5 New Social Startups Reviewed

It seems as if there are new social media platforms and hybrids popping up daily. Our focus is to follow the newest launches, learn how they work, see if they work, and evaluate how they will affect brands. Here’s five new social platforms we’ve had our eye on most recently.

Pheed

Pheed, which launched in October with mixed reviews, is essentially a mixture of all your favorite features from every other social media network. It does have one major difference: it allows you to charge users for your content. While the paid subscriptions may do well for big brands and celebrities, it’s certainly not a wise marketing path for newly budding brands. Will it be important to have a presence on Pheed? The jury’s still out.

Shopinterest

Do you have a product to sell, but aren’t ready to invest in a shopping cart site? Shopinterest may be the perfect catalyst for testing out your online marketplace. The site combines the social aspect of Pinterest with an e-commerce capability similar to Shopify. Creating a profile is simple, and there’s no need to redirect your fans, because the service essentially turns your Pinterest page into a store.

Wanelo

This Pinterest-esque site is another interesting hybrid. Each product picture has the option to buy, save to a list, or tag a friend. We love the Wanelo‘s trending feature, which shows the day’s top hashtags and the most popular product pics. E-commerce sites should definitely have a presence on this site.

Fancy

Community cataloging takes another spin on Fancy. Much like Wanelo, you can add products to lists, comment, follow other “curators”, click to buy, and so forth. Another unique feature is its integration of a badging system. Users can earn “promotions” in their category of expertise, giving you titles such as “Intern”, “Assistant”, “Director”, etc. The most notable aspect of Fancy is the credits that come with these achievements, which is money that can be spent on the site! One more great quality of the Fancy user experience is less tangible, but oh-so-important: it’s fun and easy to use.

Path

While we love our mobile apps just as much as the next guy, the app-only social media formats are getting a little redundant, and with such limited capabilities, quite boring. Path was the perfect example of this category before they terminated their service. Go here for the Top Ten Path alternatives. With little originality, this app simply synced all of your “moments” from every other social network into one timeline. You could add things directly to it as well – but why would you? Maybe the idea of having everything in one place is desirable to some social media users, but with Path’s rather non-descriptive privacy settings, it could likely end up being a bigger hassle than a time saver.

If you would like to learn more about the newest social media platforms and features and how they affect your online presence, give us a call at 888.420.5115.

Categorized in: Articles, Social Media