Social Media Marketing Trends

(upbeat music) - [Presenter] Listening to audio as a fairly effortless and an intimate way of communicating with others. Audio experiences on social media have existed for years. Like when people send voice memos through private messaging or businesses share audio centric content like a trailer for a podcast. But recently, audio messaging has begun to take center stage as audio only social networks like Discord, Clubhouse and Chalk have gained popularity and new features are getting added to existing platforms like Twitter's voice tweets and Twitter spaces which in many ways is a Clubhouse clone. So what is audio on social media exactly? The newest type of audio experience is the idea of rooms or spaces which are private or public gatherings where people join to discuss a topic. This could be anything from chatting about their Peloton routines, interest in Star Wars or lessons learned from advancing in their career. A few participants, moderate and speak while most people join in to listen or ask a question. These audio rooms vary from public events. Anyone can join to private conversations amongst a circle of friends or colleagues. Why now you might be asking? This interest in audio from consumers is partially due to the pandemic, reducing our opportunities to socialize and the less polished, more genuine nature of connecting with others through conversation and consuming and creating this audio focused content, feels more effortless than producing a video, writing a post or recording a podcast episode. Plus it's an opportunity to take part in conversations with interesting people and subject matter experts you might not be able to access otherwise. At present, the businesses that will find the most success with audio experiences on social media are those with leaders that have a strong personal brand and enterprise companies. If your company has leaders with a personal brand around their expertise and experience then having them share their ideas over audio is a natural extension of their thought leadership. In a way, they can function as a representative for spokesperson for your organization based on the discussions they're either starting or participating in. On the other hand, if you're a large enterprise brand then you certainly have the resources to experiment with these audio channels and features to ensure you make the most of them. Companies might consider hosting a room like they would a panel at a conference, creating and moderating customer communities or encouraging leaders to consistently share dialogue on what's happening at the organization. Hypothetically, a company like Zillow or Redfin could host a discussion series on Clubhouse where industry leaders give advice to real estate agents on how to sell more homes. On the other hand, a brand known for its snarky personality like Wendy's or Denny's could make use of voice tweets on Twitter to poke fun at their audience in an unexpected way. While there's a ton of possibilities for brands using audio on social media, there's risks too given the difficulty of moderating this type of user generated content. Since it's still early days for these audio focused apps and feature sets, there's definitely more work to be done to protect against abuse and the spread of misinformation. Like any marketing investment, be mindful of what conversations you're participating in as a brand to protect your interests while still experiment the thing with audio. And most of all, listen to your customers as that is best way to learn how to more effectively communicate with them moving forward.