Social (audio) Media

Do you remember a little black box placed in a corner somewhere melodiously filling our homes with songs?

It always took some effort to tune to our favorite station but always helped us get caught up on news, gossips and the latest trends. Yes, you guessed it right! I am talking about our beloved radio sets that are now living somewhere in the storerooms.

But, do you know that these humble radio sets have reincarnated? Today, the world is about to be hit with the newest wave of social media — social audio. Social audio platforms, just like radios, use audio as their primary form of communication.

Every major social media app up until now, whether it was Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, relied heavily on visuals as a means of communication. From stories to posts, reels to Livestream, the strategies of these apps had always been “visuals”. To shift this paradigm, in 2019 Clubhouse was launched as the first major audio-only social media app. Here, people would come together in virtual rooms and voice out their opinions, talents, and views. Another thing that sets Clubhouse apart from the other social media apps is the freedom to select any public room and join in on the conversation. Today, Clubhouse is being leveraged not only for connecting with other people but also for marketing yourself and your brand. It allows you to personally connect with your audience and leave an everlasting image in their minds. The impact that Clubhouse has made in this small duration can be measured from the fact that today it has more than 10 million weekly active users across the globe.

But in today’s time, the biggest indicator of an app’s success is if the big players in the industry get “inspirations” from your model. And to verify Clubhouse’s success, major competitors are already working to launch their social audio platforms. Twitter has already launched Twitter Spaces and is currently building its user base. Even Facebook is planning to launch a similar feature that will directly compete with Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse. From Telegram to Spotify, all the players are heavily investing in creating a social audio platform for themselves. This leads to another dilemma that even though, all the apps are jumping on this bandwagon of social audio, are the users ready for the new face of social media? How will it impact the current social media platforms and would it stand the test of time?

The answer to these questions depends on the future strategies deployed by Clubhouse and its competitors. For Clubhouse specifically, removing the invite-only membership policy would be a huge step in its growth. But that would come with its own challenges in terms of accessibility, security, and revenue generation. Clubhouse has managed to create a new wave of influencers but it would need to facilitate their growth and capitalize on it. For other players like Facebook and Twitter, already have a HUGE user base. If they’re able to build a bridge between audio and video in the same platform, they will revolutionize the world of social media to social audio-media by providing a one-stop-shop. There is a huge range of opportunities and possibilities that lie ahead for the world of social audio. To find out if social audio would become the next big thing, we would have to keep our ears attached to the wall!

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Author: Dhanishtha Dhingra
Editorial and Digital Marketing Team, NjM
Class of 2023, NMIMS Mumbai

Creatives: Tanvi Dhakate
Creatives Web & Promotions Team, NjM
Class of 2023, NMIMS Mumbai