Do You Need Clubhouse?

Author
written by Johannes Ippen. founder of Human Deluxe, @johannesippen

It’s almost inevitable: Clubhouse is the latest social media sensation – if you haven’t gotten an invite yet, you’re not one of the cool kids.

But what is Clubhouse and do you actually need it for your brand?

Clubhouse was launched in April 2020 and quickly rose to fame – backed by Andreessen Horowitz, the iPhone app is currently valued at around $100m. In virtual rooms, users can listen to conversations about various topics - currently mostly centered around tech, politics and finance.

✅ Pro: Low Entry Barrier

Starting your first room is as easy as it gets - no photo, no video, no editing is required. All you need is an iPhone and a somewhat stable internet connection

❌ Con: Privacy Challenged

The easiness comes at a price: Upon starting Clubhouse, you give it full access to your phonebook. Let’s just trust that they have learned from the privacy mistakes made by Facebook and co.

If you want to register without giving away your whole phonebook, there’s a trick: Register your username with a phone number that is linked to your iMessage. Once completed, deny phonebook access and ask your invite sponsor to send you an invite to that phone number.

Next time you’re logged in, you will have full access - without phone book access.

✅ Pro: Lots of Celebs

With concert and conference stages closed, you will find a lot of A-list celebrities on Clubhouse, where you can easily interact with them. Some might even share some interesting bits, like the German politician who confessed that he is playing candy crush while discussing lockdown measures via Zoom.

❌ Con: No Record Feature

When you livestream to Twitch or Youtube, can save your session for your fans to be rewatched later. This feature does not exist on Clubhouse - once aired, a room can not be saved or replayed.

✅ Con: Elitist

At the moment, Clubhouse is invite-only and iPhone-only, making it a quite exclusive experience. The team has announced to open up the network to other platforms and open signups, but when?

❌ Pro: Lots of Room to Shape it

Just like any social media in the beginning, we haven’t fully figured out the real potential of Clubhouse. At the moment, most rooms are basically conference panels with really bad audio quality – but what if you plugin in a better mic to your iPhone and try out a better, more specific room format?

In the next edition of our weekly newsletter, we have assembled a list of 7 great and easy clubhouse room ideas – make sure you sign up today to get them in your Inbox for the weekend:
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Author
written by Johannes Ippen. founder of Human Deluxe, @johannesippen