‘Use Signal’ a magical tweet that changed the fortune of an app. against a Tech Giant & also unintentionally displayed the power of two unique marketing techniques.
Have you heard of a blunder like a sea wave and efficient enough to destroy the giant sandcastle of a brand? I am sure, you have heard about one of such blunders committed by a tech giant in the very recent time, I think you got it. Yes, I am talking about Whatsapp.
In the month of March, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg revealed his vision for the future of social media. His plans were to integrate all the social media platforms owned by Facebook, which meant complete integration between the 3 most popular social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp. This news had already raised a moment of concern amongst the users around the globe, but Facebook started working on Zuckerberg’s vision without caring about all the concerns and gossips that had started floating everywhere.
To take another step towards fulfilling this vision, Facebook went ahead and updated the privacy policy of their messaging app Whatsapp and also gave a notice that the users who don’t accept the new privacy policy of Whatsapp will be blocked from using the app from Feb. 08, 2021. The updated privacy policy forced users to allow Whatsapp to share its user data with its parent company Facebook, after which Whatsapp faced a huge backlash from users all around the world, and people started looking for some alternative.
As ‘who will be the alternative of Whatsapp’ became a topic of discussion in every town, it also became a trending question on Twitter. To answer this question, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Our Minimalistic Elon Musk tweeted ‘Use Signal’ for his followers. Within a few hours of this tweet, Signal started trending around all the social media platforms, and also its downloads started surging. After getting a safe alternative to Whatsapp, people went so crazy that they started buying the Shares of Signal Advance Inc., mistaking it as the company that owns Signal Messenger because of this confusion stock prices of Signal Advance jumped 1100%. Later, the CEO of Signal Advance clarified that Signal Messenger is not their product.
After the Tweet of Elon Musk, downloads of the Signal Messenger app increased by 4200% and it claimed the list of Top free apps on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store to become #1 top free app by replacing Whatsapp.
After so much backlash, Whatsapp has delayed its deadline of Feb. 08, 2021, to 15th May 2021 and clarified that it cares about the privacy of its users. Whatsapp has also said that it will clear the misinformation spread about the data sharing amongst its users. But the audience doesn’t seem pretty convinced by these steps too, and many tech leaders also predict that Whatsapp might start showing ads on its platform, which will further hinder the privacy of its users.
Through Our Marketing Glasses
After looking at the whole scenario from the spectacles of marketing, you will notice that in this case, unintentionally two types of marketing played a key role in bringing overnight success to the Signal Messenger. Influencer marketing and Strong word of mouth were the falling stars that fulfilled the wish of making a tiny messenger a tough competitor of a well-established tech giant.
With this event, 2021 has started with a bang at least for the marketing industry. One thing that I have concluded by thoroughly covering this event is that Influencer marketing and Strong word of mouth is the way to go in 2021, but can anyone using these marketing techniques gain this success? That would be a big “Maybe” because the additional factor that is common in this case and that played a key role is ‘Trust’.
Trust factor lies in Influencer marketing as well as word of mouth marketing because people who follow an influencer know them and their journey which forms an important aspect of decision-making and word of mouth marketing is done by some close associates of an individual who shares their personal experience and then people buy or download the marketed product. This brings us back to the basics of marketing, Trust is the ultimate weapon that can help you in winning any war in marketing. Build trust to optimize the growth of your company and bet on its solid foundation.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chandrima Samanta
Content-Editor at MartechCube
Chandrima is a Content management executive with a flair for creating high quality content irrespective of genre. She believes in crafting stories irrespective of genre and bringing them to a creative form. Prior to working for MartechCube she was a Business Analyst with Capgemini.