Social media platforms recording daily life popular among Korean users

Naver Blog logo [Courtesy of Naver]

Social media platforms that focus on documenting everyday life are gaining traction in South Korea as some users are fatigued with show-off posts such as via Instagram and TikTok.

According to Korean platform giant Naver Corp. on Tuesday, Check-In Challenge launched by Naver Blog last month is gaining popularity. Check-In Challenge is a campaign that offers prizes through a lucky draw to users that leave 25 posts with photos of locations such as restaurants, cafes, and tourist attractions by July 20.

The challenge is designed to encourage users to record their everyday lives following the huge success of the previous Weekly Diary Challenge that attracted 1.03 million participants. The idea is to help users go beyond simply posting where they went and what they ate and share in-depth reviews of what they have experienced.

“Naver Blog focuses on documenting an individual’s life, rather than communicating with acquaintances, with a relatively loose sense of connection compared with other services where close relationships act as a driver of usage,” said an unnamed official from Naver.

“While content has previously focused on conveying information to readers, an increasing number of users have recently opted to tell stories from their own perspective as if they are writing a diary.”

Naver Blog plans to allow users to view their records gathered through the challenge in more refined data. Users, for example, will be able to see places they have visited altogether or search what others have written about a particular venue.

Better logo [Courtesy of LG Uplus]

LG Uplus Corp., a local telecommunications provider that is turning into a platform company, recently launched a social network service named Better, which allows users to record their daily lives in less than 1,000 characters along with images.

It was initially designed to encourage users to set goals and repeat routines to realize them, but the concept was changed in response to customer feedback that they feel a sense of achievement from the process of accumulating records itself rather than setting big goals.

“We assumed people are tired of the ostentatious feeds and excessive connections on existing social network services and want to record their real selves,” said Kim Joo-young, project manager at LG Uplus who planned the service.

Better offers users the service to create multiple boards for each topic, unlike existing services that allow only one feed. Some users have created as many as 13 boards.

[Courtesy of Dot Slash Dash]

Dot Slash Dash, a video platform that allows users to record their everyday lives in short-form videos, is also going viral. It drew attention as a new startup item of Lee Chang-woo, founder and former chief executive officer of select shops 29CM and TENBYTEN Corp.

Users can share stories like a diary by linking up to 10 video fragments of less than 4 minutes each. Unlike existing short-form platforms that focus on sensational and one-off content, there are posts about first-hand experiences related to travel, exhibitions, performances, restaurants, parenting, and pets. Users can collect and view relevant content by lifestyle or keywords of interest.

On Dot Slash Dash, videos of everyday lives are collected and used as brand content for companies.

For example, videos of real users who traveled to Osaka, Japan are used as content to advertise airline companies. Users that participate in such brand marketing activities are rewarded according to their performance.

“We designed it in a way that all participants can get rewards, thinking that it is unfair for only a few influencers to take away rewards for posting content on existing social media,” Lee said.