I joined Clubhouse on January 27th, 2021, and it has been the best experience so far. I’ve talked in rooms with poets, startup incubators, news anchors, singers, producers, and songwriters. In no app other than Clubhouse would I have even had the chance to talk to these people — oh, and they followed me on Clubhouse, and my two Instagram accounts too. Currently, you can only join the app if you’ve received an invite. In its current stage, the app is full of early adopters. In the three weeks that I’ve been on Clubhouse, I managed to get 1,000+ followers over four social media accounts (LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Clubhouse). The fastest growth I’ve had on social media, and this time it was from people I can learn and benefit from. How to market yourself on Clubhouse, you might ask? Talk, engage, and inform people about who you are.
What Is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is the hottest social media platform at the moment, and it is voice-based. You can join rooms and listen to others speak about specific topics based on the room’s name on Clubhouse. If you want to speak, raise your hand, and the room’s moderator might allow you to join the conversation as a speaker.
Any user can start a room. Rooms can be either open for everyone to join or closed for a selection of people. The title of the room tells others on Clubhouse which topic speakers are discussing in that room.
So far, I’ve seen rooms discussing entrepreneurship, cryptocurrencies, politics, music, social media, marketing, social subjects, etc.
Users are very active on Clubhouse. They’ve started book clubs, radio shows, and meditation circles.
On Clubhouse, your heavily edited vacation pictures do not matter. Only your personality and thoughts matter.
Networking on Clubhouse
Each time you enter a Clubhouse room, you are immediately with people interested in the same topic as you are. This alone allows you to easily network with people interested in you and what you have to offer.
Good moderators will give a chance to everyone in the room to speak if they want to be part of the conversation. Therefore, if you are not afraid to speak to strangers, you will eventually share your thoughts.
Whenever I’m in a room and a new person starts speaking, I automatically open their profile, read their bio, and go to their Instagram. This is usually the time when I decide either to follow this person or not. Once I follow a person on Clubhouse, I will also follow them on Instagram.
If I’m doing this, it is safe to assume that others are doing it too. Let me give you an example; I’ve talked in a room (roughly 200 attendees) to tell my life story. I talked for three to four minutes. When I finished talking and introduced myself, I had 40 new followers on Clubhouse, and ten of them followed me on Instagram and Twitter too. These new connections are genuine.
My friend and I started two weekly rooms on the app. We schedule our events in advance to give people time to find them and add them to their calendars (a function provided by the app). Our weekly rooms are also linked to what we do professionally. Therefore, our two weekly events allow us to grow our followers and funnel them to our webpage and social media.
My friend actually experimented on Clubhouse. He opened a room on the app titled “Hiring content writer — send me your CV — email is in the bio.” He did not say a single word in the room, and his mic was muted the entire time. The room was active for one hour and he received over ten CVs.
My friends, the people I met on Clubhouse, and I believe that Clubhouse is the best tool at the moment to connect, network, and market one’s business or persona.
The following is a quick recap of our marketing strategy. Using these steps will guarantee your success on Clubhouse if you managed to get an invite.
Extensively write your bio. A quote or joke is not enough. Whenever you talk, people have time actually to open and read whatever you have to say. Use this to your advantage. On my profile, I promote my blog as well as my startup. I also mention the countries I’ve lived in and how people can contact me for business.
Use a unique profile picture.When you are in a room, Clubhouse only shows your first name or your creator alias. Your profile picture is, therefore, promoting you more than your name. Therefore, stick to a profile picture for Clubhouse — do not change it frequently.
Don’t be afraid to speak. Speaking is your chance to convince people to follow you. Discuss topics that are interesting to you and to which you can add value for the listeners or other moderators.
Introduce yourself before you go to the point. Use the first 5–10 seconds to introduce yourself quickly. Start by saying your name, what you do, and what are you looking for before you go into the discussion. Some listeners need a further push before they open your profile and follow you.
Talk politely to others when discussing or arguing with someone on Clubhouse. Nobody wants to network with a “know-it-all” or with an angry speaker.
Host and moderate rooms. When hosting or moderating a room, you get a green circle next to your name, and you are on top of the room. Anyone who enters the room will immediately see you first. As a moderator, you get the chance to welcome newcomers to the room and keep the conversation alive.
Start a periodic room. We have three periodic rooms. We have a daily morning room, which we use as a morning show on Clubhouse. This room gets 50 regular visitors, plus 20–30 unique visitors daily. On top of that, we host two weekly rooms with 50–100 visitors. These people will follow us to be notified about our future rooms.
Help others in their rooms. People I met on the app want to start hosting their rooms. They ask me to help them, and I do. This increases my visibility, as well.
Clubhouse is a new app at the moment, and it is perfect to network with others. If you follow the points above, you will immediately notice an increase in followers and impressions on the other social media platforms.
We don’t know where the app will go in the near future once it is open to the public. We can only hope that the format remains the same. For now, it is the best app to use if you are looking for networks and connections.
Article originally published to Medium
Written by Walid AO