Justin Bieber’s ridiculous selfie app, Shots of Me, is failing to make a mark, despite the starpower behind it. Valleywag called it a “total dud” and they’re right — Shots of Me is languishing at #1,467 on App Annie.
Shots of Me is an app with a bewilderingly narrow concept. If you want to post a selfie, there are plenty of social apps that will provide you with all the digital feedback and flattery your narcissist heart desires. With such a limpid hook, the only chance Shots of Me has ever stood of gaining a foothold in the photo-sharing app game was an injection of celebrity-based buzz. That’s why Justin Bieber was named lead investor — to lure the younger demographic away from the current dominant selfie spaces like Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr.
The only problem: Bieber is doing a terrible job.
Yes, he is posting blurry selfies to Shots of Love. But he hasn’t stopped posting selfies to Instagram and then re-posting those Instagram selfies to Twitter, and the photos he’s posting to the established social platforms are getting far more fan engagement.
Here are some of the selfies Bieber has posted in this week alone to a platform other than the one he’s supposed to be invested in succeeding. Each photo has over 800,000 likes.
In comparison, Bieber’s selfies on Shots of Me have been getting progressively smaller amounts of attention. His first image received around 83,000 likes, which is impressive considering that means Bieber brought most of those users onboard. But he’s really the only thing the app has going for it, and it appears the novelty of seeing a few extra selfies from the Biebs is losing its luster, since around 19,000 fans liked his most recent post on Shots of Love — a small sliver of the attention he’s getting on Instagram and Twitter.