For those who don’t know, Discord is a messaging platform that has found prominence in the world of online gaming and game development. It works similar to any other messenger service, allowing for large group calls for simultaneous gameplay sessions across the world.
Discord boasts a robust text and voice chat ability, which many e-com leaders are now using as a way of building communities around their brands. Discord communities have garnered a reputation as being more close-knit and loyal to each other, which is why brands can pretty much count on the platform as being a viable conversion site.
Brands have known for years now of the power of a Facebook group, but statistics are showing that fewer and fewer young people are using the site, and are migrating to over group platforms, Discord being a key player in this migration, due to the explosion of gaming’s prominence in society.
For this younger generation of social users, Discord is a social nexus, is adopted by more and more people, and will only keep on growing – making it a huge and expanding opportunity.
For example: You own a fitness brand. A customer places an order with you, and when they placed that order, they were given the option to track their order via a Discord server. They join your server and then you can give them updates on their order before it arrives.
But then, because they’re in your Discord server anyway, they can observe other chats within the server and other things happening other than just the ability to track their order. They realize that they are now surrounded by like-minded people that enjoy running, or weightlifting etc, and have the option of joining these chats and communicating with others like them.
In other words, a community has now been fostered and grown out of your brand – a community that shares an interest in your product.
In just a matter of weeks, new customers can quickly integrate themselves within your community. And before you know it, they’re logging in every single day. The catch is that that the Discord server is being administrated by you; All communication is conducted beneath the umbrella of your brand, exposing a prime opportunity to give discounts and offers to the community.
Needless to say, brands having access to their own communities via Discord is incredibly powerful. Especially when factoring in that customers don’t even need to give away any of their details, such as phone numbers or social media handles. Anonymity is a strong incentive for customers to have uninhibited engagement surrounding their favourite brands.
Discord is now a place where business is done, and brands need to wake up to this if they haven’t already. This is a slow burner, but the march towards Discord is happening.
Check out an episode of Marketer’s React here!
