Over the past five years or so, there has been a rapidly growing crowd of social media users who either (a) feel that Facebook and Google track too much of their movements and activity or (b) Facebook and Google limit or “cancel” them entirely for their conservative views. This has given rise to several copycat social media sites attempting to grow their communities, stand out, and be the next Facebook or Twitter. Are these sites like Parler, GETTR, Gab and Trump’s Truth Social worth your time and advertising dollars? The answer is that it depends.
Most of these social media sites are, based on accounts we currently maintain with them, copies or derivatives of mostly Twitter with one important difference. These sites claim not to sensor your posts or speech in any way, and as such are populated by conservatives, Christians, or those sympathetic to the cause or who support freedome to post whatever you wish. If this is your market or target audience, then these platforms might be your “diamond in the rough” for a couple of reasons.
First, They are hungry for advertising much like TikTok is so a compelling deal can be had to reach their audiences. Second, these users tend to be more loyal and open if your message aligns with their thinking in some way. A third bonus reason is they probably won’t sensor your ad unless it is inappropriate for general community standards where it’s being posted.
To see if one of these communities is right for your marketing message, first consider becoming a member to see if they align with your views or thinking in some way. Go to Gab.com, TruthSocial.com, gettr.com, ello.co, or parler.com and sign up for an account to see if it’s where you want to advertise. If a site is, then they have an ads or business section which is available for searching. However, there is one final element which, until solved, will keep all of these sites from joining the mainstream no matter how much we agree with them.
None of these social media platforms here has an API. An API, or Application Programming Interface, is what lets one app or site talk to others in a common protocol they can each understand. So the Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter APIs let you share content from other sites to those sites, and vice-versa. APIs for the “new group” of social media networks are in various stages of development, but until then you must log on to your account on each to post things rather than using a central tool such as Social Champ or Hootsuite. This is kind of techy but presents a major problem which, if you do a lot of social media posting, you have probably noticed. Whichever platform can fix this first will find a deluge of new subscribers who can cross-share between networks with ease. Despite the contraversy surrounding the mainstream social media platforms, not as many people have given them up as these new upstarts would like, and the lack of communication across sites is problematic at best.
Let us know your experiences with these sites as it relates to growing your business or nonprofit organization.
