If you feel the need to be on the right side of the trends table, add a little hint of FOMO (fear of missing out) because of the new social media platform Clubhouse… Then I am here to tell you that you are probably on the queue with millions more. For the rest of you (our readers) who don’t know what I am talking about, I’ll give you a gentle overview.
When we think of social media, we immediately think about the oligarchs; Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. It gets even more expansive when we add the concepts of trends, as Twitter and the more recent Tik Tok comes to mind. But as the year 2020 has shown us; world-shaping phenomenons can spring up at a moment’s notice- no thanks to Covid19.
Clubhouse seems to be buying into this reality and quickly becoming a big deal as it keeps amassing significant grounds in the social media space across the world.
What is the Clubhouse App?
Clubhouse is an exclusive social media platform that takes several clues for its operational strategy from existing platforms’ strengths and adds an interesting twist of scarcity to drive virality. Exclusivity because it is currently invite-only.
Clubhouse focuses on connecting people through audio by allowing those invited into the app to choose from a host of chatrooms to join. Think of it as the live recording of a podcast where you can actually talk back and probably contribute to the conversation—then added with the trendy ‘disappearing’ feature created by Snapchat which has been a frenzy in the past few years. This means that as soon as the chat ends, the whole session disappears forever.
This and the other features I’ll highlight below creates a highly viral strategy that has driven it’s accelerated growth pace in the last few weeks. Note that at the time of this article Clubhouse is valued at about $1 billion and exclusively available on iOs. – The Information
What makes the Clubhouse App ‘tick’?
We all understand marketing as the ability to get the audience’s attention most relevant to our business. It becomes viral marketing when we are able to experience this sharp growth in interest within a very short period of time. Virality can be touted as the pinnacle of modern-day marketing… As everyone wants to take the spotlight, fast.
Here are some powerful strategies we can say Clubhouse did significantly well that makes their a marketing success worthy of emulation;
(1) Leverage:
While many might not be excited about this, Facebook has shown us that anyone can take what works from other competitive platforms to integrate it into an already existing one or create a spin-out platform to serve as direct competition.
Hence making bold the saying “Imitation is the biggest form of flattery”. Well, this is definitely something that Clubhouse has done well. The huge frenzy for things like data privacy, short-lived (or disappearing) messages, closed rooms, live events, etc. are somethings that Clubhouse has capitalised on. As such, they are riding with the wheel, instead of re-inventing it.
(2) Exclusivity:
We know the natural instincts to want what appears ‘seemingly’ unattainable. This clearly inspired the strategic publicity of this application, leveraging celebrities and gossip. For example, the US-based celebrity Bow Wow opened up on a personal bit of information unknown to the public prior to his clubhouse session, which went viral.
We also notice this with the spill out of discussions from specific room chats within Clubhouse onto Twitter which spurs interest from the questions. “What is this about?” or “How can I know more?”. A phenomenon that is well known to users of other social applications like Onlyfans.
(3) Scarcity:
Basic economics dictates that a supply shortage often leads to an increase in demand. It is obvious Clubhouse is taking advantage of this for interested signups. From giving their existing audience the ability to invite one to a few people using selectively distributed invites, adding those interested in using the Clubhouse application to a backlist of other applicants. It ramps up the feeling of value derived from finally joining in on the clubhouse experience so much that those accepted feel the need to share this as “good news” across their other networks.
(4) Network effect:
As a build-up on the point above. Each time someone shares their acceptance into Clubhouse. Or their activities from a chat room on another application, it taps into the viral nature of user-generated contents. These are direct unsolicited promotions that invoke a genuine feeling of trust within their own network.
This then inspires others also to want to partake in the Clubhouse experience. While you can obviously meet and connect with other members of the chatrooms, you are also allowed to join new chats based on your topics of preference. Or join based on what others in your network are following. This offers enormous access to both network and content.
(5) Keeping it in the moment:
In doing this, Clubhouse ties into the FOMO (fear of missing out) strategy for driving their marketing. It prompts that feeling of “if you are not here now, you will miss this forever”. This is because every conversation ends when the chat is concluded, and the room is closed. To avoid closing a room, the creator can assign other participants as co-admins. Participants can also be given the ‘stage’ to lead on-going conversations within a room.
While this gives an overview of the Clubhouse application and its power in marketing. This only scratches the surface of the full scope of the great thought process put into the planning and delivery of this application, especially how these strategies have been instrumental in the speedy rise in popularity of the application.