If you’ve been keeping an eye on the world of social media in the past couple of weeks, you may well have heard about Ello. If not, here’s what you need to know. Ello is a new social network that recently opened its doors to the public through an invite-based approach. What makes it different from all the other social networks out there? It’s ad free. In fact, Ello’s entire manifesto relates to the pervasiveness of ads in social networks, and suggests that there can be an alternative.
Ello isn’t visually busy like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. It’s adopted a simple grey, black and white aesthetic, and simple features to go with it. You won’t be bombarded with Candy Crush invites on Ello. The new social network is still in beta – you can view its current features list and those that the developers still have planned. At the time of writing, upcoming features include user blocking, private accounts and private messaging.
At present, Ello is still a bare bones social network, but its USPs (so to speak) have been bold enough to garner attention. For digital marketers, at first glance Ello seems to throw a spanner in the works. If it becomes popular, Facebook’s power will wane. Marketing teams will have to use Ello in a very different manner to Facebook, almost entirely relying on linking to external content rather than ads.
Ello is fairly quiet at the moment, and as it’s still in beta, many social network features that you would expect to be present are still missing. If you’re interested in Ello, you can request an invitation – or pester your friends to see if they have a spare invite!
Ello could be good news for companies using content marketing. Your website content will become even more prominent in your digital marketing mix, as social media advertising loses its lustre and becomes an annoyance to consumers. Speak to the Crowdbait team to find out more about the potential of content marketing for your company.