Closed Social Networks: Are they the future social media?
Social media has been integrated into our daily lives and will continue to be a part of it. We interact online with family and friends, posting about our vacations, foods, memes, articles, and so much more. Although our current social media apps that we all use and love are utilized by millions of people, future generations are making the shift of going towards closed social networks.
First, what is the difference between an open social network and a closed social network? Open social networks are your typical social media platforms, where content is visible for the public. A closed social network is a platform that shares content through private groups that are based off of similar interests.
One benefit of being a part of these closed social networks is having a closer connection to the group members. Sara Wilson, a brand and digital content strategist, mentions that younger people “want to be themselves online and make true friends based on shared interest”. With this generation shifting towards wanting more privacy, safety, and respite from popular social platforms, the idea of having a closed social network is a great way to develop these relationships they want online. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has been working on developing WhatsApp as a private platform. He believes that people prefer the intimacy of communicating one-on-one or with a few friends, and that the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services.
With more people from Generation Z wanting to join closed social networks, Sara Wilson mentions three different types of “digital campfires” that are meant for a more intimate online experience. These campfires are private message, micro-community, and shared experience.
Private message campfires are your typical messaging apps for private and smaller group messaging, such as WhatsApp and Messenger. This is the most common form of closed social networks because it involves group members that are interacting with one another with no brands or marketers interrupting the group chat. While this provides the privacy that the majority of Generation Z wants, this brings the risk of misinformation being spread throughout the group. Sara Chisholm, a writer for Agility PR Solutions, discusses a study done by the American Press Institute that was about Twitter and the spread of false information. She states that the American Press Institute found out that 64% of Twitter news users say they have encountered information on Twitter that they later found to be untrue.
Micro-Community campfires are interactive private or semi-private forums that are found on traditional social platforms for people to discuss certain topics, such as interests, beliefs, or passions. An example of this campfire is the platform YouTube and its influencers. The YouTube influencers are creating content that they want to post to their subscribers that watch their channel and bring conversation in the comment section by asking questions among the group of subscribers to discuss. According to Annie Kolatsis, a writer for The Drum Network, Generation Z is hungry for relatable influencers, who care about the same issues. By having these YouTube influencers post content for people, it creates a publicly private bubble, meaning that being subscribed to the influencer creates a sense of community to all the other subscribers involved with that influencer.
Finally, the shared experience campfires are private or public forums where participating in a shared experience with a like-minded community is the primary purpose for gathering. This type of campfire is highly used for livestreams and online gaming platforms, such as Twitch. Twitch is a platform in which one person can live stream and have an audience of people come join and create discussion with other people online. The reason that people join these livestreams is because of the sense of community it brings, since everyone has the same idea of online sense.
Overall, closed social networks are definitely changing the route of how social media is going to perform in the future. We will see that more of these closed social networks are going to increase in popularity because of Generation Z and also how people are becoming more cautious with privacy and safety online.
