YuTU – bringing out the Early Adopter in you!
Stephen Champion
2 minutes read
YuTU is a new concept in social media. A communication platform where the starting point is reaching out to others nearby, offering to help out or just hang out, doing something you love anyway. Once you’ve reached out and connected with someone new, it becomes much more familiar – you chat, you meet, you connect, and perhaps make friends.
You may be more used to posting your thoughts, your activities, your photos and your philosophies – most of us are. The starting point is yourself, and you wait for people to connect in some way because they are interested in who you are, or what you are doing. With YuTU, the starting point is when you reach out to someone else – an amazing person who is not (yet) in your social circle. The end point is for you (and the other person) to have a broad circle of offline contacts and new friends in your community.
Adopting this new concept isn’t easy. You have to be bothered. You have to trust – the idea, the platform and other people. You have to be altruistic – many people are generally when push comes to shove. At this stage you have to be an early adopter – someone who is bold, inquisitive and can put themselves out there to try new things before everyone else – and usually enjoy the kudos for doing so!
At YuTU, we want people to be early adopters. To launch themselves into this new concept. We believe that inter-dependence within communities will grow exponentially over the next few years, brought about by successive shocks to the global economy, and of course the Covid-19 pandemic. Trust between strangers will increase as local networks flourish and people reimagine the shared use of time, skills, empathy and resources. YuTU aims to be part of this movement.
This all sounds a bit like a mission! It is part of our mission – but it needn’t be yours. YuTU is a social network and that’s it! Social = fun. Network = more people of all ages and social groups to help and support you and do cool stuff with.
So, we’re asking you to be a bold early adopter. Start something your friends will ask you about, then follow – because they usually do, don’t they? YuTU is still in a pretty simplified form, so that our team can fully understand how you use it and what you want – and develop YuTU to grow with you.
We’re not asking you to be Nelson Mandela, but just to dip you toe in the water. Here’s a few easy steps to help you make a start with YuTU:
- Download the app from yutu.social or the app stores. (YuTU isn’t yet available on a PC or mac but it’s in the pipeline.)
- Sign up securely using one of your social accounts.
- Check out the activity stream, which shows YuTU’s closest to you. It’s new, and you might not see much near you yet – that’s why you’re an early adopter!
- ASK YOU FRIENDS TO DOWNLOAD THE APP. Explain the concept and agree if you want just to use it amongst yourselves for a while, expanding it out to their friend groups.
- If you’re feeling tentative then create a YuTU just telling people about something good and positive which is happening in your area. (You don’t have to be involved or do anything – but it has to be positive and useful.)
- If you’re feeling inspired, think of something you can do, you enjoy and you’re willing to share with others. Add some photos that best describe it and add any caveats in the description box. It will add your location automatically.
- If you’re feeling bolder still and you need some help with something or a companion for activities, then create a YuTU and click the ‘need’ button.
- Get your existing friends to accept your YuTUs and create new ones back, expanding your network outwards as you go.
We hope this has been useful and inspired the Ms. or Mr. Early Adopter in you! As always, we love feedback, good or bad, and as much as you can chuck at us, as long as its honest and constructive. You can get us at hello@yutu.social or through the feedback button on the app. Good luck guys – back in touch again soon!
