Digital campfires become a much more attractive alternative — one that requires more groundwork and more careful tending, but one that could potentially have big payoffs for brands in terms of loyalty, retention, and long-term love.

3. Shared Experience:

To understand what’s driving this shift, you need only talk to young people. They’re saying that after years spent constructing carefully curated online identities and accumulating heaps of online “friends,” they want to be themselves and make real friends based on shared interests. They’re also craving privacy, safety, and a respite from the... See more

Mark Zuckerberg in 2019 “Today we already see that private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication”

Consumer behavior changing → brands are trying to navigate those new form factors:

Think Facebook private groups.

Micro-community often live on traditional social platforms, yet they can also spark in unexpected places: Discord — a platform designed for gamers, has become something of an under-the-radar hub for beauty obsessives.

In a 2019 survey from ZAK, a youth-focused creative agency, nearly two thirds of the 1,000 people polled, all under 30, said they prefer to talk in private message threads rather than on open forums and feeds. Sixty percent of respondents stated that talking in private groups means they can “share more openly.”

Like the private messaging campfires, micro-community campfires often live on traditional social platforms. Facebook Groups are probably the best-known example. The “close friends” feature within Instagram Stories has become a tool some influencers are using to share exclusive content and interact with small groups of their followers, for a fee.... See more