Today, the latest innovations among social media platforms are going back to spoken words. During the COVID pandemic, voice messages become popular to combat the fatigue of video calls. Cappuccino houses an everyday show of audio messages from family and friends. WeChat audio clips boomed in China. While WhatsApp voice memos grew bigger in India. One game-changer among audio apps is Clubhouse. Recently, Facebook starts work to clone Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse app is an invite-only iPhone audio-based application that allows users to talk about different topics in different chatrooms. Founded by Paul Davison in April 2020, Clubhouse is now the 5th most popular social media network app. It has grown to have 6 million users as of February 2021 with a 4.9-Star review score out of 228,000 user reviews.
To combat the rapid growth of the app, Facebook is now building an audio chat product. An insider noted that the project intends to create audio-based chatrooms among Facebook users. This is a precedent of Twitter’s test on audio spaces. There aren’t any clear details or official announcement from Facebook yet.
Facebook starts work to clone Clubhouse as of 10 February 2021.
Implications for Marketers:
Facebook’s step to clone Clubhouse shows that the platform is determined to integrate any feature that is trending in the digital world. This is to maintain its position as the top social media platform globally. For marketers, audio-based apps mean shifting back to simple ads and campaigns. With the rapidly growing number of online users, there’s also a need to do marketing on apps that have minimum technical requirements. Audio branding is a great option to amplify a brand’s value and create a memorable identity.
Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/facebook-building-product-clubhouse.html
