At present, an increasing number of market players are competing for a greater share of the social media market by launching their own social media products, including ByteDance, Netease and Tencent.
However, these industry leaders are still striving for an expected market share, while start-ups seem to have new opportunities. Soul, as one of the emerging social platforms, is performing well at a steady pace. As reported by QuestMobile, Soul is a well-known app where you can find spiritual comfort, and in September 2019, it attracted nearly 10 million monthly active users.
Zhang Lu, the founder of Soul, never expected that this app would be such a big success. She never worked on social media products before and her work didn’t even have anything to do with the Internet, but she always believed that new social media products comparable to WeChat and QQ will be brought to young generations to cater to their preferences as time goes by.
Zhang Lu has shared her success story and insights into the industry in media interviews. Many new social communication modes are coming with the rise of Generation Z.
Now, let’s get closer to Soul. On Soul, you can generate a self-portrait through a preset test and use it to find your Soulmates.
It seems that Soul is designed to let you freely express yourself, make your true voice heard and make friends with other Soulers. Its ultimate goal is to become a Loneliness Killer for all Soulers. This is also an importation mission for Soul.
Communicating with others can bring you a sense of happiness, the opposite of loneliness, and this concept also contributed to the birth of Soul. Zhang Lu still remembers those happy days on a business trip when she had dinner with her European colleagues and talked about everything with them. She hopes that every user can gain spiritual comfort on Soul.
Soul provides you with many matching options to find your Soulmates. The first option to be made available was Soul Match, followed later by Voice Match and Love Bell. Facekini Match was launched in the second half of 2019. In this option, you adopt a customized avatar before engaging in a video chat to make you feel more relaxed.
For many Soulers, Soul is a good choice for chatting with others, but a larger number of Soulers consider it a platform for expressing themselves. Some Soulers note on their homepage that they only use Soul as a “tree hole” to keep a record of fantastic moments, daily life and personal thoughts, not for chatting with others.
Zhang Lu said that it’s difficult for Soulers who are afraid of making their true voices heard to empathize with others.
Sometimes, a chat with a stranger can put your mind at ease. Soul is designed in such a way that you can’t choose your personal photo as your avatar, but must create an avatar from given templates. Other similar design elements also help Soulers to freely express themselves and chat with others. However, Soul is very different from debatable social media products based on “anonymity” because chatting with strangers on Soul is actually traceable.
Zhang Lu has stressed that products based on “anonymity” can’t provide their users with independent ID or traceability to users’ homepages, but “this is not the case for Soul”. She said that every Souler has a unique ID, and every post and comment can be traced to the poster’s homepage. As you can see, Soul is trying to let you express yourself honestly while also avoiding the risks that can be caused by anonymous talks.
Of course, Soul also needs to find ways to make existing Soulers more active and loyal. The “Super Soul Real (SSR)” program has been put into use to encourage Soulers to produce thought-provoking posts in ACG, popular culture, music, vlogging, learning, photography and painting.
A new generation of netizens must have different needs. Nowadays, many entrepreneurs and investors are very interested in the needs of Generation Z, so it’s no wonder that new social media products are emerging to meet their needs. In Zhang Lu’s opinion, “intergenerational change” always has great significance.
“You’ll find that many products with just a few or no young users are losing their market shares. Only those popular among young people have a bright future.” Zhang Lu added that the new generation looks for new product trends rather than always using products designed for the previous generation.
In fact, each generation of young people seeks to be “different” and are always labeled with distinctive personalities. Specifically, most emerging social media products focus on the young people of Generation Z, who are known as the only child in their families and have a more intense need to chat with others.
At present, Soul has laid a solid foundation for its growth in the social media market, and can stand out among comparable products in the App Store. Zhang Lu said, “At present, we can only benefit from machine learning, which is also known as an AI technology.” Such technology enables the product to bring a better user experience and higher-quality communication. Zhang Lu always believes that new products will come to the world that are better suited to the young generations’ thoughts, interests and preferences, as well as being more closely associated with current society.
When it comes to Soul, Zhang Lu said that she did not initially expect much from this product: “In essence, the right product will bring success.” She added that it wasn’t surprising to commercialize products for profit considerations: “Though we have a long way to go, out focus remains on optimizing the user experience”.
Soul is evolving and advancing on the “Soul”cial Metaverse, creating a new world for Soulers under the leadership of Zhang Lu.
Media Contact
Company Name: Soul App
Contact Person: Daisy Zhang
Email: Send Email
Country: China
Website: https://www.soulapp.cn/
