How Social Networking is Evolving

The next generation of social networking is here! In fact, it’s been here for quite a while, depending on who you ask.

“Authenticity” is the new hotness, and so we need to be prepared to keep it way more real than we’re used to doing on Instagram or LinkedIn. Here’s a quick run-down of what you need to know about the future of digital community:

BeReal

You may have heard of this new network, which has rapidly become one of the hottest downloads in the app store. BeReal is hugely popular with college students, who are prompted at random times of day, every day, to take one unedited photo within two minutes and post it. The twist is that your photo is taken with both the front and back cameras of your phone, and you can’t see what your friends have posted unless you’ve posted yourself.

The idea here is to offer a, yes, unfiltered view of your life and yourself, to more “authentically” connect with your friends. But the other appeal with this app is a lack of ads. BeReal feels to many like an unspoiled app that hasn’t sold out yet; it’s a boring but pleasant group experience, much like the early days of Wordle before the NYT bought it out.

It remains to be seen if you should be trying BeReal for your organization or business quite yet, but let’s step back from thinking about a trendy new app that might be relatively short-lived.

Two things are apparent here: Users are very much craving a “real” experience, and they very much have FOMO. Consider how your digital presence can be less curated and polished, and share more “behind the scenes” content that gives your audience exclusive access to things we wouldn’t otherwise see.

If you’re aiming to appeal to younger generations, you should be embracing this style of posting on more of your channels right now, especially Instagram.

Twitch

Okay, we know… Twitch isn’t new; it’s been a go-to place for gamers to livestream and interact for years (since 2011, in fact!).

But Twitch and platforms like it are worth noting right now because they’re expanding; Twitch is becoming a destination for more than just people who really like video games. In fact, Twitch is a destination for news and community of all kinds. Check out this recent Washington Post profile of Keffels, one of the most popular trans streamers on Twitch who explains the news to her viewers every day and adds her unique POV as a trans woman. While you can do this sort of thing on any social platform, Twitch’s community in particular is looking for a real person to share information and give their opinion in an authentic way; they don’t want just another benign talking head.

Why is this important? Thinking about how you can put forward real, authentic value without a sales pitch is a very worthy exercise, so start by rethinking your messaging. Describe your work to friends out loud and ask them to stop you when you’re sounding like a used car salesman. Boil down what you do to its most essential points, and really think about why this work matters.

You can also start thinking about what kinds of “moments” your organization could create through live-streaming, which is something you might already be doing for in-person fundraising events or sales events. What shared experiences would your audience appreciate? What is something they could build together? Here’s a really good guide from The Verge on hosting your first charity stream, which will help you think through all the details.

Twitch can be a great place for building a community around fundraising; millions of dollars have been raised via Twitch streams, and Twitch even provides a fundraising how-to for streamers that is surprisingly well-done. If you’re not ready to go live, consider partnering with a Twitch celebrity who could throw their weight behind your mission.

The Metaverse

Yep… we’re talking about it. The Metaverse is probably going to disrupt how we use the internet itself in all sorts of ways we haven’t yet imagined. But what is it?

If you’ve played a game like Animal Crossing or attended a virtual conference on Zoom, you are likely familiar with the concept of identifying yourself with an avatar or a screenname and entering a virtual reality to interact with other people, attend events, and buy things.

The concept of “authenticity” in the Metaverse is important, yet complicated; how a user presents themself to others and whether that identity should be verified is an ethical conundrum; many companies are working on building virtual worlds that are very close visually to real life, to make it seem more real; others are working on how the real, physical world and the Metaverse will interact, through things like holograms and commerce. This all requires a much longer explanation than we can offer here; this piece from WIRED is useful, although remember that this is still the digital wild West. We don’t know how this is going to look in two, five, ten years.

If you do nothing else, keep learning about the Metaverse as it evolves, and it’s also a worthy experiment to start to think now about what your organization’s brand experience could be in a virtual reality. You can think creatively about what visually represents your brand, and start by reviewing your design guidelines, your brand colors, your stock photo choices, and even your fonts. What feels true? What feels wrong?

One thing worth noting, though: If you’re a woman or a person of color, you can probably expect harassment and trolling. As Breigha Adeyemo wrote in 2021,

“Whiteness is embedded as a default in these technologies, even in the absence of race as a category for machine learning algorithms. Unfortunately, racism and technology often go hand in hand. Black female politicians and journalists have been disproportionately targeted with abusive or problematic tweets, and Black and Latino voters were targeted in online misinformation campaigns during the 2020 election cycle.

This historical relationship between race and technology leaves me concerned about the metaverse. If the metaverse is meant to be an embodied version of the internet, as Zuckerberg has described it, then does that mean that already marginalized people will experience new forms of harm?”

And the other thing to consider is how your team and your target audiences feel about the Metaverse as it evolves. Listen, ask questions, and take seriously any concerns that arise before you go all in. Make sure you are continually learning about crypto, NFTs, and augmented reality; NP Tech for Good breaks it all down here.