ms, podcasts and short-form audio clips, it appears no stone will be left unturned in Facebook’s audio revolution. The social media giant is investing in technologies such as speech-to-text and voice morphing to support the creation of audio in the app and make it easier and more accessible for users. Fidji Simo, head of Facebook App, said the company has been working on audio technology “for a long time”. “At Facebook, we’ve invested in the full spectrum of audio technologies … From audio quality enhancements, captions, speech translations, and superhuman hearing, our goal is to make audio presence easy, natural, and immersive so you can more fully experience social presence,” Simo said in a blog post.   According to Shuey Shujab, digital marketing expert and founder of Whitehat Agency, Facebook’s latest announcement demonstrates that even the world’s largest social media giant must diversify its offerings to cater to an evolving market.  “Social audio platforms, particularly Clubhouse, have proven incredibly popular over the last 12 months, and Facebook is clearly jumping on the bandwagon – not for the first time!” Shujab told Inside Retail.  Dissolution of the news feed  Hill describes drop-in audio chat as “the antithesis of the news feed” and said it is changing the paradigm of how we use social media, and in turn, how brands advertise to consumers. “[In Clubhouse] there’s no feed at all. Social media is completely dominated by news feeds. I feel Facebook faced a (small) existential crisis in its entry to the drop-in audio chat arena. How do they compete whilst not diminishing the experience of the news feed and taking people away from the very feature that we’re all addicted to and is core to Facebook’s advertising business model?” he said. But Facebook’s decision to introduce its audio rooms function inside the Groups feature is a “genius move”, Hills says. “This is the natural fit for it and will compete effectively with Clubhouse, because [Facebook] Groups comprise organically formed communities of like-minded people organised into topics and themes. Given 1.8 billion people use Facebook Groups every month, I can’t see any other outcome other than Facebook Audio Rooms significantly halting Clubhouses’ further growth,” he predicted.  Power of voice But it’s not just Facebook that is realising the power of voice in social media. In early April, Twitter launched live audio chatrooms known as Twitter Spaces and LinkedIn has also confirmed that it’s developing social audio products.  Hill says Twitter’s swift response to Clubhouse was surprising but effective.  “It’s functionally solid, works pretty seamlessly in the Twitter app and sits prominently in the ‘Fleets bar’ when anyone you follow goes live. As an Android user, Twitter Spaces was actually my first (and only) opportunity to try the world of drop-in audio chat,” Hill said.  “The fact that Facebook is playing catch-up in the drop-in audio chat wars, with not just Clubhouse but Twitter, raises a really interesting question. For a company historically quick off the mark to clone and conquer, what is taking Facebook so long?”  The good news for brands is that Shujab expects these new social audio platforms will prove very effective platforms for advertising. “[Audio platforms will allow] for much more effective targeting and enabling brands to really connect with their audiences,” he said.  “Social audio platforms have a big advantage over traditional audio advertising avenues like radio, as while someone listening to a radio station might change channels when the ads come on, someone on a social audio app will listen to the ad to get to the content on the other side.”