One more substitute for Instagram* was presented in Russia. Is there a future for new social networks?

Alexander Dybin

Today we presented a new social network LOOKY, which should become an analogue of Instagram* blocked in Russia. The team that created the online cinemas tvigle and "Amediateka" worked on the project. As the head of the new social network Yegor Yakovlev said, 160 million rubles were invested in development in 2022. The investors are not named. LOOKY will receive functionality similar to the prototype, as well as the ability to completely transfer your account with the name, subscriptions and all content.

“Our social network should replace Instagram* and all the things users are used to,” Yakovlev said. - People have lost the content, the channel of communication with the audience. Bloggers have lost the communication channel through which they made money, big brands have lost an important communication channel. In the Russian market, Instagram* was used by a large number of small businesses. Before the blocking, about 40 million Russians used this social network. After the ban, the audience decreased by 2.5 times, and those who remained use it 30% less. Direct losses of small businesses associated with the withdrawal amounted to more than 110 billion rubles. There have already been attempts to replace, but for a number of indicators they are all unsuccessful. Russian ancient social networks expected that a significant part of the audience would come to them. But it turned out that they are not suitable in terms of interface and communication with the audience. The need for a social network like Instagram* has not left the market, but has even grown, people are looking for a replacement”.

In addition to the usual functionality, LOOKY users will have the opportunity to put links to external resources in posts, as well as a built-in loyalty program and the possibility of donations. Now the social network has 90,000 users, but in the near future the team hopes to gain 6.5 million users.

Their name is legion

Projects to replace Western social networks have been talked about for a long time. Facebook* and Instagram* “killers” are periodically announced. But in 2022, the conversations turned into a practical plane. Against the backdrop of the SVO, the social networks Facebook* and Instagram* were blocked in Russia, and their owner, Meta*, was recognized as an extremist and banned. Another popular network, Chinese TikTok, itself ceased operations in Russia and banned posting content. This gave impetus to several projects at once.

Yarus appeared back in 2021 and continues to work now. The project is similar to a content aggregator: posts from bloggers, media news, videos from various hosting sites, events and music. And judging by the views of posts on the main page, the social network does not yet have large coverage.

The Pabliko project is a platform for text publications, which are collected in thematic blocks.

Yappy is the Russian analogue of TikTok from Gazprommedia. There is a lot of talk about this network, it is actively advertised.

Tenchat is focused on experts and business, here you can search for partners, jobs, clients. The project grew rapidly at the end of last year, beginning of this year, especially against the backdrop of difficulties with Facebook*. But now it has clearly slowed down.

Fiesta and Limbiko (who changed his name to Rekee) are two projects that were positioned as a replacement for Instagram *, but they have not yet gained much popularity. In the same row is the Rosgram project, which has not gone further than announcements at all and has not yet been presented to the public. And the site states that all offers to download Rosgram are the actions of scammers. Not the best start for a social network. In this series, it is worth noting the Sadnogram project, which automatically makes all the added photos black and white, it was not conceived as a startup, but rather as a joke and now lives as an indie project.

The "oldies" are in no hurry to move

When discussing how new social networks can get an audience of banned projects, they often forget that Russia has its own social media, which only benefit from the departure of competitors and are not averse to taking away the “freed” audience themselves. According to a study by the Brand Analytics agency, Vkontakte and Telegram became the main beneficiaries. They have grown the most in the last year.

“In October 2022, the number of active authors on social media in Russia amounted to 62.2 million. Authors wrote more than 1.5 billion public messages — posts, reposts and comments”, - the study says, “despite the ban after the start of the CBO of foreign social networks, as well as TikTok self-censorship, the number of social media authors in Russia in October 2022 decreased slightly compared to October 2021 - by 6%. At the same time, the volume of content created by the authors for the month has grown significantly: the growth was 36%. Telegram has made the largest contribution to the growth of the monthly volume of social media content”.

