As a brand, have you ever considered extending your marketing strategy to Discord? Too often, we tend to focus exclusively on social media and the web, causing us to overlook numerous opportunities to expand our reach and influence online.
In this article, our goal is to introduce you to this social platform from its foundations, providing guidance on how to get started with it and how to effectively incorporate it into your marketing strategy.
What is Discord and What is its Usefulness?
Discord is a social messaging platform that stands out for its ability to create both public and private chat groups. It works in a similar way to apps like Skype or Slack and offers a wide range of features for both professional and individual users. In addition to text messaging, Discord allows you to send voice messages and hold video conferences.
This platform is extremely versatile, since it is available both as an independent application and as a web version, which makes it adaptable to your preferences and comfort.
Given its popularity, numerous websites have sprung up that offer Discord listservs (topic groups), making it easy for users to find communities related to their interests. Some of these pages include Discord.me, Discordservers.com, and Disboard.org.
What Makes Discord Stand Out?
Now that you understand what Discord is, you might be wondering what makes it different from other similar platforms. In our opinion, the key lies in its ability to carefully select the best features of competing applications and merge them into a single intuitive tool accessible to all types of users.
Although Discord has grown in popularity in various quarters, its most significant impact has undoubtedly been in the gaming community. It has become an integral tool that brings together groups of friends from a distance to participate in games. One feature that sets it apart from other messaging apps is its low call latency, which means that data consumption is minimal, avoiding interruptions in online games due to connection problems.
Furthermore, Discord has been successful in creating strong communities, both private and public. Although it is not a social network in the conventional sense, it shares some characteristics with them that make it stand out among other similar tools.
It’s important to note that Discord is completely free to use, and it seems the company intends to keep it that way. Funding comes from two forms of payment: a $5 fee that provides access to mobile avatars, and a $10 fee that provides access to a limited selection of games. These fees, together with its game store, constitute the source of revenue for the platform.
How to Get Started on Discord: Step-by-Step Guide
Starting your experience on this platform is a simple process. Here are the steps you need to follow to create an account and start using Discord:
- The easiest way to register on the platform is through its web version. To do this, go to discordapp.com.
- A form will open on the screen. Complete all fields with the requested information; You will see that they are very basic data.
- Once you have completed the form, click the “Continue” button.
- You will notice a message informing you that a confirmation email has been sent to your account. Go to your email inbox, open the message, and click the link provided to verify your identity.
- You will be redirected to a page where you need to click “Verify Email”.
- Ready! Your account has been created successfully and you will be able to access the platform without problems. You are now ready to start creating servers or joining your friends.
Discord Servers: How to Find and Join Them
Servers on Discord are chat groups that you can create or join, whether they are set up by friends or strangers.
If you want to create your own server, the process is simple. On the main screen, click the “+” button on the left. A window will appear with two options: “Create a server” and “Join an existing one”. Select the first one and you will be redirected to a screen where you can specify the name of the server you want to create, the region and add an icon (although the latter is optional). In a matter of seconds, your server will be ready. Discord will provide you with a server invite code, which you can share with the people you want to join. Please note that this invitation code has an expiration date of one day, although you can set it to never expire. In addition, you will have the possibility to create channels within the server.
If you want to join an existing server created by your friends, instead of selecting “Create a server” like before, choose the “Join existing one” option. A window will open in which you will need to enter the invitation address provided by the creator of the server.
Lastly, if you prefer to join third-party servers that often have an active community, simply head over to one of the websites mentioned above. There you will find servers of various themes and you can select the one that suits your interests. Once you’ve chosen the server you want to join, all you have to do is click the join button provided. This way, you’ll be able to start interacting with channel members right away!
Discord Marketing Strategy
Now that you’re familiar with Discord, have learned how to sign up and join servers, and even figured out how to create your own, it’s time to understand the opportunities this platform can bring to your marketing strategy and how to incorporate it effectively.
First of all, it is essential to know that Discord is especially recommended to reach a young audience, since this demographic group is the most active on the platform, especially in the field of gaming. If your company is in this sector and is targeting this audience, Discord is a tool that you should immediately consider. Even if your business falls into a different niche, we encourage you to explore the possibilities this platform offers to make closer, more special, and more exclusive connections with your loyal customers.
Now, how can you use Discord in your marketing strategy? Here are some ideas:
Exclusive Channels: Create exclusive channels or servers to announce promotions or discounts to your audience before the general public.
Shared Community: Open channels or servers as community spaces where you can share exclusive or unpublished content with members who want to be part of it.
Internal Communication: Use Discord in a similar way to Slack to facilitate communication between internal teams, since it offers all the necessary functionalities to do so.
B2B Communication: If your company is dedicated to B2B, you can also use Discord to interact with your business clients.
Custom Bots: Take advantage of the ability to incorporate bots that perform various actions automatically in chats. These bots can moderate, set rules, welcome, answer FAQs, send reminders, search, or provide accurate information on specific topics, among many other functions.
As you can see, Discord is a platform that ranks right up there with Slack in terms of functionality. Although it is not as widely used in enterprise environments as Slack, it offers a significant set of advantages in terms of customer communication, as it is more user-oriented than organization-oriented. This makes it an extremely interesting and useful tool that can effectively complement and enrich your marketing strategy.
Examples of Brands that Use Discord in their Marketing Strategy
Gucci
As part of its NFT-related strategy, the renowned Italian fashion firm has created its own Discord server. They shared the invitation via their Twitter channel and offered incentives for the first 200,000 members to join. These benefits included special roles and access to NFT-focused servers.
Dominos Pizza
The famous pizza chain has also ventured into the world of Discord by setting up its own server. In this space, they share valuable content and topics related to the video game sector, taking advantage of the close relationship between the young audience, pizzas and games. Domino’s intent is to encourage interactions between chat members to further position its brand in the minds of its audience. To date, the Domino’s community on the platform has hundreds of thousands of followers.
San Miguel
The well-known beer brand created its own Discord server with the aim of building a solid community and gaining visibility to carry out the “Beer Jam”, a digital event for video game developers. This channel was essential to maintain direct contact with all the teams participating in the event and to communicate relevant information related to the evening. Currently, the server is still active and has thousands of followers.