Yik Yak, the anonymous social wall for anything and everything, has exploded across college campuses in the United States. At the University of Illinois, alone, there are about 1,400 Yaks sent daily, and about 4,300 active users. This rise of such a unique social media platform inspires questions that I discuss in the interview, below, with Yik Yak founders, Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll.
How did you come up with the idea for Yik Yak and how did you work towards the planning and execution of the app?
Droll: We wanted to capture the experience of college on campus. There are a few powerful Twitter accounts, usually run anonymously, and they are followed by thousands of students, like U of I Problems or Confessions and we figured there has to be more than five people on campuses of thousands that can say funny things. It's hard to come up with a clever Twitter handle and come up with thousands of followers so why not get rid of that? There is no sign up process necessary and only requires that you use location.
What was your motivation for creating this app, seeing as it makes no ad revenue and is a completely free service?
Droll: Yik Yak was built to provide a forum for local mobile users to interact and communicate openly, so users are very valuable. We first want to focus on getting users because that’s when our users see the most value from our app. Down the line, we may look at partnering with businesses that are interested in targeting local users. Imagine a local bar asking to advertise its half price burgers one weekend.
Can you share examples of how college students are using Yik Yak to support social causes?
Buffington: We see Yik Yak being used in new ways every day. One, is as a news source. It is an open form of social networking. I don’t have to be following
you on Twitter, or be friends with the right people, just as long as I’m in the right
location. I see students using it for campus alerts, severe weather, lost and found,
philanthropy events, etc. I forget which campus this happened at, but one university student passed away and the campus decided that no parties were to be thrown that weekend and all parties did end up being cancelled.
Can you also comment on the issues of bullying? Does Yik Yak plan to do
anything about that?
Buffington: We geo-fenced off 90 percent of American high schools and middle schools. Yik Yak is for adults only, and we realize these high schoolers aren’t the best users of our app and, in some ways, they aren’t necessarily psychologically mature. We have a moderation team and there are lots of things running in the background, looking for an appropriate use of the app. It all comes back down to the community and how they choose to use it. The longer it’s been around and the bigger it gets, the better the communities get at policing themselves.
How are you marketing and advertising this app and towards what target market? What are your plans to expand?
Buffington: We aren’t advertising too much and it comes down to reliance on word of mouth. We’re targeting American college students, specifically. We want to have a pretty strong presence at every college and university by the end of the year. The only big thing we’re doing is a West Coast campus tour. We have a 50-foot long tour bus, wrapped in Yik Yak stuff, starting in Washington and traveling down the West Coast all the way to California, stopping at 32 different campuses to spread the word. We’ll have Yik Yak mascots running around campus, a bicycle rickshaw to take you to your next class, if you have Yik Yak, and a mechanical bull so students can literally, “ride the Yak.”
