If you’ve been on social media this past week you have probably heard about Peach. It’s a new social media network/messaging app that’s only available for iOS devices (at the moment). As usual tekkies and younger people have been drawn to Peach first, and it’s a fantastic opportunity for social media marketing—especially since almost no one in the business is using it yet.
Created by Vine creator Dom Hoffman, Peach has some built-in surprises for users that may well justify the huge wave of interest the app has fielded (in fact it has been crashing under the weight of that interest). Here’s how it works.
How Peach works
Peach skims some of the most popular features from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Slack and Twitter for purposes of messaging and sharing. However, based on the fact that most of us are only close to around 100 people (even when we have thousands of “friends” or followers on social media), Peach focuses on the kinds of interactions that we use social media to engage in with those closer 100 people in our lives.
The end result is that it’s a very interesting way to keep in touch with your core circle of friends and family, for a start. You have more options than the dull Facebook “like” and you can post photos, gifs, text, links and more. Peach is geared for shorter shares like Twitter or Instagram, but you can easily tag people in your circle as you might on Facebook.
You can also let Peach guide how you share content; if you opt to do this Peach will make recommendations or ask you questions that you can respond to any way you like.
Peach and marketing
Right now, Peach’s APIs are not public; this means if you’re an app developer you can’t tell how to create something that works on the platform. This also means that if you’re a marketer looking to get into the Peach scene early it’s a little harder; you have to work blindly to work Peach into your existing strategy.
However, the marketing potential is fantastic in the Peach app, and here’s why. Peach makes its suggestions and asks its questions to users. If you were a brand on Peach you could potentially use an analytics tool to find out what’s trending, and then Peach could ask you a question based on the trends in the activity of your connections. You’d the have a great on point post ready to go.
When will they make the APIs available? It’s not certain right now, but I am betting it will happen soon if Peach keeps taking off.
Peach and magic words
Interestingly, Peach works as if it’s the marketer of the app world in that at its core are “magic words.” Like the keywords we use in the industry, Peach “magic words” help users create and find the type of content they’d like to share. If you feel like posting a funny gif, typing “gif” can help you find the right one on Giphy. If you’re feeling musical, Peach will “hear” what you’re listening to and find it in Apple Music or Spotify if you type in “song.”
This kind of central focus on keywords has the potential to make this app very easy to use from a marketing perspective. Check out the list of magic words on Peach right now here.
Conclusion
Peach is trendy, but don’t dismiss it for that reason. Any opportunity to get into a new social media platform before your competition is your chance to pull ahead and maintain your lead for an all new audience. My advice is to learn how to use Peach now.
