooted in Web3. It's stuff that you haven't heard about yet because everyone's building.

Gulczynski and Zaven Nahapetyan, a former engineering manager and organizational lead for Facebook, left their respective platforms to help build Niche, which lets people form communities around shared interests or topics, like sports or Taylor Swift. The platform is still in beta, with applications opening up on Monday. Gulczynski and Nahapetyan said members of a Niche community will act as part owners, and it wont rely on ads to generate revenue.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

What have your roles at Bumble and Facebook taught you about the current state of social media?

Zven Nahapetyan: I worked on social impact projects at Facebook. I did a lot of stuff with fighting misinformation, building the tools that prevent people from sharing content that we have flagged as fake news or other forms of misinformation. I did a lot of stuff with getting people to go out and vote and civic engagement efforts and voter registration efforts on both Facebook and Instagram. And then I started fundraisers, which raised $6-ish billion for charity.

But over time, I saw the negative consequences of that. And I started to realize that actually, even all of these things that I was doing weren't enough. And there are fundamental issues with the way that social media platforms like Facebook operate, the biggest of which being that the revenue is generated through ad dollars, which means ads need to be highly targeted and people need to spend a lot of time on their phone to see more ads, which means the platform needs to collect as much information as possible on its users in order to build to target these ads and to make the app more addictive. And that's a fundamental tension that is really hard for a company like Facebook to get away from, and Instagram as well. So I realized there has to be a better way for humans to connect, and we need to find a way to do that that doesn't rely on ad dollars to avoid these pitfalls that Facebook has fallen into.

Christopher Gulczynski: During my time at Tinder and Bumble, we made a really sticky product, and people spend a lot of time on it. At Bumble, we were averaging around like 90 minutes a day. That, I think, inherently is a lot of responsibility for what those people are going to do. What's the fallout in their lives, and how does it impact them?

So I think being part of those high-impact, high-visibility platforms has given us a real perspective on what our responsibility is now and what current state of things we're doing to people, how it's affecting our societies, how it's affecting people's psyches, like mental health. It's all a big responsibility for us, and now is the time to put a little intentionality behind it.

At what point during your time at these companies did you say, It'd be better for me to take a step back and do something else than stick with the company and try to change it from within?

Nahapetyan: It was after the 2020 election that felt like the culmination of everything that I had done at Facebook supporting that. And I was part of the Zoom call when we were discussing what to do about Trump declaring an early victory. Do we suspend his account? Do we put messages up and stuff like that? And that actually all went fairly well.

I feel like the story of Facebook and the 2020 election was that there wasn't really much of a story, which was a resounding success as far as the people on my team and the people I worked with were concerned. And that kind of felt like, OK, my work here is done; that's about as good as it's going to get. And now it's time to move on and try to do something bigger and better.

How are you defining social media in this conversation, because TikTok doesn't even consider itself a social media platform: It considers itself an entertainment space.

Nahapetyan: I would absolutely consider TikTok to be social media.

Gulczynski: 100%. Even if it is entertainment content, I think more people should be explicit about the things that you see on these platforms for entertainment purposes, but a lot of these people get their news from Facebook or TikTok.

Nahapetyan: I think part of why they might be doing that is because social media has such a bad rap, understandably. And actually for us, we've been pitching Niche as a social content platform rather than a social media or social networking app because it's got a negative connotation. So I would say TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, honestly LinkedIn, to some extent Reddit

Gulczynski: Discord, Slack, those types of communication models, even if you don't have a network network, or it's not media, you're still connecting with people and talking.

Facebook is moving away from Friends, and Instagram is trying to put more of an emphasis on video, which is less about having a connection with your college roommates or your high school friends than it is about content that Instagram thinks you might like. Is social media taking on a new meaning? How is it defined now?

Gulczynski: We're seeing the turn of what we would call social media, right? Facebook is not going to focus on following people anymore. There's evolution happening. But at a certain point, theyre giant companies, and to switch your whole platform is a gigantic task. We were joking in the office, Remember when Facebook was a social network? It might turn into a giant advertising platform in 10 years. Who knows? It's definitely changing now. And people are like, What's the next evolution of quote-unquote social media? Or what's it going to be called?

Nahapetyan: A lot of this stuff began with Facebook, and people didn't really know what they would like, what sort of things they would share, how that would potentially be used against them. And I think Facebook was just a giant experiment, a 3 billion-person experiment. And we saw that there's actually some bad stuff that can come out of this, not premeditated. It was just happenstance. And so now we have the power of hindsight. And we can decide how to build apps and sort of what things to capitalize on.

