This article has been contributed by Mary Byrd.

Clubhouse is a relatively new social media format in the age of social distancing. The iOS app was valued at $100 million soon after it was launched last year and now has over 10 million users.

Created in March 2020, Clubhouse was initially an audio social media app used by the Silicon Valley tech set. It quickly became a buzzword on the internet, with celebrities like Oprah, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Aston Kutcher, and Chris Rock hosting conversations and participating in discussions.

Before we get to how to use Clubhouse to engage your audience and grow your brand, let’s figure out what it is and how it works.

Is Clubhouse Invite Only?

The app Clubhouse was launched as an invite-only platform, which fostered a feeling of elitism. Although anyone could download the app, reserve a username, and join the waiting list, you couldn’t join open an account without an invitation.

To try to get a personal invitation, you could reach out to your network on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, and let your contacts know that you wanted in.

Some people were selling Clubhouse invites online, and there were even whole websites dedicated to selling invites. Unfortunately, many of these were scams.

That all changed in August 2021, when Clubhouse had its long-awaited general release. When the app ditched its invite-only status, those coveted invitations were deemed worthless.

Now, anyone can set up a Clubhouse account simply by downloading the app.

What is Clubhouse?

In the Clubhouse app, users share audio streams with others in virtual chat rooms. When users join rooms, their microphones automatically turn on. Listeners who want to speak can raise their hands, and room hosts decided which participants can enter the stage.

Just like many other social media platforms, Clubhouse enables you to join conversations on many different topics.

Given it is an audio platform, the format of conversation is reminiscent of podcasts. Every Clubhouse chat room is basically an interactive podcast or a sort of an audio Twitter conversation.

How Do You Use Clubhouse?

Upon opening the app, you’ll see your own personalized feed. You can join rooms that you find in your feed.

Clubhouse Rooms

The content that you see in your Clubhouse feed heavily depends on the people you follow. The algorithm recommends content that might be interesting to you based on who you follow. You can make your feed more diverse by searching for keywords and following new users who appear in your results.

When in a chat room, you can not only listen to others and speak but also become a moderator so that you can decide who can go on the stage.

If you can’t find any rooms of interest to you, you can create your own rooms.

Clubhouse Clubs

Along with chat rooms, you can also join clubs. Clubs are similar to groups on Facebook.

You can find clubs dedicated to different subjects and get to know people who share your interests. Many clubs are dedicated to leadership, wealth, marketing, business, health, and sports.

There is also an “Upcoming for you” section where you can see discussions that will start soon and opt-in. This section features names of discussions, their start time, short descriptions, and speakers. If you tap the bell icon, you will get notifications when conversations start.

Adjusting Your Clubhouse Settings

You can also get more interesting content by adjusting your settings.

Clubhouse enables you to set up your list of interests. To do it, tap Settings → Interests and select categories of chats that you want to see in your timeline.

Although you can find content on the topics that you like quite easily, there might be some issues with the quality of this content. Unfortunately, Clubhouse has some problems with content moderation. Mainstream social media platforms use algorithms to detect offensive language, racist comments, and other types of inappropriate content. However, Clubhouse only has hosts of chats who decide what should or shouldn’t be said. As a result, some hate speech makes it to the app.

Why Is Audio Social Media Popular?

What may seem unusual about Clubhouse is its tremendous success. It’s hard not to connect this success with the unusual for social media audio format.

Why do users choose Clubhouse instead of visual platforms? Well, Clubhouse chats are very similar to podcasts, which makes this platform an attractive option for celebrities. The popularity of podcasts has increased by 37.5% in the last few years, and Clubhouse also satisfies people’s need for audio content.

In addition, Clubhouse offers some unique advantages. Clubhouse is easy to use, and hosting a Clubhouse chat takes less effort than recording and editing a podcast. Clubhouse also offers an element of interactivity, providing more opportunities for unscripted conversations while also keeping them engaging.

However, these are not the main reasons why Clubhouse is so popular among users. Clubhouse conversations are deleted as soon, leveraging users’ fear of missing out (FOMO). If you don’t join a room at the right time, you will miss the conversation. As a result, users spend more time on the app and anticipate the conversations they are interested in.

Unlike video chat apps, Clubhouse conversations involve less pressure because users don’t need to worry about the way they look.

You can use Clubhouse while commuting, cooking, or walking your dog. Therefore, it’s a perfect solution for people who wear their earbuds everywhere. If you own a business, such accessibility creates a great opportunity to stay in touch with your audience.

You can build a community of engaged followers, connect with them, communicate the latest news about your brand, collect feedback, run focus groups, and spread your brand values.

Let’s consider the benefits of Clubhouse for businesses in more detail.

Benefits of Clubhouse for Businesses

Obviously, Clubhouse is a good solution if you want to engage with your audience. However, not only can you speak to your customers, but you can also get to know your industry.

Grow Your Network

Clubhouse enables businesses to connect with thought leaders from various areas and expand your network. You can find mentors who are willing to share valuable advice, while also being able to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Position Your Business For Growth

Given how young Clubhouse is, it can be extremely beneficial for a business to start gaining followers early, establishing authority in the industry.

