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Can Clubhouse talk you into changing your social media strategy?

Socal media marketing: Clubhouse is the not-so-new kid on the social media block which has buy-in from some big names. Who will invite you into the party, and will you like it when you get there?

An image of a phone screen displaying the log in page to social media app Clubhouse with the words

Some of us are old enough to remember MySpace, though we might find it difficult to prove it. Some may remember Bebo, and may soon be able to rekindle those memories. Even Friends Reunited might stir some memories.

The point is that these, along with other contenders, such as Google+, Vine and the on-off-on (and deeply unlamented) Parler, were all heralded, by some at least, as big new things. Social media giants in waiting which are now six feet under (Bebo’s unlikely revival notwithstanding).

And now there’s plenty of chatter about a new app, Clubhouse, tipped to be quite the thing… Its rise has been meteoric - nearly 5 million downloads since its launch in April last year, but 80% of those have been in the early weeks of 2021 alone.

But even a number of 5 million means that over 99% of humanity have little idea what it is - and it’s still growing through ‘invite only’ from existing members so being on there has a certain cachet.

As the joke nearly goes…

‘How do you know if someone is on Clubhouse? They’ll f*cking tell you.’

But for those happy to be out of the loop, Clubhouse is an audio chat platform where content is delivered through private and public ‘rooms’ - and they are big rooms, with up to 5000 in them.

There’s all sorts of topics in there but, as you’d expect, it's driven by the smart set from the tech and marketing worlds. Public rooms are listed and anyone can enter (and they are muted until called upon by moderators). Private rooms are invite-only. And you can’t record conversations - you have to be there if you want to hear the wit and wisdom of the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg (two of the titans who have spoken on there and spread their stardust on it).

For mere mortals, it’s a little more prosaic. As an audio app, it has been likened, by wits on Twitter, to someone reading out their boastful LinkedIn posts - and it is often the one-way delivery of the wisdom of others. The carping is, of course, from those who aren’t quite in the loop yet. And the question here is simple : it has momentum - but should it be part of your social media strategy?

Businesses are always looking for the organic hit, the delivery of content to willing audiences who amplify that content naturally. It’s how Facebook for Business worked for a short while, but ‘free’ delivery of business content has been eroded for a long time by businesses who have realised that you’ll pay if you have to.

That’s a problem to which Clubhouse may not be the answer - it won’t transport you to mass audiences quite yet. It’s numbers are relatively small and still relatively specialised. This isn’t a way of reaching huge audiences of consumers. If the best you can hope for in a room is 5,000, then your marketing is pretty niche.

It might work for narrow-casting to leaders in your industry - effectively doing webinars and briefings to C-suite peers or stakeholders. You know, the sort of thing you currently do in Zoom, Google Meets, Skype and so on. The platforms you can simply join without waiting to be invited...

How about ‘influencer marketing’? Can you deliver through the insider-types to high-end audiences. Well, possibly, and the current cachet of Clubhouse may buy some kudos but does the audience it’s currently attracting suit you and your industry? And influencer-types generally prefer video to audio-only. It’s an ego thing.

Setting yourself up to be a significant voice in your own industry, or at least a relatively early adopter, may be the route. That places a lot on the shoulders of an individual - the CEO or founder perhaps - to be the voice of both their company or their industry. Done well, it will drive awareness of the company and its products and create connections, discussions and possible partnerships (assuming it’s not your direct customers you’re talking to in there). It’s, essentially, another form of content marketing, but it relies a lot on the presentation skills and self-confidence of the individual in there.

As a platform for your ‘content’, you can see a place for Clubhouse in the marketing and communications strategy of your company, or rather for an individual representing your company. On social media platforms, people are tending to like, follow, and listen to other people (ahead of brands and companies). Building connections like this can work (yes, like a broadcast version of LinkedIn), but be sure it’s working for the company, just as much as for the person. That individual is a content creator - the beneficiary of which should be the company that pays their wages, not themselves.

And even that depends largely on what Clubhouse sees itself doing in the next 18 months or so. Most big social media companies have pivoted at some point, so whether Clubhouse sees this as the growth of a large scale, global conversation depends largely on whether they can get revenues from it. They may alter the model to business accounts as well as personal ones; they may start to include more and more ads; they may begin to use algorithms that mean that conversations with the most engagement start to be heavily promoted, then follow that up by paid-for promotion of conversations. They may start charging fees for ‘professional’ accounts. In other words, they may well start to do a combination of all the things that the other social media platforms have done.

At that point, it may have reached a scale that it’s worth the time and money so that you and your company get the attention you want. Or it may be an echo chamber of marketing people chuntering about how great they are.

Clubhouse is worth keeping an eye on, partly for anthropological interest in how social media develops in the future, but also to see if it can become a part of your social media arsenal. Play around with it by all means, but don’t expect a revolution in your social media strategy quite yet…

But if you fancy dabbling, get in touch and we can discuss how this, and other platforms, can fit with your strategy and ambition.