Clubhouse FOMO: Is it essential for marketing your business?
Clubhouse: Everyone in the marketing social media world is either talking about it, using it or ignoring it.
The social audio app launched in April 2020 and is now valued at $1 billion, becoming a unicorn startup joining the likes of Calendly, Zapier and Gousto. Clubhouse is on a massive growth trajectory - scaling from 2 million users in January to 8 million now - even though it’s still only exclusive to iPhones and invite-only.
Throwing another potential social platform into the mix can be overwhelming for marketers and business owners, so this is why I’m answering the question of whether Clubhouse is essential for marketing your business.
How does Clubhouse work?
Clubhouse is home to thousands of live conversations. Think of live, interactive podcasts. You can search for topics you’re interested in and join rooms that are in progress, or join clubs which can schedule rooms. Clubs and conversations are based around topics like tech, life, wellness, entrepreneurship, identity and thousands of other things that you might be interested in.
You join a room and listen in to the moderators, raise your hand if you want to speak and unmute when you’re invited to talk. You can follow people on Clubhouse but there’s no messaging feature yet.
Clubhouse is at that stage where it hasn’t quite broken through to the mainstream and does seem to be dominated by a lot of content featuring the words ‘entrepreneur’, ‘hustle’, and ‘money mindset’ - so you do sometimes have to trawl to find a good conversation.
Is it essential to be on Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is just another channel, not a tactic or a strategy. The main thing to consider when thinking about whether to use it is: does taking advantage of Clubhouses’s features get me closer to reaching my marketing objectives?
In more detail, ask yourself:
How are you going to use it?
Will it help you reach your marketing goals?
If so, is it going to be more effective than any other tactic you’re already using?
Are you able to resource it?
How will you measure success?
As with all new technology, it’s always worth taking a bit of time to explore it and see how it could work for you and your business goals.
If it’s not going to help, then don’t devote any more time to it. Define your marketing strategy first before jumping into a new social platform.
There are some fantastic communities I’ve found on Clubhouse personally including: Russ Avery’s Sustainability Club, Zoe Cairns’ Social Media for Businesses Club and John O’Brien MBE’s talks.
How you can use Clubhouse for marketing
After being on Clubhouse for a month, here are some ways I think you can use it for marketing:
Gain awareness among your target market
Team up with a partner who aligns with your purpose and host rooms discussing your expert topic, with an engaging slant and no selling. After hosting multiple rooms, start a club. Take part in conversations and moderate other rooms.
Find leads by joining clubs and rooms
Network and connect with people who are in your target market. There’s no way to connect directly on the platform at the moment so people tend to promote their Instagram profiles instead.
Listen and learn
This isn’t marketing, but learning is essential to grow your business. Clubhouse is home to thousands of topical and relevant conversations if you take the time to dig them out.
So, should I have Clubhouse FOMO?
Despite Clubhouse’s big accessibility problems and security issues, it is thriving. This is partly because of its faux sense of exclusivity and invite-only beta phase; if you have an interest in social media you want to know what it offers. The fact the conversations are live helps to drive FOMO (fear of missing out). I would suggest trying it out if you’re curious and if it doesn’t help you reach your goals, don’t use it.
How I can help you
I can take you through the marketing planning and strategy process to help you get clarity on your market, your target audience and your positioning. We can work on setting objectives and then run through tactical ideas including content and copywriting, email marketing, social media and campaigns. I also offer 90 day content plans so you can let me take the strain and remove the hard work of planning for each of your marketing channels.
Contact me
Get in touch with me via email or by booking a call directly on Calendly.
