Since Facebook altered it’s mission statement last year to place greater emphasis on groups…
“We want to help 1 billion people join meaningful communities” — Mark Zuckerberg, 22nd June 2017
…It has become very apparent there is huge value in ‘walled’ communities, groups where people can discuss and share, as opposed to the old post to your wall method.
My Wall
My Facebook wall is just a collection of shared posts from other people. I haven’t posted to my own wall in a long time, let alone posted to anyone else’s wall.
I prefer to have my conversations in the privacy of Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp. That shows the foresight with which Facebook purchased Whatsapp, no doubt their data was already beginning to tell them of this behaviour change way back in 2014.
Whilst Whatsapp does exactly what I need it to do, there’s always room to improve and another app developer to show me I need more from this type of chat app.
That App is Discord
Discord is self-branded as “Free Voice and Text Chat for Gamers”
Its niche has always appealed to gamers for online chat amongst friends and it’s low latency (doesn’t disrupt or slow down online gaming/ streaming).
Slowly Discord has been creeping into areas beyond gaming.
Why is this important to you?
Communities are rapidly forming on this free voice and text chat platform. It’s functionality has moved beyond what Whatsapp or Skype (free) could offer anyone looking for a free outlier solution.
Crypto Leading the Charge
Crypto currencies have been quick to adopt the platform to enable them to reach out and talk with their community. Even allowing communities to inform the direction, branding and promotion of the currency.
Whilst text chat has been useful in this arena, the voice chat function on these channels are alight with conversation and buzz.
Buzz that brands would undoubtedly kill to get a share of, but instead should be curating and fuelling themselves.
Consider how much content reaches audiences via outlier platforms like Reddit and by ‘WoM’ through Whatsapp, what would that look like through a tech rich platform where communities proliferate your content in amongst their own shared experiences (ie chat).
Safe Space
Back to the point at hand. Communities are safe spaces that people are embracing, but are you missing out on this platform as it remains an outlier ‘for Gamers’?
Brands have always found a way to pique interest in their product via a common interest. And communities are there to be built around a common interest, this doesn’t exclude brands from the equation.
