The Exclusivity Of Invite Only

In late July, the well-known aesthetic photo sharing and saving app known as Pinterest, soft-launched a collage/mood-board maker app named, Shuffles. Shuffles allow users to connect their Pinterest accounts and create collages using pictures already pinned on their boards.

During the week of August 15-22, Shuffles ranked No. 5 in the Top Lifestyle Apps by downloads on iPhone in the U.S despite still being invite-only. The appeal of mood boards and aesthetic collages to Gen-Z has been propelling the marketing on this app however, it cannot be denied that the exclusivity of the ‘invite-only’ business model has played a role in its popularity as well.

As an avid social media user, I first learned of the app through people begging for codes on my Twitter timeline. For every normal tweet I scrolled past, I encountered 5 more asking for a “shuffles code”. Confused, I googled the phrase and found out a little more about the app. The aesthetic and easy collage-making process drew me in and made me go on my own wild goose chase for a code. Despite my friend group being decently active on Pinterest, none of them knew about Shuffles or had a shuffles code. This meant that I had to scour the internet for a code but everyone that I found had been taken, even if it was seconds after someone had posted. The demand was clearly high. Finally, I struck gold and got into the app. Immediately, they walk you through your collage-making and posting process and although I made a decently cute little collage, the appeal of the app wore off after a few hours. Since my initial download, I have opened the app twice and I am already seeing a decline in the hype surrounding it.

This whole experience had me drawing some parallels to a similar app that was famously invite-only as well; Clubhouse. For those unaware, Clubhouse is an audio-only social media app, well known for its plethora of opportunities to talk to industry leaders and learn from their experiences. The app completely blew up, especially within the tech/startup community. One of the main contributors to its popularity was its invite-only business model (which also eventually led to its downfall). Read more on this here.

It seems that restricting the app’s access was increasing its desirability. It sparked interest in those who were otherwise not interested because it played heavily on our fear of missing out. We constantly feel the need to be “in” with the times and be early adopters so that when something blows up, we can play our veteran card. These invite-only marketing strategies play perfectly on that.

Although there are downsides to this strategy as well such as losing interest due to long wait times and fewer users overall, if a company can time its official launch to the public soon enough after it blows up, the hype from the invite-only strategy can carry over without losing any users due to the lack of codes available.