Number 1 in the App Store in Canada and number 3 in the U.S. (according to Similarweb as of April 24), French app BeReal, which defines itself as an intimate social media opposite of Instagram, is riding a wave of popularity in North America. What’s it all about? What is the user reception? What is the potential for brands? Our answers.
The principle of BeReal is as follows: once a day, at a random time, users in the same circle of friends receive a notification and they have 2 minutes to take a photo of themselves (technically, it’s two photos: a self-portrait and a photo of the environment). Without flaunting or staging, to share their “real life” and not only glamorous moments, as on Instagram.
“Find out what your friends really do in their daily lives” is the promise of the founders of the French media, which was launched in 2020, and has seen a first wave of recognition in 2021 through articles in France (see Le Parisien or Konbini) and in Quebec (Urbania).
It’s the only social media I could use on a regular basis, with only two friends on it,” says Roxane Nadeau, who has been using it since last fall and clearly likes it. It’s much less intrusive than other social networks. The interference on my life is only one minute per day to post and one minute to comment on my contacts’ content. The balanced use is instantaneous.”
BeReal is part of a trend that seeks to break the cycle of dependency with traditional social media. In the same way that “1 Second Everyday” offers to shoot only one second per day, the French app offers to take only one photo per day – at a random time. In both cases, the formula aims to compartmentalize the use of social media while capturing snippets of life shared with loved ones.
I see BeReal as an opportunity to connect with your circle of friends in a touching, yet low-pressure way,” says Nadeau.
Towards a glorification… of downtime?
BeReal already has many fans in France, Quebec and now in the rest of Canada and the United States, where the media have given it extensive coverage (see articles from TechCrunch, Time or NBC) following its rise in the Apple and Android store rankings, in the “social networks” category.
Acknowledging the originality of the concept, tech journalist Jason Koebler, found a significant limitation after a few weeks of use in an article published on Vice:
If Instagram has the problem of making people’s lives seem artificially glamorous, BeReal has the problem of making people’s lives seem extremely boring.”
BeReal’s newsfeed features a string of people in bed, on the couch, at the computer, in the “dead” moments of life.
Inherently, BeReal misses the most interesting moments of a person’s life, which include activities and experiences that are much more real than the “real” moments when users are at home, doing nothing, and they look at their phone and see a BeReal notification. Many people do really cool things at least once in a while; presumably, in doing so, they are not looking at their phone,” he writes.
Also, because of the intimate nature of the platform, which is currently unpaid, most marketers we spoke with agree that brand positioning is limited in the current format.
Will the BeReal craze be permanent or short-lived? Time will tell…
