The Metaverse Is Here: Is Your Brand Ready To Carve A Space For Itself?
Unless you’ve been entirely off the grid, you must have heard of Metaverse and Facebook’s recent announcement of changing its company name to META. The world, and our lifestyle as a whole, are expected to witness a paradigm shift due to the introduction of new digital technologies. To keep abreast, businesses also have to adjust to evolving consumer behavior to survive the long haul.
If you’re an owner of a brand, we understand it must be difficult for you to completely change your business workflow due to the rapidly evolving technologies. Well, that’s the scope of the article. We’ll suggest to you a few tips and tricks that you can follow to get adapted to the Metaverse and use it to your benefit. But before we jump on to that, let us start by discussing what it is.
What Is Metaverse?
Over the years, we’ve had the chance to enjoy several films that showed us a different way of living, wherein the difference between reality and virtual is almost negligible; rather, they are interlinked. Movies like Ready Player One, Minority Report, and Her showed how technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality have the potential to be an integral part of our lifestyle.
Metaverse is the culmination of all these technologies. The Metaverse can be thought of as a world that brings the best of both virtual and real life. It is a whole new form of interactive internet or as it is popularly known as Web 3.0.
Why Is It Important For Brands To Adapt To The Metaverse?
It’s not too long before the virtual economy takes over the real economy. The rise in popularity of virtual coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum is a clear indication. As digital technologies continue to evolve, consumers will no longer prefer visiting a physical store to buy a product.
For example, if you want to buy a pair of shoes, you’d definitely want to experience its look and feel. E-commerce platforms with virtual reality can help you experience your new show in real-time without having to visit a physical store.
Metaverse can help brands seamlessly adopt virtual reality and establish closer contact with the customers. The power of the Metaverse is playing an integral role in helping brands conduct virtual concerts and music releases and establish crucial customer touchpoints. Let’s take a look if your brand is ready for the Metaverse:
What Should You Take Care Of?
Here are some of the things you need to take care of to remain relevant and use it to your advantage for the best results:
Brand’s Voice
A positive side of Metaverse is that it doesn’t have the ‘On & Off’ option like the physical stores. As the Metaverse is an ‘Always On’ environment, your brand will remain approachable 24/7.
So, it’s crucial for you to understand your brand’s voice and how you can maintain a constant interaction with them. Planning beforehand and formulating appropriate strategies can help you constantly engage and nurture your customers.
Interoperability
As we mentioned earlier, the virtual currency will play a major role in the Metaverse. So interoperability will be something your brand needs to focus on. If your brand wants to make the best of this new universe, you have to ensure seamless integration, operation, and interaction between different applications. And for that, you’ll need to build a robust infrastructure.
Non Fungible Tokens or NFTs are going to be the hotcakes of the future with the rise of decentralized currencies like cryptocurrency. So along with ensuring you are providing non-stop connectivity to your customers, you’ll also have to put some thinking into how your products can be turned into NFTs.
Audience
Traditional forms of advertising will no longer yield fruitful results in the Metaverse. This is because, like in the real world, users will also have different behavior and preferences in the virtual universe, which might not be similar to their real-world persona.
Thus brands have to modify their advertising techniques to adapt to the users’ digital behavior. For example, brands like Gucci and Dior have already started their range of virtual wearables like sneakers, costumes, etc., to target Gen Z, who are going to be the driving force of the Metaverse.
Blockchain
Blockchain will play a crucial role in the Metaverse. From virtual currencies to the delivery of products, everything will be based on the blockchain. So, it’s essential to find ways to incorporate it into your brand’s workflow.
Gaming
Unlike the real world, the Metaverse is not going to be all serious and formal. It is specially designed to add more fun to users’ lives and give them an entertaining way to do things. So if your brand has to be a part of the Metaverse, it too needs to focus on having the fun element. We’ve already seen how brands are collaborating with popular games like Fortnite and GTA to sell their products and use these mediums as a new form of advertising space.
Conclusion
The world of the Metaverse is around the corner. Even before we realize it, we’ll be teleported into it. So, the need of the hour for brands is to start thinking of new ways to adjust to the changing scenes. Otherwise, it won’t take much time for businesses to turn obsolete in the Metaverse. A good strategy can be planning for the long run instead of focusing on short goals or quick conversions, which is usually the case for current marketing strategies.
