You probably already heard about a new player in the social media world: “Vero”. The app, created in 2015, suddenly surfaced and is, at the moment, one of the most popular apps in the appstore.
What is Vero?
Vero is quite similar to Instagram. After you create an account, of course without being able to link to Facebook, you can log in and start sharing content. Using this platform, you can share a lot more than just pictures or videos. You are also able to share links, music, books and locations.
What’s cool about Vero is that there is a clear difference between connections and followers. You can add people, like friends on Facebook, but you can also follow people like on Instagram. Best of both worlds! When you add someone as a connection, you have the option to choose the type of connection. Is the person a good friend, a friend or an acquaintance ? This feature is also implemented when sharing posts, you can choose who sees which post very precisely.
Why Vero?
At first sight, Vero looks like Instagram with some additional features. Why would this app be interesting while you could choose for the more popular social media? Vero is interesting because the creators of the app make a few remarkable promises. Vero claims you will never get to see ads on their platform. The app was created by billionaire Ayman Hariri who says he had enough of advertisements on the popular social media. Also, the goal of Vero is to show you posts you actually want to see, so the app doesn’t work with algorithms that decide for you what you want to see.
So how will Vero make money?
To keep the platform going, they have to have some form of revenue. Vero will use a subscription model. Right now, this isn’t the case yet. The first million users are allowed to use the social media app free of charge forever. This is some kind of welcoming gift and it is also smart marketing since it creates a strong desire to act, to get in on the offer. People, who aren’t one of the first million, wanting to use the app will be asked to pay a small annual fee. How much it will cost is still unclear, but the creators of Vero claim it would be the cost of “a couple cups of coffee”. It is to be determined whether or not people actually want to pay for a social media app instead of dealing with ads.
Besides this subscription model, there is also the possibility to buy products directly from the app. This way Vero earns some revenue, while it also provides an opportunity for brands to invest in this platform.
Why now?
The social media app was created in 2015, but it was soon forgotten. This week however, it rose to popularity out of nowhere. Why did this happen? It could be related to the new amount of ads shown on Instagram and to the new algorithm that chooses which posts you see or don’t see on Instagram. Vero shows posts in a reverse chronological order and doesn’t use an algorithm. Many people on Instagram are displeased with the latest developments on the platform and are possibly looking to new alternatives. The sudden rise in popularity was rather unexpected and Vero had quite some issues in dealing with the increased traffic. This caused a lot of problems and the app will need a few updates to grab a hold of these new users.
Is Vero here to stay?
Right now, our gut feeling says no. The app is quite unstable and the “anti-messages” are appearing here and there. Vero would need a lot of improvements to be able to compete with Instagram. It also depends on how Instagram reacts when they start to feel pressure from a competitor. They could always change their attitude towards advertisements or alter their algorithm to please consumers. Even though we see advantages for consumers, we remain sceptical. The fall of Ello is still fresh in our memory, we quickly said goodbye to that channel.
We also wonder wether or not the subscription model will be effective. Right now, the platform is still free to use, but once the subscription model goes live, will people still be interested? Even if the annual fee is rather low, we doubt that it would work. Many people probably prefer to see advertisements rather than having to pay an annual fee.
Will Vero become a worthy alternative to Instagram? What do you think?
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