New Social Media Platforms to Watch in 2022

Traditionally, luxury brands relied on major ad campaigns and store counters to target and sell to consumers. Now, as luxury enthusiasts flock online to discover new trends and labels, mainstream social platforms have become inundated with sponsored posts and influencer campaigns. Now we’re not saying you should turn your back on Facebook, or that you should drop everything and test out these new platforms, but they are certainly platforms you should be keeping your beady marketing-expert eyes on.

So social commerce – what do we mean? Social commerce gives brands opportunities to create seamless ecommerce experiences directly within popular social channels. This is changing how people shop and it’s enabling customers and brands to interact in real-time — a game-changer for online commerce, and the luxury sector.

New features are breading new behaviours, which in turn is seeing a new wave of social commerce startups. We take a look at two new beauty focussed social media apps; Flip and Supergreat that have spiked our interest. Both hope to provide consumers with fun, interactive, and, perhaps most importantly, radically honest experiences.

So what is the app, Flip?

Despite only launching this year, Flip has had over 1 million downloads and works with over 280 beauty brands, including Fekkai, Hourglass Cosmetics, and Jason Wu Beauty. Authenticity and interactivity are already beginning to drive modern social media and these trends are only going to grow: Flip is at the forefront. Only users who have bought a product through the app can create video reviews, ensuring authenticity.

Noor Agha, the Founder, and Chief Executive of Flip says “There’s nothing honest on the internet anymore, and it’s impossible to know what is a good or bad product,” Her goal is to build “the first radically honest commerce company” in the world. With this in mind, Nora is also looking to solve an issue within the current social media influence landscape: monetisation. The commercial structure of influencer collaborations is wildly unstructured today, and in many respects, the price of gaining a product review is as much as the brand is willing to pay. It’s a growing pain point in the creator landscape. What’s more, currently, on the majority of social media platforms, anyone can monetise their posts by sharing honest opinions, without the need to be sponsored by the platform or brand. Flip strictly prohibits this with any brand or creator identified with a sponsored post being banned from the app.

Users on Flip receive a commission of 10 to 20% from each sale – the ultimate democratic affiliate influencer platform. Reportedly some active users are earning up to $12,000 every month. Furthermore, two weeks ago, the platform also launched a detailed dashboard that helps users to measure engagement more granularly. Something that will be vital for more brands to see the value and sign up. We’re watching closely.

What is the app Supergreat?

Alternatively, three-year-old Supergreat has more than 200,000 unique users who spend an average 20 minutes daily on the platform — equivalent to the typical time spent on Instagram. The platform recently raised $10 million in a Series A round in July, led by Benchmark, which also invested in Instagram, Snapchat and Discord. (Another reason why we’re paying attention)

Supergreat aims to offer a filter-free space for users to express themselves and connect with other people and brands, says Enid Hwang, the company’s head of community and marketing. “We aim to facilitate the most 360-degree shopping experience online.”

Supergreat users have visibility on what other shoppers are buying. The idea is to create a sense of fomo during a livestream and encourage users to engage with each other, says Hwang. Live events also offer access to brand founders, such as hairdresser and television personality Jonathan Van Ness, who this month hosted a live event on Supergreat promoting products from his performance haircare line JVN, driving a sale a minute. Glow Recipe’s co-founders Sarah Lee and Christine Chang recently hosted a 40-minute live event that notched up sales of $60 a minute.

However, it’s not just about the hard sell. Conditionher, an indie beauty brand that makes intimate body products for women, have used Supergreat to start deep conversations aiming to de-stigmatise women’s health and body issues.

Supergreat incentivises consumers to engage with its platform through rewards drops, which often take place during a livestream. Users are eligible to take part in drops if they have Supercoins, an in-app currency earned through participation and sales. Supercoins can be redeemed for full-size beauty products provided by brands. A minimum quantity of 100 units is required; the drops fulfilled from Supergreat’s distribution centres.

The value for brands is to get products into the hands of real people. Exa beauty has started embedding carousels of testimonials from users on Supergreat on its e-commerce product pages and social channels because they’re unfiltered, unphotoshopped, sponcon-free reviews.

Recent updates to Supergreat allow brands to add their own product inventory to the platform. Supergreat takes a commission of 20 per cent. Brands that don’t have a forward-facing founder or on-air talent can add products to a virtual inventory pool with livestreams fronted by Supergreat’s regular live hosts, which includes makeup artists and influencers. If products sell, Supergreat takes 10 per cent while the host receives 10 per cent of the sale.

Hawg says, “Brands have strong audiences on mainstream platforms like Instagram, Tiktok or Pinterest, but the degree to which they’re able to engage with their customers is still limited,“ and “We’re really building out the ability for brands to use Supergreat as a sales channel while connecting with their top evangelists and rewarding those people in ways that build more loyalty and deeper engagement.”

So where is social media going? 

Now more than ever we’re moving towards a digital ecosystem like that in the East: Social channels are slowly becoming the beating heart of the consumer purchase journey and influence will become even more democratised. We’re are growing beyond what was ever expected with social platforms now acting as places for discovery, as well as frictionless shopping experiences.