I think a part of why Facebook and Instagram are moving in that direction is because it's less toxic and less problematic if you connect people around shared interests. That's what Chris and I are trying to do with Niche. I saw in Facebook internally, too, there's this move toward more groups and more closed spaces. Because if you connect people that have some hobbies or interests or something in common, that actually could lead to a better social media experience than just connecting people who went to school together or are family members. And so I think just based on those learnings and those trends, companies are moving more in that direction.

You said Niche is social content, not social media. Whats the difference?

Nahapetyan: The goal of Niche is to create communities of people around shared identity or profession or hobbies, interests, anything like that. And then give them ownership over those networks.

Instead of relying on ad dollars, we will be capturing some of the value that people are producing. One example might be a fan club for an artist, so you get all of the closest Taylor Swift fans, put them together in a group, they'll have partial ownership of this group. As the group gets bigger and becomes more popular, more people want to join, maybe they do exclusive events, maybe they do merch drops or something like that. All these people are actually part owners of that community much the same way that employees of a company might have options or stock in it. And so the idea is people can then buy and sell on the platform, and we can collect our revenues through those transaction fees, rather than relying on ads. We think that's a much healthier model.

One of the downsides that I could see happening would be if a community was particularly toxic or dangerous in some way, and they're all talking to one another. How would Niche handle that?

Nahapetyan: That's actually a question we get asked a lot. There's a few things that we've learned from Web 1.0, pre-Facebook and then Facebook days as well. The first is that it's actually better to have people to opt in to what sort of things they see rather than have the algorithm decide and share more of viral or divisive content. And so one example of that is, before Facebook, there were places like 4chan and just really toxic forums. But most people didn't spend any time there, and it kept that content separated and away from the rest of the internet. And what Facebook did is it actually made it really easy for different types of things to spread. So a person would be exposed to stuff that they wouldn't otherwise have seen.

If there are spaces that sort of engage in toxic behavior or shared nasty things, I think it's better to have them be self-contained rather than allow that content to be really easily spread from there to everyone else.

Whats the Web3 element of Niche?

Gulczynski: DAOs. Using that as a model of how to group people together, and that's the shared ownership, distributed ownership, incentivized engagement. So we feel that's the bedrock and foundation technology that we're using for Web3. The blockchain makes all this possible. I feel like we couldn't have done this without blockchain technology.

Do you see these other platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, moving in the direction of your idea of Niche?

Gulczynski: People are moving away from these giant social networks into more close-knit or more intimate spaces usually centered around shared interests. That's where we took our signal. So in a very general sense, I think that's the trend. We want to incentivize that more with the data structures and the Web3 stuff. We think thats where social is headed.

Nahapetyan: Yeah, I agree. And I think actually, we see that on even existing Web 2.0 platforms like on TikTok, people talk about architecture or baking or something. And this identity around the things they believe in or the spaces that they're a part of, it's what's making social media in the present age more exciting, and more compelling. And so I definitely think things are moving in that direction.

Niche is focused around becoming closer to Web3 standards. Would you say any other platforms are moving in the direction of Web3?

Gulczynski: The big ones are aware of it. And you can tell, theyre doing the NFT thing with your profile picture or whatever. But I don't know if those guys can ever compete in what Web3 will be. But there's so much development happening in Web3. All the tech startups are based and rooted in Web3. It's stuff that you haven't heard about yet because everyone's building. But from what we've seen, and the people that we've talked to, the companies that we see being built, this is going to be the future of the internet.

In five years, what would you say is the ideal user experience for social media?

Nahapetyan: You get stuff that is exactly what you're looking for. If you want to watch comedy videos, things just for the sake of entertainment, you can find it. If you're looking for something more serious or want professional networking, you can find that easily as well.

I think the ideal world is the place where people's needs are met in the way that they want and they have really compelling content. But it's stuff that they're looking for and not not stuff that spreads really easily or what the algorithms determine to be better for ad revenue. I hope that social media five years from now will be a lot healthier and we won't see a lot of the mental health issues we see with social media today.

Read more:
They wanted a less toxic, less problematic social network. So they built one. - Protocol

"Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter don't just connect people; they can isolate them from reality, say some sociologists. What do you think?"

