With a whopping 3 billion users, social media has taken over all aspects of our lives — especially digital marketing. Almost every business around the world has a marketing plan for each top social media platform. These include Facebook and Instagram.

But there are a few marketers who have considered new opportunities to market their products or services on. Some of these newly emerged sites and apps will potentially be famous in the near future, so it is a good idea to consider them in your own strategy.

Here are the platforms that you need to keep an eye on: 

1. TikTok

TikTok is a video-sharing social media that was launched in 2017 and is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is a technology company based in Beijing that was founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming.

TikTok is generally used to create and share short lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. Since 2017, TikTok has emerged as one of the most downloaded apps with more than 500 million active users worldwide — including 300 million in China and 30 million in the United States.

Almost 50% of TikTok users are aged between 15 and 25. As a marketer, you need to find a way to connect with them if you want to market on the platform. This is a significant difference between TikTok and older social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Many social media platforms, particularly Instagram, are a real black market for influencers. According to Social Tradia, numerous influencers' accounts on Instagram are fake and its important to not trust them simply because of their followers.

Influencers on TikTok, on the contrary, are certainly more genuine ... at least for now. Remember that TikTok users are usually young and therefore against traditional things. So, working with TikTok influencers can be really different compared to other platforms.

2. Reddit

Reddit, which has more than 330 million monthly active users, is based in the United States and was founded by Steve Huffman, Aaron Swartz and Alexis Ohanian in 2015. More than 35% of its traffic originates from the United States.

The site is actually a network of communities based on people's interests. It has a really appealing design to social media users, who are mostly youngsters. There are also vibrant forums for almost everything a user could want.

They are called 'Subreddits' and each of them is dedicated to a particular topic. If you as a marketer want to make use of the site, it is strongly recommended that you have enough research on it and find a highly engaged Subreddit in your niche. 

3. Lasso

Along with Instagram and Whatsapp, Lasso is an application owned by Facebook that is focusing on short-video sharing. It is actually a copycat app of TikTok, but it has been downloaded only by 70 000 users in the United States since launching.

It can connect with Facebook and allows users to upload their short videos and music. Users can also find what's trending using hashtags. It seems that despite the quality of the app, it cannot outcompete TikTok in the market. But, as the digital world is an ever-changing environment, marketers can consider it as a potential platform to market their products and services.

4. Vero

This platform is a Lebanese rival of Facebook which aims to provide users with a social network free of advertisements, data mining and algorithms. It has been founded by Ayman Hariri — the son of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, who served in 2015.

Vero is really colourful and well-designed with an appearance similar to Instagram. It lets you share a wide variety of posts, unlike Instagram that only shares photos and videos.

The app may out-compete Instagram as it offers post options including:
  • links
  • music
  • movies
  • TV
  • books, and
  • places.
Instagram, in comparison, supports links in its bio and Swipe-Up links. Vero has less than five million monthly active users, but it has great potential to get ahead of the competition among social services. 

5. Steemit

Steemit is a social media platform where users get paid for creating and curating content. It was launched in 2016 and is based in New York City, with headquarters in Virginia. It has 1 238 717 registered users who are rewarded with the STEEM cryptocurrency for publishing and curating content.

If you have a Crypto-based company, you should think of a way to incorporate this platform into your marketing strategy. But other marketers from other industries can also take advantage of this service to reach out to different kinds of audiences.

*Image courtesy of web.500px.com.