Nothing can be more beneficial for businesses and marketers than a new social media platform with good reach that still has a lot of room for thought leaders. Imagine how great it would be for your business to join Facebook or Twitter when these platforms were just gaining popularity.

Given how quickly Clubhouse became popular, it makes sense to expect an even bigger reach in the future. The sooner you start to build your following on Clubhouse, the more difficult it will be for your competitors to catch up with you later.

Make Your Brand Relatable

Conversations on Clubhouse are personal and authentic. Therefore, this platform gives you a great opportunity to humanize your brand and make it more approachable.

Unlike textual messages, voice content enables you to convey emotions and to build a human connection and empathy. As a result, you can handle tough conversations in a more flexible and careful way.

Besides, your followers who have interesting ideas or are willing to share valuable feedback can reach out to you directly and get a response in real-time.

How To Use Clubhouse for Business

If you want to grow your business, you can do it with this audio social media app. Here is how to use clubhouse to engage and grow your audience, and boost your brand.

1.   Join Clubs and Rooms

Clubs offer you an opportunity to find like-minded people who work in the same industry or are interested in the same things. It’s also extremely easy to build your network by entering different chat rooms.

There’s no need to overthink conversations in rooms. You can simply enter rooms, stay for a few minutes, and follow users who say something valuable.

2.   Build an Engaged Community

Clubhouse gives you a good opportunity to build an engaged community and to expand your influence. You can create rooms dedicated to different topics and start valuable conversations.

The more active you are, the quicker you’ll be able to build a reputation as an industry expert. People who find your rooms interesting can receive notifications every time you go live, and you can gather all of your followers in one room at the same time, which is great for engagement.

Besides, you can engage with other influencers and entrepreneurs from your industry to develop valuable relationships.

3.   Connect With Investors

Clubhouse is used by many people, and venture capitalists make up a big part of the Clubhouse community. If you want to make your startup more visible for investors and establish business connections, Clubhouse is a nice solution.

The main thing is to actually grab investors’ attention. First, create a room dedicated to your business. If investors join it, you’ll be able to get valuable opinions on your pitch, product, or service.

Along with hosting your own rooms, you can also contribute to other conversations. Talk about your niche, share valuable experiences, and describe problems that you’ve overcome. This way, you might attract venture capitalists’ attention.

4.   Focus on Creating Value

Choose a topic that’s familiar to you and interesting to others and create a chat room.

What can be challenging about Clubhouse is its impromptu live format. It’s much easier to communicate value when recording a podcast because you can use a script and edit your episode afterward.

On Clubhouse, everything happens in real-time, and the direction of conversation may change along with speakers. However, the live format of Clubhouse conversations doesn’t mean that you cannot use at least a basic script with the overall structure of discussion. Jot down the key points that you want to address, and don’t forget to allocate some time for a Q&A session. Make sure that everyone who joins the room will get some value from it.

5.   Increase Engagement

Find reputable specialists from relevant areas and ask them questions that might help other people from the room.

When addressing a broad topic, you can increase engagement significantly by considering questions from participants or just common questions and letting experts from specific niches provide answers.

Don’t forget that one of the main features of Clubhouse is its interactivity. Therefore, you should make sure that participants who can add value to the conversation have an opportunity to speak up. Q&A sessions also enable you to use interactivity to your advantage.

6.   Collect Feedback

You can also use Clubhouse to collect feedback. In fact, if you use Clubhouse frequently enough, you may even see the founders of this app asking users for feedback after implementing a new feature.

First, you can ask your customers for feedback and discuss any issues in real-time. Secondly, whenever you have a new business idea, you can create a room and listen to opinions from entrepreneurs and thought leaders from your industry.

If you struggle with specific business problems, you can always ask for advice.

7.   Make Announcements

Clubhouse is also a great place for your announcements. Once you’ve gathered a considerable audience, you can create rooms to share news about your company policies, updates, new products, etc.

For example, if you decide to change some company policies or switch to a new supplier, you can educate your audience about the advantages of such a decision and explain it in detail. Such conversations immediately communicate value and enable you to reinforce your brand values.

If you’re going to launch a new product, you can announce it, describe its key features, and answer your potential customers’ questions. This way, you will get instant feedback and build anticipation, at the same time.

Wrapping Up

Clubhouse is a great app for building a business network and engaging with your audience.

This app can be especially useful for your business if you join early because you’ll be able to build an engaged community that revolves around your brand sooner than your competitors. Keep in mind that this app isn’t about making sales.

You should make sure that your conversations are valuable for participants and focus on authentic interaction.

Clubhouse can be a great brand-building tool. Besides, it enables you to establish many useful connections and to get valuable information from experts in your industry.

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About the author: Mary Byrd is a self-driven specialist who blogs on a range of topics, like how much it costs to build apps like Clubhouse. She is committed to improving her skills and her main goal is to inspire people.