Why Discord Is the Next Big Thing for Entrepreneurs and Creators
Entrepreneurs and creators are flocking to this social media site — here’s why.
Discord doubled in size during the pandemic to 150 million active users in just six years of its existence. Founders Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy wrote in a blog post “it’s clear that as people spend more and more time online, they want online spaces where they can find real humanity and belonging.” NPR’s Bobby Allyn reports that “Discord started as a gaming community, but now it’s much more than that. It’s a place for conferences, concerts, book clubs, and homework help.”
Discord was originally created to solve the problem of unreliable communication during videogame play with friends around the world. It is now where the millions of users worldwide talk, hang out and build relationships. Discord is essentially a live chatting service with voice, video, and text communication features in the form of an app. Discord CEO, Jason Citron says small private chats of fewer than 30 users are the most common way people are using it.
7 reasons why discord is great for entrepreneurs and creators and what makes it unique?
- Create individual servers (communities) designing their space however they want
- Ability to moderate and give roles to users within individual servers
- Moderation and customized bot commands
- Dedicated space and instant connection for voice and video chatting
- Anti-snooping policies
- Advertisement-free communication
- Stage channels for large live events
Creators can design and personalize a space where their community can hang out and grow exponentially. For instance, my husband EagleGarrett created “The Flock” server that grew to 21k members within a few years.
It could even take the place of newsletters in the future. The initial setup takes a little work to create an amazing server but the reward is well worth the effort.
Discord is a blend of Reddit, group chats, and Skype on one’s own customizable server. You can design your space for whatever you want — from sharing memes to live gameplay. Citron and Vishnevskiy, co-founders of Discord, said in a blog post about Discord: “You’ve made your servers into personal spaces filled with people you invited…your communities all have their own rules and norms of engagement, giving people fun roles and adding inside-joke emojis.”
The ability to moderate and give roles to users within individual servers is unique to Discord. Discord bots make doing this a piece of cake. Discord bots are programmed bots that can perform several useful automated tasks. Server owners can utilize these by welcoming new members, moderating content, and banning rule breakers. Bot commands can also be used to add music, memes, games, and other content to your server.
According to Protocol.com, Discord has continued drilling down on quality and latency. “We invested a lot in integration with GPUs and stuff like that, really deeply,” Vishnevskiy said. “Voice was solved long ago at scale, but we wanted to solve it with 1,000 people in a voice channel… and they could be all talking at sub-millisecond latency.” What also makes Discord better than the rest is that you can choose whose video you’re seeing if you’re in a video chat. You can also be in multiple chats at once.
Mind your own business
Another major draw for Discord users stems from their anti-snooping and advertisement-free business model unlike what popular platforms are doing such as Facebook or Zoom. Most people don’t like being snooped on or bombarded with ads while trying to talk with others. Citron and Vishnevskiy both adamantly say they don’t want to sell ads or user data.
The latest and possibly most exciting thing Discord has introduced to its users in stages. According to Discord.com, stage channels are a special type of voice channel that allows you to host large-scale events on your server with thousands of attendees at once. For example, one can use stage channels for AMA (ask me anything) or town hall events, education, panels, trivia party, podcasts, art shows, etc. What is unique about stages is that it allows audience members to indicate an interest in speaking while allowing moderators to easily move people between the speakers’ and audience groups.
Discord could also be used for so much more than communication. Businesses are already looking for ways their company can best utilize and benefit from a Discord server. For instance, a FIFA server run by Mikeyy has a VIP service inside the large community. There he and his moderators offer trading tips, guides, and more for a subscription fee. This VIP service runs through Paypal and similar services where Discord doesn’t get a cut.
One downside to Discord is that it takes some research and learning on the front end to develop a server. Then maintaining and optimizing that server is another potentially daunting task if you don’t know what you’re doing. Some fortunate entrepreneurs will see this weakness and make a nice profit by renting out space or teaching companies how to create and run a Discord server.
The bottom line…
Discord can easily take over as the next communication tool in the foreseeable future. It takes the cake in creativity and solving communication barriers for people worldwide and is already being capitalized on by entrepreneurs and creators.
Discord could also be used for so much more than communication. There is such a great benefit for families, groups, and businesses alike if only they would figure out its existence and how to use it.
