The new age of the watercooler: Community built on audio

Simply put, social audio allows people to make new connections, with no camera. You can join a live audio event, talk to a celebrity or a new friend from across the globe, and still be in your pajamas. There’s also no distracting live comment feed to try to keep up with; it’s only audio.

Live social audio has driven somewhat of a return to what social media was originally supposed to be all about: Real connections. But unlike the original social media platforms (friends and family, university pools, etc.), we’re seeing community members connect with strangers around shared interests and experiences.

There’s something intimate about vocal communication. It’s one thing to be in a social group where you share your experiences and stories via text that you read; but when you hear these stories from someone’s voice — their real voice — it feels so much more authentic and real. There’s an extra level of vulnerability to (quite literally) voice your experience to a bunch of strangers.

Unlike other audio streaming channels like podcasts, there’s also a sense of urgency and FOMO, because each conversation is live and happens just once. If you missed it, you really missed it.

The big question is, will it stick? Khoros Intelligence shows that although chatter about Zoom fatigue has dropped 26% in the last four months, mentions of Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces have continued to trend, with over 7.99M mentions on Twitter in the same timeframe — a growth of 348%. The appeal of each platform is similar, but each varies in both features and user behavior.

Though Clubhouse saw continued decreases in downloads from February to April, the app is expected to see a 179% increase in downloads in June, with 79% of its total downloads so far being from users in India following its Android rollout, according to The Wrap. In a Clubhouse Townhall on at the end of February, the company shared that they don’t want brands making accounts; instead, they’d prefer brands make clubs in order to maintain the identity-based culture of the platform (keep in mind that these clubs must be tied to an individual’s account, not an official brand account). The app has expanded to Android, is allowing users to add their Instagram and Twitter accounts directly to their profile, and is heading for “general release sometime this summer.”

Though Twitter Spaces is still newer on the scene than Clubhouse, it comes with the benefit of having a large, established user base to tap into, and is available across iOS, Android, and desktop. Twitter has been working on ways to build features that will enable hosts to plan more efficiently and monetize their Spaces with Ticket Spaces, Co-hosting, and tune-in reminders.

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Spotify have also announced live audio features on their roadmap, with Facebook’s beginning to roll out Live Audio Rooms and Spotify launching a new app called Greenroom.

Facebook Audio Rooms

Spotify Greenroom

In order to dig deeper into the landscape of emerging social platforms, Khoros conducted a nationally-representative survey among 1,635 social media users. We found that less than 25% of consumers have even heard of Telegram, WeChat, Houseparty, or Clubhouse — and even fewer use them. Additionally, Clubhouse, WeChat, and Houseparty have a disproportionately high number of consumers (33-55%) who indicated they tried the app at one point and then quit, compared to more established platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Moreover, while about a third of consumers say adopting a new social platform has no impact on their use of existing social apps, 20% of consumers say they’d leave if they discovered it was too similar to an app they already use. Still, 32% of consumers who have used a newer app said it made them wish their older apps had some of the new features.

While these points seem in contrast to one another, they indicate that many consumers like the features of new apps and want their older apps to adopt them — but if the content and the features end up being too similar, they’ll ditch one.

This trend in particular will be important to watch as existing live audio platforms release new features, and as newer channels enter the scene. As we found in our recent Smart Social Report, for Gen Z, exclusivity and uniqueness will always draw that initial attention but what keeps it is the ability to connect with real people.

Across the board, voice/audio has yet to be widely adopted by consumers, which is unsurprising given the relative youth of the format. Interestingly though, respondents rated this format as being more important than things like groups, reviews, shopping and even Stories.