Surely you haven’t been able to avoid the Clubhouse hype – especially if you’re a marketer.
With over 2 million weekly active users in less than a year (and growing every day), Clubhouse is currently the fastest growing social media platform in the market.
What Is the New Clubhouse App?
On its website, Clubhouse describes itself as “a place for casual, drop-in audio conversations – with friends and other interesting people around the world.”
From what I have seen, this is true.
The app is audio-only with no chat functions and only one place for imagery: your profile photo.
How Do You Join Clubhouse?
In order to join the app, you must have an Apple device and you must receive an invite.
Invites come in the form of text messages from an active user.
Users are given a limited amount of invites to share, thus feeding into the hype of the exclusive app.
How to Create Your Clubhouse Profile
Upon receiving your invite, you’ll be prompted to choose your username.
To continue creating your profile, you’ll be able to connect to your Twitter and/or Instagram account.
Whichever you choose first will populate your profile photo and your platform.
However, the bio limits are much longer on Clubhouse, so I recommend taking advantage of the space.
Connecting your Instagram and Twitter accounts is more for one-to-one connections off of the platform.
This is because there are no other clickable links and no form of asynchronous communication on the platform – thus people tend to take chats off-platform.
You’re also able to select interests in order to better curate your “hallways” (timeline).
If you don’t see the option during your profile set up, you can get to it by going to your profile and selecting the gear icon in the top right.
How to Navigate Clubhouse
Once your profile is complete, you’re ready to start interacting!
Across the top of the app, there are five icons; from left to right: a magnifying glass, an envelope, a calendar, a bell, and your profile photo.
- Magnifying Glass: Search for people or topics you care about. When you search, you’ll be given results for people or clubs. Clubs are like groups that hold different events around specific topics.
- Envelope: This is where your invites are held. If you want to invite people to the app, click on this icon and select their name. You only get a limited amount of invites, so choose carefully!
- Calendar: Here, you’ll find upcoming rooms that are recommended for you. These rooms are selected based on your interests, the people you follow, and the groups you are in.
- Bell: All of your notifications will show up here.
- Profile Picture: This takes you to your profile so you can change any of your information, see how many people you follow, what clubs you follow, etc.
Get Started on Clubhouse with Meaningful Interactions
Now, the fun part! Learn how to get involved in Clubhouse.
Clubhouse is a bit of an interesting platform because it’s audio-only and there are (currently) not many functionalities.
To get started, you’ll go to the main hallway. This is the home screen of your app.
Here, you will find the top three to five rooms Clubhouse recommends for you.
If none of those meet your fancy, tap the “Explore” button under the last recommended room. This will populate more rooms.
Once you see a topic or list of users that interests you, simply tap on it to enter the room.
In the Audience
As you enter the room, you’ll become a part of the audience. These are people that can listen, but not speak.
From the audience, your interaction is limited to pinging or inviting a friend into a room.
To do this, simply tap the plus sign in the bottom right and select the people you believe would enjoy the content.
If you want to speak, in the bottom right-hand corner, tap the hand.
This tells moderators that you would like to come up “on stage” and speak.
On Stage
If invited to the stage, a green bar appears across the top of your screen telling you that you’ve been invited and gives you the option to accept or decline.
Accepting the invite takes you to the stage and allows you to speak by tapping the microphone in the bottom right corner.
To take it a step further, you can become a moderator.
If the room is not yours, you’ll have to be made a moderator by another moderator.
As a moderator, on top of the ability to speak, you’ll also have the ability to bring people onto the stage, mute people on stage, and more.
Essentially, it gives you the power to curate the room to your liking.
So, How Can You Use Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is an extremely diverse platform despite its current exclusivity.
This is perhaps the most valuable part of the platform.
Not only are there diverse users but diverse speakers leading rooms, which is extremely important. These diverse voices cover a variety of topics from different perspectives.
For instance, you can learn about video for social media from a social media marketer, a brand strategist, a real estate agent, or a videographer.
You might be in a “Musicians Positivity” room and find yourself in the middle of a conversation about live-streaming.
In fact, these are all situations I’ve found myself in!
Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone
You never know where a conversation is going to go or where value is going to come from.
Roam around a bit on Clubhouse and really see what is has to offer.
If you’re a parent, join parenting conversations.
If you’re interested in fitness, join fitness clubs.
The opportunities to join both macro and micro conversations are immensely valuable.
Not only can they bring you value in those parts of your life (parenting or fitness for instance), but they could lead to new business opportunities.
I’ve spoken with plenty of users who have found an abundance of leads just from interacting in conversations they are passionate about.
Ready to get started on Clubhouse?
I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this social platform and its users. I can’t imagine it will be anything but bright.
More Resources:
- How to Create Engaging Social Media Content: 12 Tips to Drive Results
- The Top 15 Tools for Managing Social Media Accounts
- Emerging Social Media Channels & Trends
