Understanding Metaverse's Potential Business Opportunities

While the opportunities in the virtual worlds collectively known as the metaverse will look different in every business, the main value that organizations have begun to tap into is the ability to engage with consumers differently than on other online channels.

According to a June report from McKinsey, the metaverse has the potential to generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, an opportunity it called "too big" for companies to simply ignore.

But before a business jumps into the metaverse, they must understand the type of virtual presence they want to establish with their customers.

The metaverse is a consumer touchpoint, adding value and immersing a user into a specific experience for them to spend more time engaging with a business.

"The business proposition is the type of virtual presence a company would like to create and how they want to interact with their consumer, whether it's for informational or entertainment purposes," says Jordan Edelson, CEO and co-founder of TradeZing.

He explains that for the experience to be effective, a business needs to understand their consumer and how they can create a presence in an authentic way without forcing themselves on the user.

"Lastly, a business always needs to understand the risks involved with any unchartered and undefined territory," he says. "An organization should consider costs associated with the metaverse along with the digital presence that they will gain with their consumers."

Related:Overcoming Metaverse Technology Challenges: What to Do Before Jumping In

New Opportunities to Connect with Customers

Hayley Sikora, experience strategy director for Valtech, says it's important to note the term "metaverse" describes a future network of virtual worlds expected to further connect physical and digital realities. "While the metaverse has not yet come to fruition today, it is widely believed to be where much of our interaction will take place in the next wave of the internet," she explains.

She points to today's virtual worlds including Roblox, Fortnite, or Decentraland as some of the first steps toward this metaverse, which have given brands their first real opportunities to connect with users in this space.

Read the rest of this article on InformationWeek.