Clubhouse for Nonprofits

Have you heard of Clubhouse? What is it? How does it work? Is it something I should be using for my organization? Let’s dive in.

What is Clubhouse?

Everyone is talking about the new social media app, Clubhouse. According to the App Store, Clubhouse is “a space for casual, drop-in audio conversations with friends and other interesting people around the world.” The app is starting to generate some buzz with about 2 million weekly active users and quite a few celebrities jumping on the bandwagon. It seems to be a cross between a chat room and a podcast where you communicate with audio-only, but listeners can respond vocally to the speaker. Picture a live podcast or panel event with a live audience, but in a virtual room with nothing but audio connecting everyone.

How to Join

Currently, Clubhouse is “invite-only,” in addition to being only available to iPhone users. There are two ways to gain access to the app. The first way is to secure an invite from an existing user. Existing users are given a limited amount of invites to extend and the app will only replenish them periodically. The second way to gain access is to simply download the app and sign up using your phone number. If you take this route, you’ll be added to a waitlist, and an existing user that has your phone number in their contact list will get prompted to “walk you in.” If a friend chooses to walk you in, you’ll be able to begin using the app.

How it Works

Once you’re in, you’ll be able to create a profile for yourself. This is the only place where you can include a photo of yourself and a description of who you are and what you do. Users of the app can follow other users, join conversations, welcome new users, create “Rooms”, and join “Clubs.”

Rooms

Rooms are essentially where the audio-chatting occurs. The room creator can designate a topic of discussion to the room and begin inviting followers to join. The chat room is divided into 2 groups: the speakers that are on “stage” and the audience of listeners. During a conversation, audience members can raise their hand by pressing the hand emoji icon to notify the speaker that they have something to say. The speaker can then allow the audience member to join as a fellow speaker and let their voice be heard. This feature is what makes the network interactive and social.

Clubs

Within the app, a user can join “Clubs.” There are clubs for just about every interest you can imagine from “Financial Literacy” to “Dog Lovers.” Unlike Facebook groups, you cannot post within the group community or chat via direct message with any members. Belonging to a club or following a club will notify you when there’s a conversation room happening amongst your fellow members that you may want to join.

Clubhouse for Nonprofits

Clubhouse is shaping out to be a great way to generate some good old-fashioned word of mouth. It gives you a platform to talk about your organization, teach people valuable information that you may have, and network with like-minded individuals. If you already have a blog, podcast, webinar, or any other form of valuable content, it could serve as another channel to disperse it. Because there are no businesses on the app, it forces everyone to join as themselves and to speak as themselves. Being active on Clubhouse could help enhance your personal brand, and build credibility for your name and organization. It has similar benefits to those of Linkedin, allowing you to build strong connections with others in your industry.

Next Steps

This app is extremely new, and sometimes it pays off to adopt a new channel early. Once you sign up, start learning your way around and join some conversations to see how things work. Next, start creating your own conversations around any topic in your area of expertise. Right now, you can only create a club if you have hosted a weekly show 3 times, but the developers are hoping to have a feature built out soon that will let any user create a club instantly. If you can manage to create a club for your target audience, it could be very beneficial to your brand in terms of awareness, building connections, and generating supporters. Lastly, it seems like a great place to chat with other leaders in your space and gain valuable insights.

Karen Vela