A Niche Side of Social Media
In the increasingly populated landscape of social media, companies looking to make a profound statement can sometimes feel drowned out in a sea of brands with the same goal. Most companies have already established themselves one way or another on some of the largest social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and have seen great success in their marketing efforts as these are some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet. However, in recent years newer niche platforms have emerged that cater primarily to a targeted demographic of individuals or a specific community that some brands may cater towards more. Certain corporations such as big-box and fast-food can find great success on mainstream platforms since their products desire to reach an incredibly large audience so they tend to find more success in marketing on Twitter and Facebook. Whereas some other companies and even social influencers seem to find more success on platforms that cater directly to the consumers that primarily enjoy their content.
A great reason for certain companies to invest in niche platforms is advertising directly to a targeted market. According to HootSuite, they forecast social ad spending to increase by 20% to $43 billion USD this year as a result of companies primarily opting for digital marketing. Companies that see how their consumers are active on social media sites increases the likelihood that they will invest in advertisements to regularly appear on some of the busiest platforms. However, the cluttered traffic ways of some larger social platforms may not be the best route for every company to invest in as they may be able to reach their audiences on a platform that caters better to their specific likes and desires. A great example of one of these niche platforms is Discord.
Discord is a free to use voice and text chat service that caters primarily to individuals who consider themselves to be gamers. Discord was created in 2015 by its creator Jason Citron as a way for him and his team to easily communicate with one another while working on a new gaming project known as Fates Forever. Their game never received the popularity they anticipated so they decided to run with their new voice communication concept since it proved to be an extremely effective means of communicating in a team-based setting. Discord was different compared to other internet communication tools such as Skype and Slack by being both a low-band and high-quality voice over internet protocol (VoIP) that allowed users to join multi-person voice chats that did not require much CPU usage. Discord was launched as a free web-based application that intrigued both casual and professional gamers alike. The simplicity of creating or joining a server was very user-friendly but still allowed for more complex computer users to enjoy as well. More advanced Discord users can host servers that include a myriad of different server channels so their users can participate in various voice or text-based discussions and can also manage user-created bots that provide various services such as playing music and sending memes. The possibilities with Discord are endless and it continues to be an excellent resource for gamers to use when communicating with others effectively.
Now if you were to take a guess as to which companies would have the best opportunities to see success with marketing on Discord, well you probably guessed it, they would be video game companies. One of the largest gaming companies that partnered with Discord early on in its infancy is Epic Games’ smash hit Fortnite. Fortnite released in July of 2017 and decided to partner with Discord to form a server that allowed users to communicate with fellow fans of the game and developers directly to receive information efficiently. Epic Games also is able to send out patch notes and give updates on Fortnite servers in realtime to players worldwide. Developers also created servers for players to be able to interact with one another and send highlight clips of gameplay and discuss topics such as bugs and glitches they may have discovered which helps them discover issues with the game they might not have realized. Discords voice channels have also made communicating with teammates in a voice chat very simple by not taking too CPU usage out of a computer which allowed players to enjoy Fortnite without any interruptions. Following the partnership, Discords registered users increased from 45 million in 2017 to 130 million in 2018 showing just how popular the site had become. Fortnite’s Discord server now has accrued over 600,000 members and continues to climb.
One other site that has seen success on Discord is Nookazon which is an Amazon-like website that allows players of the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons game the ability to trade and purchase items from other players around the world. Nookazon’s website allows users to search for items they may need for their island by connecting them with other players who have said items for sale. Nookazon has its own dedicated Discord server that allows users to communicate with one another safely through private trade channels at any time. Currently, Nookazon’s Discord server has just around 510,000 members and has made the trading process seamless with how communication between buyers and sellers takes place.
Discord has continued to be a niche platform that primarily caters to those in the gaming community and we most likely will see gamers continuing to choose Discord over its competition since it has changed the way for how gamers communicate with each other. Many computer software and online gaming companies have established their own dedicated Discord servers and have had great success in how they are able to interact directly with their consumers. As of June 2020, Discord has around 300 million registered users and is valued at around 3.5 billion USD. These numbers have continued to climb as Discord because more and more prevalent with gamers around the world.
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