Social Audio Is Here to Stay … Or Is It?

Social platforms continued to make strides throughout 2021 in visually striking areas including augmented and virtual reality and the metaverse, but all that glitters is not necessarily visual. Audio was a large part of the social story for 2021, led by stand-alone application Clubhouse, which was joined by Twitter Spaces and similar features from other social platforms. Here are some of the big swings in audio from the last year. Clubhouse, a pandemic story? Clubhouse debuted in April 2020 as an invite-only, iOS only social audio app, but despite a name that hints at exclusivity, it flung its doors wide open in 2021, debuting for Android in May and reaching 4 million users via that operating system in just one month, and then dropping its invite-only requirement in July. Insider Intelligence eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson told Adweek in April that Clubhouse "fills the pandemic-driven need for human connection and avoids videoconferencing fatigue," but cautioning that, "it’s really hard to know [about] after the pandemic." Rotten Tomatoes Flings Itself Onto a TikTok Jump While Clubhouse has not yet rolled out an advertising platform, brands have made their presence felt through sponsorship agreements with creators, even as excitement around the app has cooled. Sports leagues have taken to the format, as well, with the National Football League holding a weeklong series of events in various rooms tied to April’s NFL Draft, and the National Hockey League setting up shop on Clubhouse just prior to the Stanley Cup Final in June. Twitter Spaces: a push for empathy Twitter Spaces, the social network’s Clubhouse counterpart, was a key component of a multiyear partnership extension between the NFL and Twitter, inked in July, and the National Basketball Association reached a similar agreement in November. Twitter staff product designer Maya Gold Patterson said during a press call last November when Audio Spaces were initially introduced, "Sometimes, 280 characters does not cut it. Sometimes, tweeting isn’t the right way of communicating at that moment. Hearing the empathy, emotion and nuance in someone’s voice can help people connect at different levels." Not to be left out, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed an audio strategy in April including audio creation tools, an infinite scroll feature of audio clips called Soundbites, on-platform podcasts, live audio rooms (a la Clubhouse) and a music partnership with Spotify called Project Boombox. Live Audio Rooms debuted on the platform in June, enabling people to discover, join or listen in on live conversations with experts, public figures and others, and Zuckerberg himself used the feature just days after its rollout to introduce Bulletin, Meta’s platform for independent writers. Other social platforms joined the fray to a lesser degree, with Discord debuting its Stage Channels feature in March, while Reddit took the wraps off Reddit Talk the following month. But the big two of Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces maintained a rapid pace of innovation throughout 2021, standing them in strong stead as we enter 2022. Clubhouse highlights included payments, Backchannel direct messages, the ability to share 30-second Clips from rooms, Pinned Links, Replays and Total Attendee Count. Former Focus Brands president and chief operating officer Kat Cole, an early Clubhouse adopter, said during Adweek's Social Media Week 2021 event in May that the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 was a driver of the type of discourse that occurs on the app. “The platform and its deep diversity—which surprised a lot of people—became this place for longer-form discourse," she added. "It didn’t always go well, but it often did, and that was emotional, powerful and healing.” The key update to Twitter Spaces thus far is the monetization option Ticketed Spaces, which lets hosts set ticket prices at $1 to $999 and determine the number of available spots. The platform also added Twitter Spaces included co-hosts, Topics and the ability to record sessions. Here to stay? Despite major steps in 2021, the jury is still out on whether social audio is a passing fad or here to stay. “Clubhouse’s existence alone has opened the floodgates for audio in terms of user-generated content, much like YouTube did for video, flipping the balance of control from publisher to platform," Backtracks founder and CEO Jonathan Gill said in a Voice piece for Adweek. "As competition for ad dollars increases with this influx of new audio, high cost and high production value content will now have to compete with potentially low-cost, quick-to-produce content.” Others also temper the breathless excitement around audio. “Clubhouse was extremely disruptive,” VMLY&R executive creative director Walter Geer told Adweek in May. “But I look at this not as a whole new social platform, I look at this as a feature … I think that the question is: Will this feature stand the test of time? Will audio stand the test of time?”

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Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces made their mark in a big way in 2021

Clubhouse, a pandemic story?

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