By The Pollack Group
Hi everybody,
Welcome to Episode 8 of Reply All! Can you believe we’re almost halfway through 2016? Currently, we’re rooting for The Bachelorette to find love this season, getting ready for summer with that new protein powder all the celebs are selling on Instagram (just kidding), looking for new job leads on Snapchat, meeting friends at Starbucks (more on this later), contemplating tattoos that will pay off in the long run (kinda kidding?) and debating whether it’s worth the stress of seeing Drake live in concert.
We’re kicking this episode off with big news: we’re so excited to welcome the newest PPMGer, Julie Bagdikian, to the podcast team. Julie is from Paris, France and is exquisitely cool, cultured – and loves the Kardashians. Clearly, she’ll do just fine here.
Coincidentally, a byproduct of the Kardashian fame machine leads off What’s The Pitch? Scott Disick, best known as Kourtney Kardashian’s baby daddy, recently made a major social media SNAFU. Disick, who is paid by several companies to promote their products on his Instagram account, appeared to have copy/pasted e-mail instructions from one of the companies on exactly what time to post a photo and the caption they provided him. Innocent mistake or sneaky tactic to draw more attention? You be the judge. For the record, a nearly-identical photo he posted received over 100,000 likes. Disick is rumored to earn $15,000 – $20,000 per Instagram post.
“Social influencers” in 2016 are becoming hotly debated, as brands are keeping a closer eye on these digital stars’ skyrocketing monetary demands and how these third-party endorsements translate into sales. We’ve got plenty to say on this. FYI, we reference this Digiday article.
This month’s HARO comes from Blogging4Jobs’ Jessica Miller-Merrell, who was seeking companies using Snapchat to hire and best practices. Don’t laugh, we did a little research and found out that Grubhub used it to look for a Snapchat intern, and a Washington DC-based advertisement agency used it for an internship position. We love seeing users get creative and use social media platforms in unique ways, and while we don’t necessarily endorse using Tinder to cut lines at an event or couch surf, we do applaud modern-era ingenuity.
For On Review, Olivia in NYC gives us the lowdown on her Starbucks rendezvous with a new pal from RendezWho, a new app that matches you with a friend for life. Writing letters to your pen pal is so 1981. The app concept is so unique, a short segment on the podcast simply wasn’t enough to cover it all. Olivia has helpfully provided a detailed user review and MAJOR KEY ALERT: we have an exclusive interview with the creators of RendezWho, Candy and Adil.
On Review: RendezWhoI (Olivia) started using RendezWho in February and was rematched twice. Finally, my third match was more of a success and we had a lot in common and a serious GIF and Spotify stride going.
During the first week of May on my way home from the office my phone lit up with alerts that my friend who was originally 800+ miles away, was now in the area!
Using the new features we agreed to meet at a Starbucks in lower Manhattan. Being Manhattan, the shop was packed and it took some strategic rapid fire GIF sharing to find each other. We sat and talked for almost two hours and laughed about the whole experience.
I’m excited to have a new friend for life that I probably never would have met otherwise. I was also lucky enough to speak to Candy and Adil, the RendezWho creators, this week!
Unfortunately the recording quality was not A+, luckily I took A+ notes.
I was impressed to find out Candy and Adil are the only people behind the entire RendezWho operation. We talked at length about the user demographics and how it takes a unique type of person to want to use RendezWho – someone who can appreciate that refreshing first connection and the chemistry you can have with another person you probably wouldn’t have met in daily life.
Q1. Where did the idea for RendezWho come from?
A1. Adil was traveling continuously a few years ago and realized that sometimes the friendships and connections made along the way were more exciting than the destination itself. Once he moved to SF he wanted to digitize that chance encounter.
We created Rendezwho based on the idea that there is someone out there, looking for you as you are looking for them. You can’t see them, you can’t talk to them, you have to find them.
We really like this idea of there being just one person out there for you, in that sense it feels like fate when you connect with just one person
It’s about connecting with someone you would’ve never run into otherwise, and your journey as you go looking them.
Q2. How much growth have you experienced since launching?
A2. We had a pretty quiet launch day, and then kept growing until reaching 15k downloads and over 10k users in 3 months
With users in 92 countries the team told me they’ve had 14 people meet so far. They have also heard from quite a few people that they are setting up trips to meet their match this summer. The average distance between two people is 2,800 miles and one pair is traveling around 11,500 miles to meet.
Candy and Adil are excited for RendezWho’s future as there are still so many ways for the app and community to grow.
Q3. What has been your favorite part about creating RendezWho?
A3. We love the way people interact and people connect. It is truly about meeting and getting to know someone you would’ve never gotten to know, while also taking a chance and going for an adventure. We love hearing feedback and growing. Our next step is to build a social feature; Snapchat meets Instagram and Reddit…
Their social feature will be a place where users can connect and share their RendezWho experience, meeting stories and interact with each other.
Recently they’ve hired an intern who has helped build out their Snapchat (rendezwho) that highlights the RendezWho lifestyle and regularly features guest Snappers on the go.
Q4. What has been your favorite “meet” story?
A4. Our favorite was the first one. It was really that first meeting that made us feel: Wow we made this happen, people met. This first meeting also proved that sometimes chemistry truly is random. These two people had so much in common that they were convinced we had used a tricky matching algorithm, but it was all chance!
Thanks for making it happen, Candy and Adil. The rest of the Reply All team is still on the hunt for their match and we are excited to see the app grow in the future!
Sidenote: The NBA’s Sacramento Kings will pay fans to tattoo its logo on their bodies. We checked, henna tattoos don’t make the cut. Another sidenote: Brands are now paying for sponsorship tattoos on Olympic athletes. T-Mobile is paying track star Nick Symmonds to place a temporary tattoo on his right shoulder for his races; he actually auctioned off 9 square inches of his skin. Hopefully they’ll throw in an unlimited data plan with his contract; the recent news about Symmonds shines a light on how little money these non-celebrity Olympians actually make.
Side-side-sidenote: a recent study shows that attending live music events reduces the level of stress hormones. Megan says OMG DISAGREE. Brittney says YASSS BRING ON THE FLOOR SEATS.
Thanks for tuning in, and remember to give us some love on Soundcloud!
