You may have heard about this new exclusive social media app that everyone’s been talking about and wondering if you are missing out on something. Clubhouse seems to be the audio version of LinkedIn.
You can access the app via invite-only so you’ll have to have some good connections that will send an invite your way to allow access to Clubhouse.
A band of professionals get together to form ‘rooms’ to talk about industry news, career advice and more where a user can just ‘drop in’ and eavesdrop on the conversation.
Not convinced? I wasn’t either, but let’s take a look.
Is Clubhouse a cult?
Most social media platforms seem to be a cult these days with accounts gaining millions of followers, those followers buying into everything an influencer/mogul tells them to and are always thirsty for more and addicted to scrolling the app.
There doesn’t seem to be any Kool-Aid in the Clubhouse app from what I can see, but I’ve only been on the app for a few days (thank you Marcel Klebba for sending the invite my way!).
I will say the amount of notifications is a little daunting, but I also fear turning them off in case I miss something valuable.
Just yesterday, I dropped into my first room hosted by Gary Vee who was conducting a Q&A. I had no idea what was going on but it seemed you could virtually raise your hand to ask Gary a question where he would then unmute you, and you had free reign to speak to him and have him answer your life/business dilemma.
Let’s talk about Gary Vee for a sec
I was only introduced to Gary Vee last year in New York by my boyfriend who had been following him for a while and recommended I follow him too as he’s very much everything that I’m interested in.
At the beginning I found Gary very annoying, he was always talking, swearing, shouting about everything on social and making big claims. It was a lot of white noise for me at the time.
After a while, I started to realize that actually, this guy seems to know what he’s talking about; he’s speaking a lot of sense. And so, I listen to his podcast almost every day, and take on board all the advice that he gives on his Instagram page.
One thing I’ll recommend from Gary is his approach to social media content. A lot of us are afraid of posting too much, waiting to post until we have the perfect content and that it looks aesthetically pleasing on our Instagram grid.
His answer is always, ‘Just post it’. You can post a million things and it only takes one thing to stick and before long, you have people coming to view more of your content.
If he asked you to post 100 pieces of content per day your mind would probably explode at the thought. But what if 50 of those were tweets, 20 of those were Instagram stories and the rest in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube posts? Seems a lot more doable now, right?
I’ll talk about this more another time because it’s a topic I’m very interested in.
Why should I be on Clubhouse?
Access.
In that room with Gary Vee yesterday, I could have raised my hand and spoken straight to the man himself. There is no other platform offering this kind of accessibility. Yes, you can tweet someone in the hope that they respond, but more often than not, your tweet will get lost in their feed of mentions.
This is real-time, one to one talking with entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 big-wigs and media moguls.
Just yesterday after following founder of Nasty Gal and Girlboss, Sophia Amoruso, I had a DM from her on Instagram saying thank you for the follow on Clubhouse with more information on what she provides on the app. Mental.
If you want to listen in on these mega-successful people as they discuss advice, tricks of the trade, lessons they’ve learnt and more, then this is the place to be. You have a gateway to all of these super successful people in a room of such small numbers where you can have your voice heard.
You can shoot your shot via Twitter or LinkedIn where this person has millions of followers probably doing the same, or you can drop in on them in a room on Clubhouse that only has 8 other people. Where do you think the odds are more in your favour?
How do I get an invite?
As I said at the beginning, Clubhouse is an invite-only app but if you download the app and save your desired username, you can join the virtual waiting list.
I currently have two invites on my profile so do tweet me if you would like one! (@orlaghshankspr)
The only other way to get into the app is to be a celebrity like Oprah or Drake, or you could just send out a tweet or ask your LinkedIn connections if anyone has an invite to the app that they could share with you.
Is it really that great?
If you’re a nosy kind of person, this will be the app of your dreams. You can listen in on literally any conversation from finance to books, to beauty, to sport, to women in the workplace. There are conversations happening about everything and you have the chance to listen in and even be a part of that conversation.
Another great thing about Clubhouse is the panels. There are prearranged panel discussions with some of the biggest names in business discussing very interesting topics – think of Clubhouse as TedTalk on steroids.
You can set notifications for these talks so that you don’t miss out too.
I’ve only been on the app a few times so far and even though the endless notifications are starting to get to me, I think this app has great potential as long as it doesn’t get too crowded and busy (which it probably will eventually).
Let me know your thoughts about Clubhouse; are you on the app? What do you think the future looks like for the new social media platform?
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