Here’s How One App Found Success by Embracing Anti-Social Media to Bring Back Face-to-Face Networking

At any given time, you are only one new connection away from having a breakthrough in your career.

But with algorithms in place that limit your reach, bots spreading fake news, and toxic political posts filling your feeds, networking on social media has become more challenging than ever. Even LinkedIn, the business social media network, encourages its users to “only connect with those you know and trust.”

Forget about using your phone to make new connections: Robocalls have become so bad that most people never answer their phones when it’s a number they don’t recognize, and nobody likes to receive cold emails either. Networking events are few and far between these days, and they often do not align with our busy schedules.

So, it begs the question: how does one effectively network with new people in today’s business world?

Enter Sean Whalen, business coach and keynote speaker. Sean was tired of seeing his own organic reach decline on social media due to restrictive algorithms, so he set out to create Meetrz, an app designed for business people around the world to be able to meet up face to face in real time. 

The app cuts out all the restrictive algorithms and other annoying social media features like automated sales messages. Whalen believes “there is a growing frustration amongst people with social media, and many are ready to get back to handshakes and high fives instead of bots and algorithms.”

The magic of Meetrz is that it leverages location-based technology that shows only the other users in your area who want to meet right now. The app allows you to see who’s available and view their profile quickly. From there, you can easily line up a 15-minute coffee meeting, business lunch, or happy hour meet-and-greet.

“The only users you’ll ever see within the app are people who are live and want to meet right now—no more games, no more back and forth on messaging apps, no more waiting,” said Whalen.

Imagine what you could do with the time spent on layovers, in between meetings, or when you get the dreaded last-second cancellation, and you’re already there. You can literally have a replacement meeting in minutes. And who knows? Maybe the person you meet through Meetrz ends up being a better connection than the person you were initially meeting with before they canceled.

And users won’t spend a ton of time reading long, embellished profiles full of the latest buzzwords with a Meetrz profile. They realized that for the app to work, the user’s time must always be considered. So they created bare minimum profiles that answer three questions that are fundamental to successful networking: What do you do, what do you like, and what do you want? Each response is limited to one sentence. The streamlined profiles enable their users to be able to quickly scan the users available in their area and decide if they want to take a meeting.

Meetrz is now available for both iOS and Android phones, and Whalen has big plans for the app’s future. “In five years, we expect to have 50 million users on Meetrz and 100k user interactions every day, creating real connections and meetings around the world.”

The app’s success just goes to show that great things are achieved by going against the current trends, cutting through the noise, and delivering the most effective solutions to users’ problems.

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