If there really were a common Human reality that was the same for everyone, that everyone perceived in the same way, the question might be easier to answer. But there are approaching eight billion individual perceptual Human 'realities' amongst us and, for the individual, what THEY see is 'reality'. Few of us have identical perceptual realities however much we may agree on many things, there will be differences. So the first question that must be asked is if there is a 'standard' reality, what or who determines what it is? What Authority determines this IS reality, that is NOT? Is disagreeing with what the majority believes to be 'reality' to be considered being "isolated" from 'reality'? Or do we just accept the term 'reality' as a 'thing' despite its completely nebulous reality and accuse people of being isolated from it when their perceptions don't agree with our own perceptions? And aren't Facebook and Twitter designed to SHARE realities? I think the initial statement needs to be rephrased and the 'some say' part expanded before any thought is given to one's own perceptions of the 'reality' of its claim.

See the article here:
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter don't just connect people; they can isolate them from reality, say some sociologists. What do you...

BeReal, the French photo sharing platform that's been labelled by some as the "Anti-Instagram" app, has recently hit the number one spot in the social networking section of the App Store.

BeReal was launched at the beginning of 2020, as a simple, stripped-back approach to photo sharing and life sharing. The concept of the app is simple: every day at a different time it will prompt you all to take a photo simultaneously and you've got two minutes to do so.

If you've never heard of BeReal before, don't worry. I hadn't either, until a friend of mine stopped halfway through a cycle the other day, whipped out her phone, and took a frenzied snap on the app before the two minute timer was up. I was a bit perplexed, but then later on, curious enough to download the app myself.

Our writer Hannah was hooked on BeReal when she tried it earlier this year (way more on-trend than me), and felt that the new photo-sharing app demands authenticity (opens in new tab). What I'm interested in now is why the platform has suddenly gone viral in the last few weeks. Is it genuinely an alternative to Instagram? It is a backlash to Instagram in its current state? Is BeReal here to stay?

Social networks will always rise and fall in popularity throughout their life cycle, as generations change, technology improves and new updates please or annoy users. Photo sharing platforms like sites like Flickr or 500px don't feel as popular as they once did and despite the best camera phones (opens in new tab) making it easier than ever to share photos, we know that Instagram is also having a pretty to put it lightly tough time with its image.

I've already written about why Instagram is no longer for photographers (opens in new tab), and Make Instagram Instagram again (opens in new tab) is the latest movement to circle the platform and complain about the changes. Many users are unhappy that Instagram has become more about reels, videos and suggested posts from strangers rather than interacting with your friends and the people you do know and choose to follow.

Interestingly, against all this negative press, BeReal has emerged. BeReal, with the tag line "Your Friends for Real." is hoping to change the way that you interact with friends and get a glimpse into their lives.

BeReal markets itself as a photo sharing app, even though it sits in the Social Networking section of the Apple Store. In fact, the official Apple Store description (opens in new tab) reads "the simplest photo sharing app to share once a day your real life in photo with friends."

Unlike Instagram, which allows seemingly endless uploads, BeReal prompts you to post a photo every day just once. The idea is that you capture an image wherever you are, and then post it in time to discover what your friends are up to.

Instagram has long come under fire with critics, who say that it represents a highlights reel of life, rather than a representation of reality. Posted photos are often planned and executed carefully, or can be posted from years ago.

By springing a photo opportunity upon its users, BeReal is seemingly encouraging a more authentic way to capture life and share it with others.

When you're prompted to take a photo, the BeReal app takes both a selfie and a photo from the front camera simultaneously, so you get two images.

BeReal is still a social networking app, and therefore you'll find many predictable social features on the app too. There are daily challenges, and you can comment and react to your friends BeReal profile (that's if you have any friends on the platform, as I don't currently know anyone on it).

At the time of writing this article, BeReal is at the number one spot among free Social Networking apps on the App Store, ahead of WhatsApp and Facebook.

But let's not forget that it's been out since the beginning of 2020. Developed by Alexis Barreyat, who has previously worked at GoPro (opens in new tab),the app looks like it could have gained popularity with Gen Z users earlier this year, a spread that was perhaps helped by a paid ambassador program on college campuses.

According to data shared by Fast Company (opens in new tab), BeReal has now been downloaded over 20 million times, and is worth an estimated $600 million (opens in new tab).

