What is Discord And What is it Used For?
If you work in social media, you may ask yourself, “What is Discord, and why should I care?”
You may have yet to consider Discord as a social media marketing tool. However, this versatile platform has a great deal to offer businesses seeking new methods to engage their customers.
Whether you’re an expert Discord user or still trying to figure out what it is, we’ll help you make it work for your business.
This article examines what Discord is used for, how you may leverage it for your business, and how to get started with the platform.
Voice Chat and Gaming History
Voice chat improves the majority of multiplayer games. So you can plan, execute, and have fun without typing everything. Before Discord, VOIP (Voice over IP) solutions included applications such as Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. Even while they were outstanding for their time and are still in use today, they are likely less popular than Discord. Both programmes required clients to connect to a server operating on a computer. Teamspeak and Ventrilo still need you to enter the server’s address (either a URL or IP) when attempting to connect to a server. When you join, you can voice chat with other players and friends. That’s it.
Discord has eased the complicated task of hosting the communications of a gaming group on a PC. The firm hosts discord’s servers and users are not required to install any additional software. To join a Discord server, you must click on an invitation generated by the administrator. It may be a private connection supplied to you directly or a public URL that anybody may use to join the server. It is safe and facilitates community building. Discord distinguishes itself from other voice and text chat platforms by adding a number of unique features.
What is Discord’s application?
Discord is a platform for hosting text, video, and voice chat in real-time. Discord is separated into servers or numerous smaller communities, unlike other social platforms centred on a single core community.
There are both public and private servers. You can join a large community of people with similar interests or create a private server for a smaller group of pals.
Discord, unlike most social media networks, does not sell advertisements. Instead, it generates revenue through the sale of account or server upgrades.
How did Discord get started?
Discord debuted in 2015, and its initial success was primarily attributable to gamers’ broad usage. However, it began to draw a larger audience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In May 2020, the firm changed its slogan from “Chat for Gamers” to “Chat for Communities and Friends” to reflect its more inclusive orientation.
Who currently uses Discord?
Beyond gamers, the platform’s user base continues to expand. 70% of Discord users have reported using it for purposes other than gaming in the spring of 2021, up from 30% in 2020. And the platform has increased from 2,9 million active monthly users in 2016 to 150 million in 2022.
Today, Discord provides a platform for people interested in your business to communicate in real time.
Users of Discord tend to be young. As of 2021, 5% of American adolescents cited Discord as their preferred social media network. This is a significant distance behind third-place Instagram (24%), but it surpasses Twitter (3%) and Facebook (2%).
How can a Discord server be created?
Creating a server is straightforward and accessible. The servers are listed on the client’s extreme left. Click the ‘Add Server’ option if you have not joined a server. It lets you construct your own server effortlessly by using Discord’s built-in prompts and templates. You only need to answer a few questions about the server’s purpose, whether it is public (everyone may join) or private (for friends), and give it a name to create one. You will have total control over the server’s configuration. To invite others, right-click the list of channels on the server’s screen’s left side and select “Invite People.” This enables you to invite friends directly from your friend list.
You can also generate a link that allows anyone with the link to join the server without being invited directly. When entered into a browser’s URL bar, the link will send users to your app’s server. You can construct text and voice chat channels, allowing service users to text and voice communicate outside of the main channel. Thus, the Rocket League players will not interfere with the Fall Guys players. You can remove disruptive users from the server or encourage positive players to use the administrative tools you can access.
Voice Discord Chat
You can speak with friends immediately on the Home screen via Discord’s direct message feature. You can initiate a free voice call by right-clicking on a friend’s name and selecting ‘call.’ They will be notified of your call, and you can speak for as long as possible. To make the call, you will need headphones and a microphone. Voice channels are a feature of servers. This is where groups of users will congregate to communicate simultaneously. It’s the same as being in the same room, allowing for easier game coordination. It makes multiplayer gaming significantly simpler. These are typically accessible to all the server’s users, though hosts frequently establish channels for specific purposes. They could be used for a particular game or even a specific game mode if players wish to play the same game but in different modes.
So you could have one channel for Fortnite Battle Royale players and another for Fortnite Creative players. Joining a voice channel will automatically enable voice communications, allowing you to hear anyone on the broadcasting channel. Voice chat includes several configuration options. You can set it to ‘push-to-talk,’ in which case it will only broadcast your mic when you hold down a button, or it can broadcast when it detects your voice at a particular volume. You can also leave your microphone “open,” implying it will transmit continuously.
Discord Text-based Chat
Multiple text channels can exist on a Discord server. Typically, they are utilised for the community to ask and answer questions, share jokes and memes, and converse without a microphone. The default channel on a new Discord server is General. However, administrators can create other channels for specific purposes. These may include server-specific Announcements and Rules, as well as Fortnite-specific channels.
It is up to the server administrator and users to define. Text channels can be set to “read-only” mode, which would be helpful for a Rules channel. Most text channels will be accessible to users, and there is no chat filter to prohibit obscene language; however, there is a filter that attempts to block the posting of explicit images.
Discord Video Communication
If a camera is connected, Discord also enables video chat or sharing online streaming services like disneyplus.com begin, Youtube or Netflix with your friends. Like voice chat, you can initiate a call with a friend from your friends’ list or direct messaging in the Home part of the application. The camera-shaped video call icon initiates a direct call with the person selected from the friend list. Servers may also accommodate up to 25-person group video calls. They can be initiated in any available voice channel. After logging in, you can activate your camera to initiate or join a video conversation. Similar to Zoom calls, they can be used to host big meetings.
Streaming Games on Discord
You can broadcast your screen to your Discord community and friends. Unlike Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook, this is not intended to be a public display. It is a more advanced form of video chat. You can do so by sending a direct message from the home screen or using the server’s public voice chat. It is restricted to the server and channel you began streaming. You can use it to share your game progress with friends, display your stuff, or seek help. You can even broadcast additional screens, such as a paint application. You can stream an additional screen alongside your video stream, but you cannot merge the screens to play picture-in-picture. Unless you purchase Nitro, streaming is limited to 720p at 30 frames per second. Users of Nitro can stream up to their source resolution at 60 frames per second.
Discord’s Privacy Settings
As with any modern software platform, you can enable several security and privacy settings in Discord. You can filter who you receive messages from, block those you feel uncomfortable communicating with and activate additional security safeguards. The official Discord website guides how to safeguard your Discord login account. We recommend that you regularly check for updates.
Discord Nitro
You can support Discord by purchasing a Discord Nitro membership and a free account. For $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, you can gain access to 100MB of upload space instead of 8MB with a free account. If you stream your game or screen, you can match the output of your screen at up to 60 frames per second, exceeding the 720p and 30fps restrictions. Nitro users can upload personalised emojis and animated avatars to any server they own.
