The Nature of Clubhouse-Still not a place for Influencers

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I bet you’ve heard of the new social media app Clubhouse. But in case you’re missing out, Clubhouse is an iPhone-only voice-chatting app where individuals can host and join different conversations. Upon opening the app, you are met with a list of “rooms” that you can join, or you can create your own room. Each room has a different topic, often hosted by an expert or pioneer in the field. One caveat to it is the fact that it’s “invite only”; you can download the app for free but you won’t be able to access it unless a per-existing Clubhouse member invites you.

I am a user of the app and I’ve spoken to a lot of Clubhouse users, two things stood out when i had these conversations:

1- The novel “Invite-Only” strategy.
2- The number of influencers and marketers wanting to leverage the platform.

1- The novel “Invite-Only” strategy: Everyone seems fascinated and hyped about the idea that it’s “invite only”. To give you a sense of what i am talking about, try googling “invite only app” and at least the first two google pages are Clubhouse invaded. This “invite only” strategy is nothing new, it’s NOT novel at all. In fact, some popular invite-only startups were Facebook which was limited to Harvard students only and then on-boarded other Ivy leagues one by one, Quora started as an invite only to influencers,Pinterest to their collectors and Gmail with their Google+ social network. Till date, Spoon, Dribble, Dispo and Clubhouse are among several other invite-only platforms. Usually, these invite only apps Go-To-Market strategy looks something like this(As shown below).

At the closed beta stage, the founder of the product, selectively pitches the product to their targeted audience to get feedback, finds out how to make improvements and then launches a new version with improvements and new features.

Moving on to the Invite-Only stage (AKA: The Velvet Rope Strategy), The product is still in its beta version but since it’s now available to the masses but only by invitation, it gives the public this sense of exclusivity and the nagging fear of missing out (FOMO). Its a great marketing hack as on the one hand, it allows the company to control the pace to which they grow. On the other, it forces each user to hear about the product from a friend and then a friend has to explain what the product is , how they use it and why they use it (Virality through a trusted word of mouth). Once the company ensures the success in the first two stages, it takes the rope down and expands to public release ditching the invite-only feature.

The reason why the invite only strategy is now seen as somehow a ‘synonym’ to Clubhouse is because it’s synchronous- It’s now or never, its audio and if you’re not there, you miss a conversation forever. So you better get that invite sooner than later!

By comparison, the other invite-only social media platforms mentioned previously are asynchronous. I can always search for the content once I get access, save it, and schedule it for my time and catch up at my own convenience. In other words, the FOMO here is not as strong or as lasting as the one experienced when using a product with a synchronous nature.

Once you are in the app, some of the rooms titles you see look similar to this:

• “Passionately using my given gifts to create your customized digital products”
• “#1 way to grow on social media”
• “ First 20 users to join get early access to XYZ brand”

It goes on but you get the idea…

For an influencer or a marketer, you are out there to be discovered in a way that leads to vast awareness and then conversion to the brand you’re promoting. Reflect this rational on Clubhouse-with its current version- it raises problems concerning both the consumer and the creator.

The Consumer: For the Majority of us , there are already way too many things to do during the day as it is and investing more time on what looks like a conference call with others is not always appealing. However, Clubhouse is made for this moment. It’s perfect for a struggling economy, millions of bored people (although consumption might increase when we commute again). Hence a great solid potential customer base could be existent right now for influencers and marketers but what happens long term when the economy comes back, and people are busy with full schedules? will people regularly tune in?

The Creator (Marketer/Influencer): Let’s assume that you were able to master this platform and you became a Clubhouse superstar. Thousands of fans flock to your conversation. Here’s where it gets a bit complicated:

1- As mentioned earlier, there is no record of your content.Nobody will find your conversation on a Google search, or even a Clubhouse search. Nobody will be targeted by your ad or pitch multiple times a day.

2- The audience in a room keeps changing. Let’s say you started a room to talk about “ How you grew your Instagram account to 250K followers in 1 week using the XYZ app”. Fifteen minutes later, new people are in the room asking the same question you answered at the beginning of the program. In essence, you keep creating the same content over and over again.

Clubhouse isn’t the friendliest place to push a message on behalf of your brand - at least for now. Nevertheless, I do believe Clubhouse’s value lies with people other than marketers :

• People with burgeoning careers will find it useful for mentoring, networking, and discussion.
• Professionals (especially small business owners) will find it useful for meetings, international symposia, etc.
• Job seekers will find it useful for networking.
• Movers and shakers will find it useful for discussion.

Overall, If you build a media business with all the content generated by users/consumers (i.e Instagram, Snapchat,etc.), you can end up with a really powerful company because media businesses in general are profitable. Traditionally, they built the content once and sold it over and over again. But now the media business doesn’t even need to pay for the content, it’s provided by the users for free. So once Clubhouse manages their growth and monetizes in a user-friendly way, I think they’ll become big, perhaps Pinterest-big. Until then, I will be watching to see how it goes for both marketers and non-marketers long term.

Note: I write about things for my own learning purposes. So any additional insights, arguments and opinions are always welcomed.