The makers of BeReal seem to have a comedic side, and they've post "warnings" at the bottom of their Apple Store listing for those using the app:

/! WARNING /!

BeReal won't make you waste time. BeReal is life, Real life, and this life is without filters. BeReal will challenge your creativity. BeReal is your chance to show your friends who you really are, for once. BeReal can be addictive. BeReal might frustrate you. BeReal won't make you famous. If you want to become an influencer you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.

Like all fledgling social networking apps, there are still plenty of glitches that need ironing out. The BeReal interface is smart, but currently very basic, and the makers are welcoming feedback and ideas from users.

Despite this, it's going to be exciting to see if the BeReal app continues to fly, or like some emerging social trends, flop before it really gets going. We've reached out to BeReal (opens in new tab) for a comment and will update this post if we hear more.

Go here to see the original:
Why has the photo-sharing app BeReal suddenly got so popular? - Digital Camera World

Framey is a social media application that helps users find, plan and document their dream vacations. The app, which raised more than $1M in funding, is now available worldwide for travelers to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 28, 2022 / Founded in 2019 by entrepreneurs, Robert Preoteasa and Alexandru Iulian Florea, Framey has launched an inspiring platform where users can go through the entire process of a travel journey, from dreaming to planning, experiencing and sharing their trip with their followers. The exciting new social networking app is now available on the App Store and Google Play.

For more information on how to download Framey, the disruptive travel app that helps users plan their entire process of travel from dreaming to planning, experiencing and sharing, please visit https://framey.io/

The beginnings of Framey

Framey was founded in 2019 and it has been imagined from the start as a social media application that would disrupt the travel landscape by allowing users to discover new destinations and plan their next trips.

To continue the development of Framey, this travel tech startup based in Romania managed to raise $1 million in a seed funding round led by ICE Capital from Dubai and backed by JECO Capital, a powerful investment group from Europe.

The powerful financial support is more than necessary for the emerging startup to expand its team, develop and enhance the product while fighting to establish its name in the travel industry.

Framey, more than a social travel app:

When asked to desribe Framey in just a few words, Framey's CEO stated, "we would say that its main mission is to help users get inspired for the next journey of discovery."

This social travel app may appear as another platform for travelers to post pictures and reveal new attractions from around the world, but its disruption power comes from enabling users to discover interesting places in a comprehensible manner and offering the possibility to create a travel plan around that specific location.

In addition to finding new exotic places to visit, users have the option to document and share with other people their own visual impressions of that space by uploading their own photos and revealing their own thoughts about that place.

New users will easily notice that the main benefit of Framey on their mobile devices comes from an unexpected mix of a social media application and a travel planning platform.

To establish its name in the travel space, Framey worked to connect the stakeholders and all those who might use its platform, from normal travelers and travel content creators to local people and agencies that should benefit from the growing popularity of the discovered destination.

Framey is reinventing travel planning:

It is difficult to define the power of Framey in just a few phrases. Travel experiences can hardly be encompassed in a single app, platform, or device.

At the same time, the travel industry is already ready to offer travelers a long list of powerful companies and agencies that can cover everything from booking flight and accommodation to discovering great restaurants and local experiences.

However, the major disadvantage for a big company is that it loses the feeling of a growing community replacing it with the cold mask of a business that simply wants users money.

From this point of view, Framey does have the advantage of being a social travel application that placed a high emphasis on the power of community and communication from the start in order to bring forward travel experiences of normal people who want to share their journey with other users.

At the end of the day, the principal idea behind Framey is to inspire people to travel more, have more meaningful experiences, and share them with other people, no matter if we talk about a long weekend in a popular European city or the regular visit to our favorite pizza or ice cream place in our home town.

Framey places a focus on discovering your own country:

For the last two years or so, the world has been gradually changing due to Covid or other unexpected world events and we all had to keep up with this unavoidable change.

The team behind Framey noticed the growing interest of people to travel more in their own backyards, from visiting close-by attractions to reaching more distant destinations, such as villages, cities, or tourist areas from their own countries.

Though it was initially an element of surprise, Framey took this as an opportunity to offer the large majority of travelers the possibility to discover more local attractions and create a plan around these new' destinations.

All of a sudden, the old mountain villages have become interesting again and a new generation of travelers discovered that their own region could still surprise them in a pleasant way.

