Written by Social Media Assistants, Elizabeth Benitez and Courtney Lorusso
With all the recent changes to our favorite social media platforms, the social media experts at Let’s Bee Social started wondering: what’s the next social platform to dominate the charts? With all the hype surrounding the latest app Vero, we decided to take a look at this platform in depth to see which brands could benefit from early adoption of this potentially global application.
History of Vero
Among the many social media platforms that were created with the vision of bringing communities together online and prevailing, Vero was originally founded in 2013 and launched its app in July of 2015. The network stated in 2015, “Vero serves the needs and desires of people who wants a safe, genuine reflection of their real-life relationships in an online setting. We have created a platform where users can express themselves in the most natural way possible.”
The app lets subscribers share photos, recommend music, books, tv shows to friends, and even add links. Vero aimed to radically change the way consumers think and interact on social media, claiming it was a “relationship-first social network.” But isn’t that what every social network started as?
By December of 2015, the app barely cracked No. 45 on the App Store’s social network category, according to data from App Annie, but then disappeared off of the charts. The App Store only ranks the top 1,500 apps in the category. Since its launch, Vero had been off the grid for almost 3 years, until February of this year.
Surge of Popularity
So why did Vero relaunch out of nowhere? Four words: Disgruntled social media users. Each dominant social platform has received some backlash lately. Instagram’s latest algorithm change sent creatives into a frenzy, Snapchat’s redesign caused frustration, Facebook has lost its touch and a lot of people have forgot about Twitter.
In response to the negativity circulating the social community, Vero remarked marketed itself as a “less-cluttered Facebook,” aimed at allowing users to connect more directly with their family and friends. The “ad-free” characteristic is what grabbed a lot of people’s attention, Even more intriguing was the idea of trying something new, and so the surge began.
The surge was almost a quick social media phenomenon. Close to 1 million people subscribed as soon as it re-launched in February. This caused a Vero outage. It’s popularity and chart numbers rose, but unfortunately the app failed to sustain its momentum. Among the surge of users was our social media team who took to the app to see exactly what all the hype was about. After a couple weeks of usage, we highlighted some quick pros and cons which could explain why Vero is most likely not going to be the new social platform for everyone.
Pros
Content is Refreshingly Different
Since Vero is a luxury platform, the content follows suit. There aren’t as many daily “this is what I’m doing right now” posts as there are cool videos, podcasts or creative photos targeting other like-minded people. For instance, posts like landscape photography or pretty coffee pictures perform better than a picture of friends goofing off.
We did find that there is unique articles that aren’t on Facebook or other platforms, as well as great content that differs from Instagram. The ability to share links also allows you to post really engaging content, depending on who your target audience is, making Vero a place for visual content like videos and links to blogs and websites. For clients that fall under the creative umbrella, Vero is a great place to share content.
Includes a Variety of Personal Interests
The app takes a liking to be focused on images and videos. What’s interesting is the range of personal interest selections. The categories are broken down from music, tv shows, movies, products, and popular hashtags. Users can easily sucked into a world of new entertainment discoveries, and can even share recommendations with friends.
Cons
Convoluted User Experience
Unfortunately, in order to get your home page interesting and cater to what you want to see, it takes quite a while. It is not necessarily the easiest task to find accounts that you would like to follow like it is on Instagram. There are many Vero users, but it doesn’t have the same user base as IG. It seems as though every celebrity or influencer you could possibly think of has an IG, but the same can’t be said for Vero.
In order to find users that you would actually want to follow, you have to search and dig. Since not everyone is on Vero, you have to follow accounts that are similar to the ones that you would normally follow. This makes it difficult for a small business that is considering Vero as a marketing tool. Finding your user base is not easy, and it isn’t easy for them to find you either.
Lacks Long-Term Engagement
Although the layout is high-quality and tailored to get people intrigued, people may lose interest because it hasn’t reached the peak of it feeling like a “community,” something Twitter is greatly known for. Picking up on new trends tends to be the norm for a lot of social media users. However, with trends, they come and go. Vero still has potential to break the mold of an online community, but for now, has some work to do to sustain loyal Twitter and Instagram users.
Who is Vero Best Suited For?
Vero is very aesthetically pleasing, making it easy to see that they are targeting a luxury audience. But Vero might not be for everyone. While it is potentially an awesome application for creative types like Artists, Musicians, Bloggers, TV Personalities and High-end Restauranteurs, it may not be the place for everyday social interaction like Instagram. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for Vero though.
When it comes to the types of accounts that seem to be thriving on this platform, it’s personalities and photographers, bloggers and musicians and niche restaurants that post visually stunning content from videos and photos to places they like and music that they listen to. Vero is great for writers, musicians and creatives, but probably the wrong place for a realtor or a dog walking service.
Vero is definitely different than the other social media options out there these days, and if you are looking for a place to share visual content, other than photos, this might be the place for you. Join the other 500,000+ active users on the platform and find out if Vero is something that you will use for years to come.