A Primer On Parler

You may have recently noticed a seismic push to leave Twitter for something called Parler.

The push itself has been happening for a while as social media platforms reconcile whether they’re a platform or a publisher. As this happens, prominent political personalities on the left and on the right have been banned from Twitter. The emerging platform seems to be Parler, a social networking service launched in August 2018, as an alternative to Twitter. It describes itself as an “unbiased, free-speech social media platform focused on protecting users’ rights.”

We’ve seen alternative platforms come and go to challenge the behemoths, but we haven’t seen the growth spike or adoption from prominent people quite like Parler.

When you log in, you’ll notice a very similar interface as Twitter. Tweets are now “parleys”, retweets are “echoes”, replies are “comments” and content put out into the atmosphere can be upvoted or downvoted similar to how Reddit features comments.

So why discuss a platform that hasn’t gained broad notoriety yet – like Parler?

NATIV3 took the last several months to investigate the growth of the platform, how personalities are using it, and how to utilize its advertising platform. We think it’s worth your time to be aware of it as a marketer, based on its growth, its demographic makeup, and its ability to handle advertising from products and services that might not be considered appropriate on existing platforms. From that research and from managing a few political personalities on it, we’ve developed 5 best practices to grow your brand, increase your digital presence, and win clients/customers/support through Parler.

5 Things to do Right Now to Capitalize on Parler

• Hashtags: Social media hashtags are tired. Good twitter strategy meant ditching hashtags somewhere around 2013. Not on Parler. Hasthtags seem to be an efficient way to get more engagement – especially as you’re growing a new account. Suggested hashtags especially gain traction. As you grow your follower base (similar to Twitter), you have more opportunities to call people to action for your brand/candidate/cause.
• Long-Form Content: while Twitter has a tight limit on characters (280), Parler allows your 1000 characters. Based on several accounts and content observations from our team, longer content with rich media like video or photos gets more upvotes, follows, and echoes. It’s safe to say that a brand new Parler account should be posting longer-form content and leaving room for hashtags at the end of it to attract new audiences.
• Audience Leverage: Parler’s audience tends to be a bit more pioneering and political. Your content does not need to be as nuanced and your ads won’t be censored (for now). Understand the audiences you’re working with are different than that of Facebook or Twitter. For the time being, this platform may not be optimal for everyone.
• Get Verified: if you think your brand, your candidate, and YOU are worthy of getting verified through Parler, the process is pretty simple: take a selfie and get them a screenshot of your driver’s license. Verification comes with some of the same benefits of getting verified on Twitter: elevated status, exclusive verifications, and being recommended to new users. This process is bound to change as the platform gets more refined, so get in at the ground floor!
• Advertise: advertisements are pretty crude up to this point. They are managed through Parler’s “Influence Network”. You can purchase currency which gives you the capacity to promote Parleys or reach out to influencers directly. Similar to verification, this process is bound to become more stringent and cost more. Build your following while the platform is new!