About Framey.IO

Framey is the disruptive travel app that helps users plan their entire process of travel from dreaming to planning, experiencing and sharing. From local destinations to faraway attractions, Framey is able to offer every user the possibility to establish a reliable travel plan and enjoy great experiences by using a single social travel app. For more information, and for links on how to download Framey frame the App Store or Google Play, please visit https://framey.io/

Contact:

Framey.IOAlexandru Lulian Florea323-553-3786[emailprotected]

SOURCE: Framey.IO

See the article here:
Framey.IO Is The New Social Travel App Now Available on the App Store and Google Play - AccessWire

LinkedIn automation tools are widely available. Different people use them for different purposes. Some of them can automate the task of gathering prospect details, reaching out to them, scheduling posts, and engaging with prospects. These tools help your sales team focus on high-value activities and maximize their effectiveness. You dont need to worry about spending your valuable time on social networking when you can automate this process.

Using an automated sales system on LinkedIn can be an effective way to increase your business. These systems can generate leads for you and send cold emails to potential clients without taking up your time. With the right tools, you can automate your LinkedIn sales process without any hassle.

If youve been wondering how to promote webinars on LinkedIn, youve come to the right place. The social network has become a vital source for B2B sales leads. In addition to finding new prospects, LinkedIn offers the perfect opportunity to nurture leads. Here are some benefits of automating your webinar marketing efforts on LinkedIn. The benefits of LinkedIn webinars cannot be understated.

Despite its reputation as a networking site, LinkedIn is also a powerful social network for B2-B companies. Its content-oriented approach allows you to increase your organic reach, even if youre not marketing to business people. Content on LinkedIn is viewed by 37% more people than the average website, and that means your posts are more likely to be seen by these targeted users. In addition to being a powerful social network for B2-B sales, LinkedIn also offers many marketing benefits. The social network offers tools for marketers to target their audience by job title, and even by company sector. It allows brands to target consumers, B2B prospects, and new employees.

LinkedIn helps b2b companies generate sales leads. Users can use LinkedIn to find prospects with similar industries and grow their campaigns. LinkedIn insight tags on a website provide important information about site visitors.

LinkedIn is an incredible resource for finding prospects for your sales funnel. Unlike email, you can message prospects directly. LinkedIn lets you find email addresses in a persons profile and you can use these to nurture the prospect through email.

Find a list of people who like your products. You can search peoples networks using a search bar and look at how many times their profiles have been viewed in the last 90 days. If you have a large list of LinkedIn connections, you can use a tool to filter the results by company, industry, and location. This way, you can narrow your list and increase your chances of connecting with the right prospects.

LinkedIn is an excellent place to nurture leads when creating an automated sales process. There are many people in your network that share similar interests. This can help you to connect with them and build trust. Learn what theyre interested in and what their pain points are. This will help you to connect with them and take your relationship further. Here are some ways to nurture your LinkedIn connections. Using these methods will help you to generate more sales from your LinkedIn profile.

Using LinkedIn for lead nurturing is a semi-linear process that builds rapport. You can start by ensuring that the prospect feels confident in you and your expertise. The most effective lead nurturing strategies build trust and rapport by engaging in meaningful conversations with your prospects. Moreover, LinkedIn is the perfect place to showcase your industry expertise through various elements, including your profile. You can even automate article writing and optimize your profile.

While the aforementioned social media channels are useful for promoting your webinar, LinkedIn is perhaps the best option for a higher engagement rate. This is especially true if youre using the correct hashtags and sharing a range of content related to the topic of the webinar. If youre planning to share an upcoming webinar, you should make sure to include a CTA in your content so that people can easily sign up for it.

The title of your webinar should be short and to the point and include all relevant information. Depending on how long your webinar is, youll need to include the time, duration, speaker bio, and any specific questions that participants might have. The registration form on LinkedIn can be set up to collect the information of webinar attendees. You can download this information to Excel or CSV for further analysis.

Automating your sales process is crucial for generating more leads. Sales teams spend millions of dollars bringing visitors to their website. But how do you ensure that they remain engaged once they get there? Automating your sales process on LinkedIn can help.

The Bottom Line

Automated sales system tools help salespeople save time. Instead of manually sourcing leads and connecting with them, they can use automation tools to send connection requests and messages. These tools also help salespeople focus their time on high-value sales activities. Automated sales systems are a powerful way to improve the quality of your leads and convert them into paying customers.

See more here:
Is There A Way To Creating An Automated Sales Funnel On Linkedin? - UrbanMatter