Discord gives a peek at the future of social media

Kait Richmond is a writer, producer and contributor to the M.T. Deco Blog

We all know fashion trends are circular, and it turns out that Internet trends are, too.

Back when people were first wearing 90s fashion staples like overalls or baggy jeans, they were also starting to connect with friends online through message boards and AOL Instant Messenger (better known to millennials as AIM). MySpace eventually came around and brought about the start of social media as we know it today, with public profiles, friends, photo sharing and more.

Building public digital personas became the norm, but we’re at a point where people are looking to get back to basics, and also get back some privacy. Which brings us to the circularity: while apps like Instagram and TikTok are still incredibly popular, others that focus more on text and offer some privacy are on the rise.

Today’s example is Discord, a messaging service that bills itself as “the easiest way to talk over voice, video and text.” When it was founded in 2015, it was a tool for gamers to chat with each other while they played games, and after. Users liked it for its voice and video chat features, over alternatives like Skype. [Read this piece from Protocol for a good overview of Discord’s first five years.]

We don’t mean to say Discord is an up and coming service. Fast Company reports that Discord has 150 million monthly active users, and that it wants to be the modern day AIM. There’s also the recent news that Meta-owned WhatsApp is introducing new, Discord-like features. That means there is so much opportunity, but for a variety of reasons, it hasn’t broken through to be thought of among the traditional social media platforms - yet.

Part of that is probably because Discord was started by gamers, for gamers. It’s had bursts of popularity with other communities - it was a huge space for the crypto crowd at one point - but it still seems to be the biggest with the gaming community, including some of those creators who use it to complement their presence on Twitch. 

There’s still a lot of brand storytelling to be done that tells people there is a place for everyone on the platform, and that it’s more than just video game chatter and some NSFW activity (though a quick TikTok search of “Discord” says otherwise). But there are enough people on the platform to warrant our attention.

What’s also interesting about Discord is the company’s transparency with improvements it’s making. The Verge reported recently that instead of banning users who violate community guidelines, Discord aims to “reform” them. And the Fast Company article touches on how Discord has announced updates aimed at making it faster, safer and easier to use, including that its design is updated “on a rolling basis.”

Unsurprisingly, there’s $$$ behind all of this. Discord was valued at a jaw-dropping $15 billion in 2021 and needs to make these continuous improvements to justify that massive number. That’s especially important because of a key difference from the other platforms, pointed out by Fast Company:

“While X and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram serve pay-to-play and algorithmically delivered content to make money by showing users ads, Discord is ‘not an ad platform,’ says Cherry Park, the company’s director of product marketing. ‘We don’t sell any user data. That’s not how we make money.’ Instead, almost all of its revenue comes from its Nitro benefits for paid users.”

Discord isn’t the only platform specializing in these text-heavy chat features. Reddit has been around for a long time but is only growing in popularity, especially as people turn away from Google and use Reddit and TikTok as search tools. Slack has also expanded into the corporate version of Discord; you don’t just need to be on your company’s channel - there are plenty of professional groups that allow people to do digital networking.

TLDR; we’re not saying you need to jump to add Discord or any of its counterparts to your digital strategy just yet, but you should, at a minimum, be aware of them and the trends toward privacy and text. Many of Discord’s 150 million monthly users are teenagers, and anyone looking to build brand love and community with a group that will soon have a lot of purchasing power needs to meet the customers where they are.

To be honest, some of what makes Discord special is that there aren’t a ton of brands trying to make a sale. It will be a delicate balance as more drop in, but there are non-gamers who are doing it right.

When it comes to creators, we love Bitch Sesh’s Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider. The hosts of the Real Housewives podcast made a big leap earlier this year when they broke up with their network and brought the show to its own platform. Part of this meant asking listeners to pay for a subscription, and the higher-priced tier (whose members include the writer of this piece) includes access to the Discord, where there are chat rooms for most of the individual Bravo shows, a place to share encounters with Bravolebrities, and many other rooms to connect on non-Bravo topics with likeminded people. Casey and Danielle regularly pop in to weigh in on the discussions, and reference it consistently on the podcast.

It seems like a lot of brands still have yet to crack the Discord code, but take a look at Cider, the young clothing brand that has a public Discord server with more than 15,000 fans who provide feedback and opinions on collections. Speaking recently to Marketing Brew, Cider’s Chief Marketing Officer Yu Oppel said the Discord community had a big role in the roll-out of the plus-size line Curve. “They helped us get into the really nitty-gritty of the fit and the design of the products when we first launched,” Oppel said. “Now the Curve line has grown to more than 15% of our business.”

Have you found yourself returning to any text-based platforms, or spaces that offer a bit more privacy? Let us know in the comments where you think more people will be moving to spend their time online!