This app might be the ultimate gift born during the global pandemic of 2020.
Welcome to your next social media addiction: Clubhouse—a unique live audio platform.
What Is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is a live audio app that allows people to listen to or actively participate in live discussions. Nothing is recorded. When the room ends, that conversion is gone forever.
It’s like a never-ending conference covering eclectic topics. You just enter a room and start listening. Or if you’re like me, you spontaneously host your own room and people magically show up (and they really do). The conversations can last for hours.
As you enter a room, you hear ongoing conversations. If you raise your hand, you might be called up on stage to join the discussion. As you contribute to the conversation, you might be made a moderator. This allows you to call others up on the stage.
Like a podcast, you can listen while you’re multitasking. If you’re running out of good podcasts to listen to, let this app fill your need for valuable spoken content.
What makes the app super-sticky are the diverse and well-spoken individuals who host rooms and participate in discussions. Outside of known celebrities—like MC Hammer—there are many well-connected people you’ve likely never heard of, leading rich dialogs. Anyone can start a room.
A note about the content experience: Your perception of the available content (known as rooms) on Clubhouse is dependent on who you follow. To visualize this, if you follow me (@stelzner) or the Social Media Examiner club, you’ll likely discover a lot of marketing-related content. To diversify your content experience, you can search for keywords you’re interested in and start following people who appear in the results. The truth is there are hundreds of rooms going on at once. You just don’t see them because of your network.
Here’s why Clubhouse has staying power.
#1: It Has True Virality
Unlike most social platforms where follower counts are simply a vanity metric, followers are different on Clubhouse.
When someone you follow jumps up on a stage, the app notifies you in a simple but compelling way—even if your phone is locked. If you click on the notification, you instantly join the room as a passive listener.
#2: It’s Just Your Voice! No Need to Be Camera-Ready…
A big thing that stops people from embracing live video is turning on the camera. With this live audio app, that barrier is fully eliminated. Your avatar is all you need.
This means no matter how you look, you can join the conversation. Just rolled out of bed? No problem! You can participate in Clubhouse. At the grocery store? No worries! Just plug in your AirPods and rock and roll!
#3: Rapidly Build Business Connections
Because so much of this platform is about your voice, it’s a powerful way to make business connections.
Just like those hallway conversations that take place at conferences, the same thing happens within Clubhouse. Rather than exchanging cards, people check out your Instagram or Twitter account and the conversations happen there.
Travis Believes said, “I’m here because I probably made more connections with people in Clubhouse than ever before. I probably got 20 different clients in just a couple of months. I love the app so far.” Travis explained that he’s all about providing free value on the platform and that it has really paid off.
#4: It Empowers You to Use Your Voice
On many platforms, only the people with huge followings have a voice. Clubhouse levels the playing field. It’s no longer about the numbers—it’s all about what comes from your lips.
Naomi Nakashima said, “I like that it’s a leveler. I like that I can walk in and no one knows who I am per se, but they can tell what I know based on what I’m saying. And I can tell what they know based on the value that they’re bringing to that conversation, rather than how many followers they have somewhere—how big their name is. It really levels the playing field in that regard.”
When you don’t need to fight to build your social proof with vanity metrics, you really focus on using your voice.
Tiffany Washington said, “I think the platform gives you an opportunity to be otherwise creative with how you tell your story. And it strengthens your storytelling skills because you’re able to completely just focus on the words that are coming out of your mouth versus what you look like while those words are coming out of your mouth. And it also gives you an opportunity to reconnect with the power of voice in general and strengthen your connection with your own personal voice.”
#5: It Offers Real Human Engagement
Looking for someone to chat with? Wish you could overhear people talking about interesting topics? Clubhouse opens up small group discussions on a wide range of topics. It’s not unusual for people to share their failures along with their successes.
Dan Norton said, “It reminds me of almost like that coffee shop feel of just getting to sit down and have a chat, listening to some people share some amazing insights.”
#6: You Can Test Your Ideas
This platform provides a great opportunity to crowdsource content (like I did for this article). But it also allows you to explore expressing yourself in new areas.
Dan Norton said, “I think it’ll be a really great space to test out podcast ideas or even video or live video ideas because you get to see people’s immediate reactions. And if people are liking it, then maybe it’s something to go do.”
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About Nelsonecom
By helping clients understand digital communications and media we work together to effectively use and leverage the power of the Internet for their business objectives. This could be for sales, transactions, lead prospecting, building awareness, and more. We do both search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Visual design, strategic digital communications and marketing, usability engineering, podcasting, and video are some of the services we offer. Others include eBusiness solutions, transactional processes, and digital media. We also monitor our clients’ sites analytics and make content, navigation, and other visual design recommendations. Our clients include small and medium successful offline businesses for whom we develop and use the online world as a part of their future success. Their industries include health, medical, politics, manufacturing, retail, financial, legal, restaurants, gaming, sports, water filtration, real estate, non-profit, and newly financed start-up ventures. In addition, we form partnerships with particular businesses to sell their products and or services online and via digital media.