VKontakte regained its leadership in the number of authors and again became the No. 1 social network in Russia. Odnoklassniki also rose in the ranking from third place to second.

They don't look seriously at "kids"

Social networks are not only about friends, photos and likes, it is also about money. How do potential customers look at newcomers to the market? According to experts interviewed by Novye Izvestia, there are still few requests for promotion of companies or brands in new social networks. Some projects are too few people, somewhere there is no suitable functionality at all.

“So far for all this time there has been only one request about Tenchat, one of the clients was marked there as an expert,” said a PR specialist from Irkutsk. - Banned social networks seem to be gone, but everything works with VPN. Even bloggers, for whom this is bread, are in no hurry to master Vkontakte. Advertisers are still interested in Instagram*, Telegram and VK. No new projects. Even with constant threats to block YouTube, there are still requests for promotion there. People don’t even download the archive in order to move it to other sites if something happens.”

In the information space of the newcomers, the three social networks Tenchat, Yappy and Yarus are most often mentioned. According to the director of the SMM agency, the author of the book "TikTok without dancing" Renat Yanbekov, projects have strengths and weaknesses.

“Tenchat got off to a good start because it promoted through Facebook influencers*, they gained a good audience, there are no ordinary people, blockheads and crooks, but there is a solvent audience that knows what it wants: profits, useful contacts,” the expert says. – The strength is the Zeus algorithm, which evaluates content and shows it to those who are interested in this topic. But there is a weak spot. They weren't able to gain more than 2 million users and in this regard they lag behind other platforms, you can advance in it, but you will quickly reach the audience ceiling. Yappy has the biggest support, even films and government projects are promoted in it. The creators do not spare money on advertising, in addition, there is generous monetization, they offer contracts to bloggers to publish on this social network. There was data on 8 million users and this is similar to TikTok figures. When he was booming in Russia, he also had 8 million at the peak. In principle, Yappy can repeat this success. But it has a raw technological base, a lot of glitches, and users face technical difficulties. If TikTok comes back in the next year, then it will quickly regain its position”.

With the Yarus social network, everything is more complicated, since the creators themselves do not seem to fully understand who this product is addressed to.

“In one place it is written that this is a cozy social network, in another that this is a social network for friends, in the press releases themselves, the company did not give a simple answer: whose share is this platform? - says Renat Yanbekov, - From time to time, advertisers ask about promotion in Tenchat. But you can’t create business pages there, in addition, there are no targeted ads, since there are few users and there is nowhere to get data from. Sometimes we recommend using this social network to replace bloggers, this can give good results. Almost no one asks about Yappy”.

Before the first penalty

It is interesting that businesses do not lose interest in promoting goods or companies in banned social networks. Even before they were recognized as extremist, they themselves closed the advertising accounts of Russian users. But this moment could be bypassed. Targeted advertising was ordered through foreign accounts, usually Kazakhstani ones. Some even applied for residency in this country in order to be able to pay on behalf of a legal entity. But after Meta* was recognized as an extremist, all transactions in her favor became illegal. In addition, the law on advertising labeling came into force, which banned social networks do not comply with. However, according to experts interviewed by Novye Izvestia, there have not yet been precedents for someone to be fined for an advertising campaign on Facebook* or Instagram*.

“There are two main laws that regulate this moment, the labeling law and the decree recognizing Meta* as an extremist organization”, - said Renat Yanbekov, “there were explanations from Roskomnadzor that you can use these platforms, for maintaining pages, especially in non-commercial terms, sanctions cannot follow. But it is forbidden to sponsor, that is, if you try to transfer money, launch a target, there will definitely be a fine or other penalties. But many practice ordering advertising from bloggers and there is no official comment whether this is considered a violation or not. There are also no precedents, everyone does it at their own peril and risk. But in general, the market expresses hope that social networks will return, as they have been very effective for small and micro businesses, which have been hit hardest by the lockdowns”.

* Meta activity (social networks Facebook and Instagram) is banned in Russia as extremist