Watch: New apps create a safe space, but how do we choose?
With new social media apps like Spill, Threads, and Spoutible aiming to take over Twitter's reign, how do we know which one is right for us? Marketing expert Marcus Collins weighs in.
With Twitter on the decline, new social media apps have been popping up on the scene. Spill, described as the “Black alternative to Twitter,” was created by two Black former Twitter employees, Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown.
Threads, having the closest look and feel to Twitter, is directly from the Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook. The social media app seamlessly links to users’ Instagram accounts which has no doubt helped the app register more than 100 million users in the short time that it’s been available.
Spoutible describes itself as a platform that allows users to “spout off,” while mitigating targeted harassment, hate speech, disinformation, and platform manipulation. But with all these different options, how does one choose?
TheGrio’s Eboni K. Williams spoke to marketing guru Marcus Collins about the differences between the social media apps. The following transcript of their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Eboni K. Williams [00:00:04] Before the break, we were talking about how three new social media platforms are gaining a lot of steam and making headlines. Threads pulled in 30 million users within the very first few days of its launch. And these new apps have created safer spaces for Black people and other marginalized groups.
I want to bring back in our expert guest. He’s a marketing guru, Marcus Collins. Marcus, thanks for staying with us. Now, a big reason that our people, our community, is flocking to these brand new social media platforms is because content creators are tired, frankly, of brands appropriating our culture and our material without giving the proper credit.
They’re also tired of algorithms kind of siphoning out what should be broader commercial play for Black creators. But do you think that this will be effective at helping us reclaim aspects of our culture and our money?
Marcus Collins [00:00:56] Well, I think that that’s been a thorn in our side as cultural creators since the beginning of time. Right? And all of our cultural production becomes conquested by the hegemony, and then that becomes “the culture.” That becomes the dominant culture. And you see platforms like TikTok had, to your point, leverage the cultural production of Black people, saw it be picked up by people who didn’t look like us and then used the algorithms to push their content forward and help those creators make money.
When you look at Spill, Spill has built this platform such that those creators, people of color, that when their cultural production starts to create virality and it gets contagion and starts pick up traction, that they will be monetized accordingly. I think that’s the thing I like about Spill is that it’s built by the culture, for the culture.
You take a platform like Spoutible, I think it’s altruistic in its hope for creating a safe space, but it’s a safe space for like the democratized everyone, right? Where Spill is explicitly for us, but not exclusively for us, which I think is the right way to think about it. Threads…we’re not sure yet because Threads, while it is still new, I think that it’s a bit of an open campus that’s welcoming people inviting people to help co-create it, but those “people” don’t look like us and quite frankly they’re not prioritizing us, even though, as we all know, it’s “us” that makes things cool. It’s “us” that makes these people want to show up to it. As Jay-Z says, “We the culture.”
Therefore, I think that we have to be – we, the Black community, Black cultural producers and the members of people who are on Threads – need to make sure that we’re very vocal about ensuring that the platform is for the people, not just some people.
Eboni K. Williams [00:02:52] Now, let’s talk about the fact, Marcus, that some people – I’m raising my hand here, some of us – we don’t really like that much social media, right? So we want to pick and choose when to cherry pick which cookouts, which parties we’re even going to.
So, talk about those who were excited about Spill, excited about Spoutible. You know, we’re planning on knocking on that door and getting in line for entrance and then Threads came along and, you know, we all just got on immediately. Do you think there were missteps in the launch of Spill or Spoutible. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it. And maybe we need to be thinking about Threads and some of these additional platforms.
Marcus Collins [00:03:29] Yeah, I think about these platforms are like parties, right? I’m going to go here because I’m going to play Soca music. I’m going to go here because they’re going to play, you know, a little bit of everything. I’m going to go here because they’re going to be deep 90s hip-hop, right? And it’s the aggregate of these things that make for a good night out.
The same thing goes with our social networks that aren’t zeros and ones, that aren’t digital. I got my frat brothers here, my people from school, my people from home, my people from church, the alchemy of these, the aggregate of these people make up my people.
And the same thing goes to social networking platforms. I go to LinkedIn for my professional things. I go to Threads because they’re just wiling out right now, which is a lot of fun. And then I go to Facebook where my church people are, right? So I go to the places where people are and together they create my community.
Eboni K. Williams [00:04:19] Okay, that makes a ton of sense. Now, let’s talk about the bag, the money. For many content creators, the most important part, right? So when you’re thinking, Marcus, about the best ways for Black content creators to be properly fully compensated, what’s the strategy? How do you advise?
Marcus Collins [00:04:37] Well, I think that content creators need to think about their community in places that they have more agency and more autonomy. Right. If Instagram changes its algorithm today, we have no control over that. If Threads changes, which it certainly is going to do, changes tomorrow, we have no control over that.
We have to find places that work sort of like a calculus equation. They have this, this, and this, and together they create the monetization of my content. And we see content creators being much more savvy about this. You know, they’ll give a little bit of content on one platform and say, if we want more, go to my Patreon, right?
Go there, that’s where you can get the paid content or if you’re on my Substack like that’s where I give more of my newsletter. It’s the combination of these things that help us monetize our production. But if we put it in one person’s hand, one entity hand, then we remove all of our agency and we basically say, I’m going to let someone run my business, and that is not the move ever.
Eboni K. Williams [00:05:48] All right, let’s get to it. Marcus, is Twitter dead?
Marcus Collins [00:05:52] I don’t think Twitter is dead, but I think Twitter, the Twitter that we once knew no longer exists or will no longer exist right? As Black Twitter leaves the platform and finds a home, at Spill and Threads and maybe even Spoutible, that cultural brain drain of Twitter is going to make it a less interesting place to be.
It’s already super toxic, but at least it was kind of still fun, right? If you’re in the right pockets. But with that cultural brain drain, it’s going to be less exciting. And the people who are there, they’re engaging in rhetoric that a lot of us don’t want to be a part of. It’s tantamount to Facebook losing its cool, right? We’re not going to show up there.
Will it be dead and gone, no longer exist? No. But will it be among the pantheons of the biggest platforms? No. It’s not going to be competing against the TikToks of the world. It’s going to compete against the Truth Socials of the world, and that’s not a good place to be.
Eboni K. Williams [00:06:51] Hmm. That’s a lot of shade right there. All right. Marcus Collins, brother, thank you so much for your brilliant insight. Is great having you on the show, truly.
Check out the full clip above and tune into “theGrio with Eboni K. Williams” at 6 p.m. ET every weeknight on theGrio cable channel.
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