Mindshare: Love in the Time of Selfies

Culture Vulture - Mindshare InSites
Cover image for  article: Mindshare: Love in the Time of Selfies

This week on Mindshare’s Culture Vulture Live, Jodie Huang discusses a new dating app called Blume and how it fits into Mindshare’s 2016 Culture Vulture Trends report.

In order to connect with someone on Blume, both users have to send each other a real-time selfie. They only have seven seconds to look at the other person’s picture to decide if they want to get to know them further. After that, the photo disappears.

The selfie feature accomplishes a few things. One, you don’t have to worry about getting cat-fished or being matched with a spammer. The real-time photos helps weed them out.

On top of that, it’s another form of self-expression. You can add a layer of text and emojis on your photo to help jump-start a conversation.

What Blume is doing with real-time selfies follows a new trend that we’ve been tracking at Mindshare, where content sharing has become the new ID badge. According to our research, nearly half of consumers say that they’re best represented by what they post on social media, versus only 30% saying they’re best represented by their fashion style.

This trend is being fueled by the continual emergence of new tools that help people capture or broadcast themselves, like Periscope and Dubsmash. And it’s not just our own photos or videos. More and more, people are expressing themselves in digital conversations by using GIFs and emojis from their favorite movies and TV shows. It’s important for brands to stay on top of this, because culture is becoming our language, and content is how we express it.

To learn more, check out our full 2016 Trends Report.

The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage/MyersBizNet management or associated bloggers.

Copyright ©2024 MediaVillage, Inc. All rights reserved. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.