New social media platform BeReal is beginning to capture the attention of Gen-Z, but its competitors are already seeing it as a very real threat. Established in 2020, BeReal has been building in popularity, especially this year. BeReal recently moved into the top 10 apps in the US App Store. This has been at the expense of Facebook, which has dropped out of the top 10 during this time.
On the surface, the premise of BeReal is that of a simple photo-sharing app. In a slight departure from its competitors, the app looks to take a picture using the both front facing and forward cameras on phones at the same time. The hook, though, is that users are prompted at a random time during the day, to take a picture of themselves and their surroundings. This prompt means that people have very little time to prepare, making the resulting images more real.
Part of the appeal of BeReal is likely around this gamification aspect, forcing people to act quickly. But, the main appeal stems from many people’s disassociation with the majority of what they see on social media these days. Content is continually becoming far more staged, curated, and commoditised. The aesthetic of most social media posts are designed to look impromptu but in reality, are the result of hours of work.
Whether or BeReal is going to eventually become a platform to challenge the established players like Instagram is debatable, but clearly many see this as a potential threat. Meta, no stranger to replicating trends from successful social media competitors, has launched “Candid Challenges” on Instagram. Functioning the same as BeReal by leveraging the dual camera, users are encouraged to take photos which will be added to their Instagram Stories.
Earlier this week, Snap announced it is now possible to use dual camera capabilities within Snapchat. Currently, this is only available on iOS devices, but Android will be able to access this eventually. The only difference is that there is no prompt/alert to encourage users to jump in and share content immediately. This is a bit of a departure from Snap, which has been seen as innovators in the past, with the likes of Meta copying their Stories format and improving on it.
Even if this is not the next big social media platform, the enthusiasm the app is receiving has helped to highlight some systemic issues with social media. The fact that such established social media platforms are already looking to copy the main selling point of BeReal adds validity to the threat that it possesses in taking market share and audiences.