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Social Media Management App: Still Possible?

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

Gapple

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Dec 19, 2018
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Hey there,

I think some of you already know these apps:
These apps are made to facilitate social media management across multiple platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). Some of them have hundreds of thousands of users or even multiple million users.

I'm thinking about creating a similar product and sell it as a subscription service for $10/month at the beginning. If I have 1000 users, I will get $10000 / month.

However, they have been a lot of concern in recent years about the security and trust of users towards Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platform (notably since the Cambridge Analytica affair: Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal - Wikipedia). I'm currently wondering, how big the influence would be on me? Could it prevent me from success?

This is also an highly competitive field, so I'm wondering if I could face the competition.
 
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rpeck90

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Nov 26, 2016
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Those products became successful, largely because they were in the right place at the right time.

My recommendation is to forget about ripping them off because that never works in the long run. Instead, think about why people are willing to pay for them, and consider building a different/better solution.

To do this, you need to take my formula for online "value" - traffic * conversions = sales.

Anything that has value/precedent online does so because either it provides the buyer with traffic or the means to convert it. In the case of the above products, they filled the gap for people who found a new source of traffic (social) and needed a way to keep it fresh and eager to spend with their business.

If you check a product you missed off that list (HypeFury), they have achieved precedent on "Money Twitter" for precisely this reason. I've not used the product, but they focused on positioning themselves as a means to capitalize on someone's Twitter audience (IE the "traffic" element is already there & needs converting).

I would recommend looking at the likes of "HashTagPaid", which I was reading about recently. This is similar to the Izea company that Ted Murphy created several years ago. #Paid is an "influencer marketing" platform, allowing someone to buy shoutouts and sponsored posts on influencer social media pages: -

Brand-App_-Content-Tab.jpg

This fills the "traffic" part of my above formula, hence its value.

If you were to venture into the space, I would look at creating something similar.

Obviously, "what" you create is dependent on your situation. The key with the above is having "influencers" who can help provide high value clients with targeted traffic, typically from a single niche/vertical.

-

The BIG secret to this sort of thing lies in the "new" you create.

Most people try and reconfigure what's already been created. Whilst this works, it limits you to that scope. What you want to do is create something which gives people access to a mechanism that did not exist before.

For example, French models.

Because France got rid of its King, they seem to have adopted "Miss France" as their chance to adopt a new princess each year. The "institution" of Miss France is remarkably prevalent, (much) more than Miss GB, and I certainly don't blame them, the contestants are something else.

Vaimalama-Chaves.jpg


Importantly, most of them are normal girls from normal backgrounds + jobs. They were not born into modelling, weren't "discovered" by a model scout and went in the contest to see if they got anywhere with it.

If they manage to reach the higher levels of the competition, they get national TV exposure, which opens the door to sponsorships and other stuff.

Many of these girls, who have incredible beauty, often end up back in said background + jobs if they don't get far in the show. This opens the door to you. You have the means to give these young women the opportunity to capitalize on their exposure and good looks with specific, high value, products from the US.

Your quid-pro-quo is they will get access to an American (global) audience, earn money from specific, high value products that further enhance their online presence with extraordinarily high quality content.

If we take one of my favourites, Marine Lorphelin, she won the competition in 2013 and has become a mini celebrity in France. Rather interesting is how she kept on at a degree in medicine and is now a registered general practitioner in France, truly remarkable woman.

-

Marine does a TON of media appearances, is sponsored by Garnier and has a number of other contracts. Your job (if you did the above) is to give her, and others in a similar position (including her sister, the current Miss Bourgogne), the opportunity to further enhance said contracts with lucrative deals from the US & elsewhere...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvZ8amSAn1A&ab_channel=garnierFR

You'd make money by finding high quality - INDEPENDENT - brands who want more exposure in Europe and see if you can get them to commit to a small campaign. The types of company you'd look at working with would be the likes of Maniere De Voir in the UK, £27m revenue in 2020...

hxNHqci.jpg


Rather than attempting to go after influencers who already exist, you need to find a group that "don't" exist presently, but could if they had the support/platform through which to do it.

Matching these people with HIGH QUALITY campaigns (for legit products) and you got yourself a business. The "platform" then becomes a means to connect them to the unique opportunities you facilitate.
 

Xeon

All Cars Kneel Before Pagani.
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If I were you, I would probably do a better version of Influenster | Product Reviews, Q&A, News, and Exclusive Offers (the website is currently down at this time of writing due to server issues). It's owned by Bazaarvoice: Meet shoppers in all the moments that matter

How Influenster.com works is that it provides a platform for brands to give out free products to eager consumers who are already signed up on the site to get free products. The catch? They have to write honest reviews about the products. Then, these brands can use the reviews as social proof on social media and on their website to increase conversions, could even direct them to post reviews on Trustpilot. Benefits are numerous.

The problem with Influenster, is that they don't seem entertain small, totally new unheard of companies. They want to work with the big guys. I contacted them a couple times but they didn't even reply back. Bastards!

So, if there's a similar platform like them but caters to the small companies, wow!

Don't bother competing with Hootsuite and friends. These guys are too big and too entrenched in their industry. It's like creating a new company to fight Amazon lol
 

Gapple

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
76%
Dec 19, 2018
29
22
Ok. I lied in my first post.

I actually already started to create a similar product. It's not exactly the same as Hootsuite and Buffer, but it have similar functionalities (publishing, managing comments, etc.).

I'm also planning to add some original functionalities that cannot be found in these products, notably:

- finding the users who give the most reactions to a page. That way, they will get visibility and it will be easier to contact them to sell stuff
- a tagging system to tag posts and organize them on the platform in order to see which kind of posts works best, and the users interested by a specific category
 
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