With the onslaught of new social media platforms and features cropping up what seems like every month these days (looking at you, Fleets), you might find yourself tempted to expand your marketing program to gain access to untapped audiences.
Clubhouse is one of those platforms. It’s 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. If you need a rundown of the basics, we covered those in a previous blog.
Since Clubhouse is still relatively new and somewhat of a mystery to those who haven’t yet mastered it, many are eager to take advantage of the opportunity before the platform becomes oversaturated.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how to determine if Clubhouse is right for you and how you can leverage its audio content for your digital PR strategy.
Disruption in Public Relations
Thought leaders that tend to be more introverted may have never wanted to be the keynote speaker at a conference of thousands of people, but Clubhouse allows them to take center stage from the comfort of their home. This opens a world of opportunities for people who otherwise may have never had their voices heard through other PR initiatives.
With other audio channels, such as podcasts, it can be much easier to convince your audience that you’re a subject matter expert. Sometimes (but not always) questions are provided in advance and your PR team drafts responses and works in key messaging that supports your company’s goals. With Clubhouse, on the other hand, the conversation is live and off the cuff. If you can’t sustain a conversation or answer the real-time, rapid-fire questions, your audience will quickly uncover that you’re not a true subject matter expert and you will be kicked off the stage.
Is Clubhouse Right for You?
If you’re not media trained, you’re not ready to be on Clubhouse. Clubhouse creates a disconnect where it feels really informal, but should still be treated as a live TV segment. When you’re on stage, you feel like you’re in an intimate conversation and tend to forget that (even though it’s against their terms of service) people can record the rooms. Although you feel like you’re having a private conversation, you need to remember that you have an audience that can very well include journalists.
As a moderator on Clubhouse, you have a tremendous responsibility—and not everyone is up to the task. Public speakers build their skills up over time and with a lot of practice. The same is true when it comes to being a Clubhouse moderator, you have to work hard at it and practice frequently. Since you won’t be able to take cues from body language, you’ll need to pay attention to things like long, awkward pauses in between speakers, and really read in between the lines to understand the dynamic and where the conversation needs to go. It takes a strong leader to be a good moderator on Clubhouse, and again, this comes with experience.
Where Does Clubhouse Fit into Your Content Strategy?
So, is Clubhouse your content strategy’s future? The answer: it depends. Since the app is still relatively new, there are a lot of features that need to be added to ensure Clubhouse will be beneficial to your content strategy. For example:
- Accessibility – Because Clubhouse is an audio app, it is inaccessible to the deaf or hard of hearing population. Will Clubhouse create transcriptions or auto-generated captions to become more inclusive?
- Recordings – Right now, you’re technically not allowed to record conversations that happen on the app. So how can marketers repurpose the content once it disappears? Will recording become a premium feature? If you begin recording conversations, does that make it the same as a podcast? Will Clubhouse start archiving audio and create an audio search? All questions are imperative to your content strategy.
- Sponsored Rooms – Will the app take advantage of influencer marketing and sponsorships? For example, if there’s a room that’s focused on wine pairings, will a winery be able to sponsor that room? These conversations are already happening, and their target audience is literally leading it for them, so how would that relationship work? Would the company or brand connect with the moderator or admin of the club and ask them to collaborate as they would with influencers? Only time will tell.
Clubhouse definitely delivers on the PR front. It helps build an expert’s authority and enables them to build trust with their audience. But, as far as being a key component to your content strategy, it’s too early to tell.
With PR, it’s not about the TV segment, Forbes article or podcast guest spot—it’s about what you do with that coverage that makes a long-term impact. You need to be able to repurpose that content by transcribing the podcast interview and turning it into a contributed article, blog, or speaking abstract, you need to post your media coverage on social media and on your website, etc. Right now, Clubhouse isn’t facilitating that process, but we’re hopeful that as the app matures, these obstacles will disappear.
