If you’ve scrolled through your Newsfeed or happened to stumble over to Mashable, you’ve definitely heard of the latest social network – Ello. It’s everywhere! Ello brands themselves as an Ad Free, Invitation Only (for now) Social Network. Reports have shown that there are join requests from 4k to 34k per hour – meaning that people are itching to join, or at least curious as to what this is all about. With the launch of any new social network, you (being marketing savvy) are probably wondering just how you can tap in to this. With no ads, Ello has turned to an “Offer” style system. We’ll see where they turn up with that whole model, though.
Intro to Ello
The exclusivity of the invite only social network is nothing new. Google + started their beta and kept the goods veiled behind the glamorous velvet sheet. When the product was revealed to the masses, that is when the critics jumped out of the woodwork. Ello is following a similar model, requiring you to request an invite (with reports saying there is a queue of over 1M people) or get an invite from a friend. Once you’ve secured your Golden Ticket in to Ello, you receive 5 invites to give away (or in some cases, sell) to anyone. According to their manifesto, Ello believes in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. Though they’re taking the media by storm, I fear that they may take their manifesto to the next level and embrace that “transparency” component a bit too much. Don’t you dare quote me on that in a year when Ello is the next big thing, either.