Every year there are new social tools to make life easier. No one knows when the next tool will come out or be implemented to their workplace. All anyone can do is be aware of the next online gadget, and know what kind of perks they could provide. The only thing that’s predictable about social media tools is that there will be new ones in the future.
2016 Apps on the Rise
Created by the founder of Vine, Peach is a new app made exclusively for mobile. It combines Facebook, Path, Slack, Snapchat, and Tumblr all into one. For some that may be overwhelming, but for PR professionals—it is exactly what you need to never miss a moment. When it was first was introduced, many users were captivated by it, but with time, interest weakened. Bloomberg Business wrote an article about the app describing why it’s great but unnecessary. However, with all your apps’ feed in one place, it could certainly make some PR professionals’ lives easier.
Hyper is another interesting app. It allows you to choose your feed depending on a hashtag. Some hashtags are a question for users to comment their answers, while others are just pictures to view. People can post pictures of their art, tattoos or gym workouts and get feedback. When people view your profile, instead of people seeing the amount of people you follow or have people following you, you get points. Points are determined by followers, who you are following and the type of comments you use. This app is not too popular, but is gaining traction. The majority of these users fall in the age category of 13-17.
Shots is a mobile app mostly for comedic uses and does not allow users to post comments, but instead has people post their comments with a reaction of their own face. It is getting a lot of traction with the younger demographics. Twitter attempted to buy the app, but the CEO denied the offer because of the users signing up, including Floyd Mayweather. Also, they have had steady funding since the beginning. Shots started at $1.6 million in 2012 and had $15.2 million as of December 2015. Direct messaging is allowed, but what I found most interesting is that it does not publicly show the amount of followers a user has. This really levels the playing field by not letting anyone get “Shots-famous” like “Instagram-famous”.
So for all you future PR professionals, don’t get left behind by not knowing the newest social tools out there.
Written by Sam Wolfson, Account Executive