Are You In the Club?
Are you in the club? And do you even need to be?
When Clubhouse launched a little more than a year ago, this audio-only, iPhone-only app quickly became the darling of Silicon Valley. Other communities followed and by December 2020 membership was by invitation only. Most members were limited to only a few invitations at a time as the developers tried to control the growth and not over-burden their servers.
This scarcity model made it a hot ticket. But, as the number of users increased and each user could invite people, it became easier to get a ticket to the party. The question is, did you really need a ticket?
As a business owner, I explored Clubhouse to see how it might fit in with my other marketing activities. I spent five months and gave it a fair shot. I followed interesting people and participated in quite a few conversations. I connected with people that I knew and made some new friends along the way. In February, I started hosting a weekly chat with Jennifer Denney of Elevated Marketing Solutions. While the conversations were great, we never really built momentum. Comparing notes with other small business owners, coaches, and consultants, that’s pretty common.
The other challenge is the disposable nature of the content. There is no recording so no ability to repurpose or re-use. For a content marketer, that is a bitter pill to swallow.
The question is was this an anomaly or was our experience typical? As I began doing research, I’ve discovered that lots of other business owners have struggled with Clubhouse in much the same way I did. And after some failed attempts, many are backing away.
At the same time, Clubhouse is seeing a dramatic decline in downloads. While the early adaptors are all in and the next wave isn’t quite sure that Clubhouse is for them.
They have just launched an Android version, but with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all exploring adding audio-only and room functionality to their platforms it is hard to imagine that Clubhouse can compete if the big boys enter the room.
In my opinion, much like Foursquare, Periscope, and Meerkat, they haven’t established a clear enough value proposition.
So, after several months, I’ve stepped back. There are a few people who have enormous rooms, lots of people claiming to know the secret to six-figure success, lots of bad audio, and people who should never be allowed to hold a microphone. The hallways are filled with coaches, consultants, and people who don’t have much to do. But my customers, small business owners, are just not there.
I am confident the time I was spending on Clubhouse can be better spent elsewhere. So Jennifer and I have moved our Small Biz Chat to Facebook Live. Every Friday morning at 9:00 AM we’ll talk about marketing. Some of my recent guests from More than a Few Words have even agreed to drop by. I hope you will too!
check out the small biz chat
Every Friday morning at 9:00 am we will talk about all things digital marketing. Hope to see you there.
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