Should your company BeReal?

A guide to determining whether your company should use the newly popular photo-sharing social media app.

While the classic social media platforms are still prominent in today’s world, there are many up-and-coming social media platforms taking the world by storm. Recently, BeReal has skyrocketed in popularity, primarily among teenagers and young adults.  

BeReal is a social media platform that uses a photo-sharing application to allow users to post a singular photo per day. The catch is you only have a two-minute time slot in which you can post the photo. 

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Every day, you’re randomly notified when you can take your BeReal photo. The purpose is to catch authentic moments and to share that unfiltered reality with your friends and followers. While you can’t post before being notified, you’re allowed to post your BeReal after the two minutes pass, but your BeReal post will be stamped as “LATE.” You can’t see your friends’ BeReals until you post yours. You can also make your BeReal account public so anyone can view your BeReals from the “Explore” page. 

So, does it make sense for your company to use this new platform? 

Here’s what we know:

When you open up the app to take your BeReal, it will look just like a camera app. You can press the circle on the bottom of the screen to take a picture of your surroundings with your back-facing camera, and then it will capture a selfie of you with your front-facing camera only seconds later. If you wish to take a picture with your front-facing camera first, select the circular arrows in the bottom right corner to do so.  

Unlike other social media platforms, you can’t just “like” your followers’ BeReals – you must “react” to them. To react, you simply click the smile emoji in the bottom right corner of the picture and select a thumbs-up, smiley face, surprise face, heart-eyes emoji, laughing emoji, or the lightning bolt. The reactions allow you to react with a set photo of yourself (e.g., in the reaction picture for thumbs-up, it's a selfie of you giving a thumbs-up). The lightning bolt is the only reaction where you take a unique photo expressing how you feel about the image each time you click it. 

In August 2022, BeReal had 73.5 million monthly active users and 10 million users who access the app daily. The app had been downloaded approximately 28 million times by June 2022, and the majority of the downloads occurred in 2022. 

Your profile:

Your profile only consists of your name, a short bio, and a profile picture. When first creating your account, you must choose to post with the “Discovery” option. You can always hide certain posts from the Discovery channel, but you can’t add posts to it if you select “Only visible to friends feed” when making your account. As a company, you need to have access to the Discovery channel.

How to monitor your page:

You can report any BeReal user who interacts with your post inappropriately. You can also delete comments on all of your BeReals.

How to use it for your company:

You can use this as a way to express the authenticity of your brand or company to your followers. You can create an account with your logo as your profile picture and a witty line in your bio. Then, you should take BeReals with different employees every day, showing your workplace authenticity. You could include the company's BeReal username on cards to put in consumers’ packages or to hand them out.

When it’s time to post on the app, there is little planning. Your company’s social media manager should be the one in charge of it. When the notification goes off that it's time to take the BeReal, it's up to them to decide how to creatively portray the company. The most creative and authentic shots are the ones that get the most attention.

If the BeReal notification goes off after working hours, we think it’s safe to say the company shouldn’t post until the next day at the office, even though this marks the post as “late.” We also suggest making unique captions to put below each picture. For example, if you post late, you could caption it with something like, “BeReal was up too late last night. We had to rest to prepare for <insert special company event>.”

Is it worth it?

Yes!

If your target audience is between the ages 12-25, yes! This would be a creative way to connect with your audience and show them you can keep up with the social media platforms they like. It would allow you to show your brand’s authenticity in a clever and unique way. You could also gain attraction, as not many companies have explored this platform yet. So, what are you waiting for?

No…

If your target audience is 30 or older, don’t bother trying out this new social media platform. The main users are in a younger demographic, and it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to create this account when your main consumers aren’t aware of the platform. 

While BeReal may or may not be the next social media platform for you, we can assure you there will always be new ones to try. If you are having any trouble with your current social media profiles, check out our social media management guide for more information!'