Why marketers (but not all) should be advertising on social media startup WeAre8
After launching in August this year, WeAre8 has already signed up some of the biggest brands domestically, as CEO Lizzie Young has been on a mission to divert 6.5% of social media ad budgets onto the burgeoning platform, which she said is on course to reach 100,000 users by the end of November.
“I think everybody is always looking for new and interesting ways to connect,” said Young on this week’s Mumbrellacast, referencing the “great support” the platform has seen from the industry, brands, marketing departments, and agencies so far.
Young: ‘If you’re not aligned, just don’t come to the platform. We are here to be different.’
Young doesn’t mind there are many Australians the app won’t appeal to, and the same goes for some brands too.
“I think if you’re not values and mission-aligned to us, that’s okay. Just don’t come to the platform because that’s what we’re here to do, we are here to be different.”
She said while there are brands that are “really far progressed on their sustainability journey, and have stories to tell in that space”, there are also brands only just starting out.
“And there are brands that aren’t right for us, like fossil fuels and gambling and so on. And I think what’s interesting is the brands that are just starting out are the ones that we’re trying to encourage to tell their story because if we don’t all start moving in the right direction, we’re going to continue to get nowhere.”
So you’ve got the sort of advanced, forward-thinking companies that are really well progressed, but then we’re also, I think, a comfortable space for brands that just want to start telling their story and what they’re doing, and we’re definitely seeing that.”
The local Changemakers so far, with more to come.
Getting advertisers on board has also been helped out by its 100% watch-through rate, said Young, and the fact that it is “100% opt-in”.
“So the mindset of the person who is consuming the brand message is they know what they’re there for, and they get it and they recognise that this brand is also trying to do good, divert money to climate solutions and causes that matter. So I definitely think that has helped, and that the industry has been very supportive because of that.”
With a new friend and family feed to launch imminently, which Young said “is exactly what people are telling us they want”, users will be able to use the app without seeing ads at all, while still interacting with their connections.
But, that hasn’t been the case so far she added. “96%, 97% of the people that are on the platform are opting in [to ads] because once they get there, they realise that that’s how they get to feel good.”
Listen to the full conversation with Lizzie Young on this week’s Mumbrellacast from the 20:05 mark.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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Weare8 have done a great job of marketing to the agencies, but I haven’t seen anything marketing to consumers. Search volume is tiny and it’s not registering on the app store charts. No question they will get agencies to put money in, but who is this money going to be pointed at in terms of domestic users?
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