Social Media Is Changing: Reality Bites Back

Social media is constantly changing – trends seem to come and go within a couple of days these days, but the latest trend may surprise you. 

It’s becoming trendy to be authentically yourself! Yeah, you.  

People are shunning heavily filtered, perfectly lit selfies, and #ads in favour of real-life, authentic content. It’s putting fun and spontaneity back into social media, and personally, I’m here for it.

Social Media Is Changing: Reality Bites Back 

Let’s BeReal 

Unless you live under a rock, you’ll have heard of BeReal. And just in case you haven’t…   

BeReal is a French social media app released in 2020, developed by Alexis Barreyat. It was pretty unknown until the start of this year when it suddenly became the Gen Z social media app of choice (it’s currently sitting at number 2 in the top free app list of the App Store).  

Last week it was announced that over 10 million people use the app daily – wow!  

BeReal, what is it? 

Basically, BeReal is a photo-sharing app. Every day, at a random time, it sends you a notification to snap a real-life, unfiltered photo – one with your front-facing camera, to get your overall vibe, and one with your back-facing camera, to show what you’re doing or who you’re with. You only get two minutes to take your photo, so no time to pop on some lipstick or tidy up your desk.  

It’s real. No filters. No editing. No Facetune. Just real-life snapshots of you, and your life, in nearly real-time.  

This is what happens when you get your BeReal notification whilst you’re at the Ranch…

Why is everyone BeingReal? (I know, I’m sorry)

I don’t know if it’s just me, but Instagram has become a bit of a sh*t show recently. Even Kylie and Kendall Jenner agree!

Instagram has become a show-off app, for perfectly edited selfies and adverts disguised as day in the lives… And people are bored of it. People want to see real life. Behind the scenes. What you’re having for lunch. Your dog looking cute. The reason we all got social media in the first place, right?

Instagram are a bunch of copycats

So… They copied TikTok with the short form videos, and now a couple of weeks ago Instagram sneaked in a new feature called ‘Dual’.

Surprise surprise – it works in the exact same way as BeReal does. A dual camera. No filters.

Instagram hasn’t been promoting this new feature much, but we know it’s there. And just in case you were wondering where it is: have a look under the story settings.

What does this mean for me?

The rise in popularity of these “real” features highlights one thing: people want to see authentic content on social media nowadays. Gone are the days of influencers sneaking #ads in without you realising. People want to see the real-life, the nitty-gritty, the behind-the-scenes footage.

Being genuine and creating authentic content is a vital part of connecting with your followers so ditch your FaceTune, embrace reality, and show people what you’re really getting up to (and what you truly look like too!).

And if you haven’t seen it already, listen to what Todd thinks about being authentically yourself on social media!

If you need some help with being authentically yourself on social media, get in touch. We might be able to help!

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