Have you heard of Clubhouse? We answer some burning questions about the new app.
Have you been wondering what Clubhouse is all about? We've decided to answer your top 8 burning questions about the app, to help you know more about it including personal experiences from our MD, David, and MD of Brand Calibre, Luke Yerbury.
What is Clubhouse?
Only launching March last year, it is a fairly new platform that is quickly growing in popularity. Clubhouse themselves describe their app to be “a new type of social network based on voice—where people around the world come together to talk, listen and learn from each other in real-time”. It is all focused around your voice, there is no option to have a camera on and the only images are your profile picture. According to Statista, as of January 2021, Clubhouse has over 2 million weekly active users worldwide.
Number of weekly active Clubhouse users from April 2020 to January 2021 (in 1,000s)
When did it come about?
Joining the social media cannon in March 2020, Clubhouse was created by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth of Alpha Exploration Co who started up in the US before achieving worldwide popularity. The app became hugely popular, and in late January, Elon Musk appeared on it and sparked phenomenal interest among users. only existed for two months the pair had received a $12M investment from Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, California, that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology.
What can you do on Clubhouse?
Once you have an account with Clubhouse your homepage will have a list of ‘rooms’ with the participants in those rooms, as well as a page full of conversational topics to follow, from sports to tech to world affairs. You will then find people with similar interests and can follow them—the more people and topics you follow, the more suggestions you will get that should suit your interests.
You can then start to create and join ‘rooms’ which is where you can start to get involved and chat with others in the call format.
“Clubhouse has a few different room ‘types’ at the moment; ‘Open rooms’ - for anyone to chat openly about a broad subject matter. ‘Q&A/Podcast’ style rooms - where a host interviews a guest and the audience listens (sometimes they’re invited to ask questions). ‘Panel discussions’ - where a selection of moderators discuss a topic and bring up one audience member at a time to contribute.”
One of the main features of Clubhouse is that you enter the ‘room’ as an audience member and can only join in the conversation by ‘raising your hand’ and being invited to speak by. When on a call you can choose to ‘leave quietly’ whenever you want. In every ‘room,’ there will be 3 different people; speakers, listeners, and moderators. The moderator is the person who started the chat and can give the moderator badge to anyone else of their choice. The moderators are the only ones who can allow listeners to become speakers in the chat.
Throughout the app, you can only talk—no sharing pictures, videos, or messages. Users can listen to discussions, interviews and panels, much like a podcast, but live, exclusive and most commonly with industry experts.
This is another feature that excites users. Clubhouse rooms are often hosted by experts, celebrities, venture capitalists, journalists, etc giving people the opportunity to listen in on conversations that may otherwise not be easily accessed. One downfall is that the conversations are live and not recorded/uploaded to the platform after the fact, which in hindsight speaks to the exclusivity of the app.
How can I join Clubhouse?
Clubhouse has limited availability it being invite-only as well as being exclusive to the iPhone through the App Store. You can download the app and sign up but this simply allows you to register interest and reserve a handle. Once you have registered interest, you will be directed to a blog about why you have to wait for an invite, which keeps users in the loop. Another way you can access Clubhouse is if someone you know has managed to join. Each member gets two invites to send to their contacts and you earn more invites the more you use it—a great motivation if you want your colleagues or friends to join. They have a website that simply directs you to download the app.
Source: Clubhouse
What is a club and how can I make one?
The Club feature means users can create/join private groups of their choice tailored to their interests—allowing for more intimate conversations in a particular community. To have your own Club, you need to host weekly shows for 3 weeks in a row and the room must have the same title every time. You will then be able to request to have a club through the form on the website, which then needs approval. Currently, each user is only allowed one club but you can join multiple as a member.
Does it have good reviews?
On the app store, it has a rating: 4.8/5 with 426,285 reviews. Even with the good reviews, as a new app, there are many people suggesting updates or adjustments to features. Nearly all of the reviews have some suggestions in them as shown below.
Source: Apple store reviews
However, Luke Yerbury, the MD of Brand Calibre, had a positive personal experience:
“The ability to connect and converse with people who would otherwise be out of reach to me. Historically the only way to connect with someone who is a figurehead of a particular industry would be through some sort of unsolicited contact. However, Clubhouse allows for you to be able to speak to these people directly, and engage with them without the stigma attached to sending cold emails or DMs.”
There have been some issues and as of February 8th, 2021, it has been banned in China. The news site quartz, said Chinese users have been reportedly "using the space to talk about topics that would otherwise be censored... such as democracy."
“I think moving forward some sort of vetting or rating system may need to be incorporated to make sure those who are on the stage are credible. ”
What does our MD, David think of his experience with it?
“I had my first interaction with Clubhouse thanks to Luke Yerbury, discussing our experiences with client projects as we exit lockdown, and what we’re expecting to see as we resume some sort of normality over the next few months. When it is properly chaired I think it could be a great platform for debate. I enjoyed the novelty of not using any video and just using the phone. I think it could be good for people who maybe don’t normally take the stage or enjoy the limelight.”
“I like it because it’s perhaps less anonymous (although I’m sure there are ways around that). So if you are going to listen to or take part in a discussion, it’s in real-time, and with a real person, as opposed to Twitter where people might be more hidden and so take shots with little or no accountability! The chat that I did with Luke was great but when exploring Clubhouse there are some interesting rooms going on...so be careful what/where you pop into!”
What’s next for Clubhouse?
Last week the co-founder & CEO, Paul Davidson, announced that the platform could be available on android and launching in summer 2021. He also said that “in the coming months” they will be getting rid of the invite-only feature. So it looks like there could be some big changes on the horizon...
Well, that’s our burning questions answered about Clubhouse but let us know your thoughts on the platform. Have you used it yet?. If you would like to see some of our previous social media work with clients you can follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram or check our case studies.
If you are interested in hearing more from Luke, he currently runs a weekly room on a Tuesday evening at 8 pm GMT as part of 'The Creative Agency Forum' club if you want to join: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/the-creative-agency