This past week one of my favorite vintage bloggers, Retro Chick , posted on Twitter that she had just set up a new Dayre account, and was wanting her followers to check it out and follow her. I’d never heard of Dayre, so I knew I had to check it out.
Dayre is both a social network and mobile app. Like Instagram posts are meant to be created through the mobile app, allowing for more spur of the moment in the thick of it posting. The main focus of the site is to make blogging like writing a diary, hence the name “Dayre”.
For many of you, the thought of signing up for yet an another social media network may seem overkill. However, I look at it from a different perspective. Since I teach web design, blogging and social media marketing and the like, I try to test all new networks, see what they have to offer, how they can be added into the workflow of social marketing and what can students benefit from the possibility of using these networks.
Of, course not all are good, but at least to me, it’s worth trying out. Another side of that is when starting a new network, it’s sometimes easier to get followers, because everyone’s new, you’re not competing with people who have a zillion followers already, everyone just kind of follows people hoping for the best.
So, with that said I downloaded the Dayre app, and started my very own digital Dayre blog. The set up is easy and I had an account in a matter of seconds. I would say the layout and feel of Dayre is a cross between Tumblr and Instagram. The layout is like Tumblr and while you can add posts, obviously pictures are what drives followers to you. Like Instagram however, you can only add to your Dayre blog via the mobile app.
Like most blogs, you view your posts in reverse chronological order, but there’s a slight twist with Dayre. Instead of sitting down and writing a long post, the idea behind Dayre is to post short snip bits of things throughout the day. Then Dayre will format that into a daily, weekly and even monthly post format. I think it’s a great way to kind of see your day in review, much like a traditional diary.
To get started with Dayre you just need to download the app, which is available on both the iPhone and Android smartphones. Once you have an account set up you’ll probably want to start following some other posters, because social media is all about getting social. You can go explore for tags and blogs to help you search for people to follow, but I didn’t have much luck with that.
Seems that maybe there just isn’t enough on the network yet, I tried searching for tags like #sewing, #vintage, and #baking but got pretty much nothing. I did, however, start by following RetroChick, and from there started following some of her followers.
Now that I had something to follow I thought I’d add a post or two. I started by adding my avatar, and then there was the matter of the cover photo. I’m all about brand consistency and while you’re meant to create content on the phone I couldn’t help by use Photoshop to create my custom banner, to match all my other social networks. The size of the banner is approximately 680 pixels by 260 pixels. After I saved the image as a jpg I emailed it to my phone, where I then saved it to my camera roll, so I could add it to the Dayre app.
After playing around with the app for a while I talked @TheChicGirl into signing up for it as well. She very willing sat up a quick account, which you can check out here.
I’ve only had the app since Tuesday, and haven’t really played with it much, but as usual, I had to think of what I wanted to do with it. Each of my social networks has a different theme to them, or at least I try for them to have a different theme. My Facebook page is random questions and comments to my followers (wish they’d respond to some of those comments), my Twitter account is for miscellaneous thoughts, latest news, and retweets to interesting stories, Instagram is for the photos of the day, usually starting with my daily outfit (though it’s more every other day that I post) and then my new Tumblr blog is for items that I’m currently crushing on. With that said what would I use Dayre for?
After giving it much thought (about a few minutes), I thought why not just use it as it was meant to be, a diary. I figure I’d just do sort of my day in quick review, possibly short posts as I get things done.
With that said I welcome you to go check out Dayre, and start by following me akramsideas. Also, if you need a second opinion on why to use Dayre, you might read Retro Chick’s post about it.
