Backed by former Facebook and Twitter execs, Tagg launches social branding app for Gen Z

Backed by former Facebook and Twitter execs, Tagg launches social branding app for Gen Z

Gen Z isn’t happy with the social media they grew up with, in order that they’re constructing the apps that they wish to use. A “social branding” app for inventive teenagers and twenty-somethings, Tagg is saying a $2 million seed spherical right now from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Fb’s former VP of Worldwide Progress Ed Baker, TripAdvisor founder Stephen Kaufer, Pillar VC and extra.

 

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Based by current alumni of Brown College and the neighboring Rhode Island Faculty of Design, Tagg remains to be in personal beta with hundreds of customers, and hundreds extra on a waitlist. It’s like a link-in-bio service, however with a social component that encourages younger creatives to attach, collaborate and develop friendships.

“Within the digital world, the extra genuine your model, the extra real your connections. Present social platforms fall brief as they weren’t constructed for this evolving intersection of branding and connecting,” the corporate explains. “Tagg is constructing and rising an surroundings permitting for full inventive expression of oneself — no restrictions, no stigma.”

Relying on what you wish to use your profile for (you may want a social profile, otherwise you may wish to promote your artwork and community), you may select from 5 profile skins while you onboard into the app. From there, you may customise your web page, then observe individuals and publish content material such as you would on another app. However on Tagg, there’s no like rely on posts, which is an intentional design alternative.

“We wouldn’t have likes — simply feedback, sharing and views — as a result of we wish our creatives targeted on being their favourite selves with no stigma,” co-founder Victor Loolo informed TechCrunch.

Particularly among the many Gen Z viewers that Tagg is constructed for, customers don’t all the time need like counts, since they know it might encourage them to check themselves to friends in a superficial manner. Even U.S. Senators like Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have launched laws that may ban like counts for social media customers youthful than 16, as a result of it’d hurt teenagers’ psychological well being.

Tagg’s “social branding” advertising and marketing may appear counter-intuitive at first look — the idea of branding may sound such as you’re placing your self in a field. However by design, Tagg encourages its customers to develop out of their consolation zones. Although customers construct their profile via utilizing preset skins, these are solely solutions — if customers wish to construct their profiles from a clean slate and create their very own classes to prepare their content material with, they’ll do this.

“Profiles can appear like something, that’s the fantastic thing about it. We needed to maneuver away from the standard, restrictive, cookie-cutter profiles that each one social apps have, as a result of as Gen Z-ers, we worth freedom of expression and uniqueness so much,” Loolo defined. “We needed to discover a glad, user-friendly medium between a conventional profile and a clean web page, which might be difficult for lots of people, so we went with profile skins.”

Tagg was impressed by Loolo’s personal expertise as a soccer participant at Brown, the place he felt that it was tough to outline himself exterior of his identification as a scholar athlete. That’s what impressed him to construct Tagg, alongside co-founders Blessing Ubani and Sophie Chen.

“Individuals are form of put right into a field. Let’s say I’m a man who does cooking movies on TikTok — I’m the cooking video man. However I’d get pleasure from video video games and different stuff,” Loolo informed TechCrunch. “We needed to interrupt away from that and permit for these creatives to curate extra holistic photos of themselves.”

Tagg customers at present earn factors by partaking with the platform — whereas these factors are at present only a vainness characteristic, Loolo sees this as a possible future for the app.

“Though Tagg isn’t at present decentralized or tokenized, the rules of our platform mirror web3’s values,” Loolo stated. “Certainly one of our objectives is to assist our creatives perceive that being instantly rewarded for his or her content material sharing and neighborhood participation is the answer to the problems of creator financial system, versus underpaying creator funds and inconsistent model offers.”

Sooner or later, Tagg might transfer towards permitting customers to earn a coin or token with worth. However for now, Tagg is concentrated on onboarding extra customers from its waitlist and buying extra customers.