iOS only at the moment folks, sorry Android I’m sure it won’t be long.
They’re in their honeymoon period. Being a disrupter and beating the biggest media (social) companies in the world means you have a starter advantage, everyone wants to join you, everyone’s after those elusive invitations, just 2 per user, wow!
Inside Clubhouse
It’s not that it’s exclusive, they are still in a start-up growth process and not ready for the onslaught of trolls and criminals. Here’s their latest blog post;
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/welcoming-more-voices
When I finally realised why so many folks are writing about Clubhouse on LinkedIn, I saw a thread from someone I know and trust, talking about these 2 invites limit and enquiring about who could give her an invite. Anyway I decided to download the app, complete my details, like mobile and grabbing my own handle, which of course is @stayingaliveuk and then I got a message to say they would get in touch with me when I could join. Anyway maybe an hour later or so, whilst I was walking our dog, I received a text message from @Danusia Malina Derben, who very kindly share with me one of her two invites. Wow I thought I am connected to Danusia, but don’t really know her that well. Of course I reached out and thanked her.
There’s one massive thing in their identity kit and that’s you can’t join without a mobile phone number. Genius, why didn’t the others think of that? It would have saved us all the trouble social media platforms are in, signing up with a fake email is so 00’s.
It doesn’t take you long to get around the app, if you’re a seasoned social platform pundit, you will get it very fast, they do also have an excellent user guide. There was just one thing not so clear and that was how do all these folks set up their clubs with logo and proper names, there wasn’t anywhere easy for me to see this. No, of course I didn’t read the under guide, but I did check out YouTube and found this wonderful bit of advice by Ben Leavitt. Thanks Ben!
[embed]https://youtu.be/vHqSEG5nd7I[/embed]
After having selected many topics and found some clubs to follow and jumping into some rooms to just lurk and listen, I discovered a few very important ‘beware’ points for you to take on board. I will try and keep the list short and fair.
To host you need to be a very confident speaker and also a confident moderator, you must be able to interrupt folks if they go on too long and I promise you, people do go on far too long.
Everyone loves the sound of their own voice and therefore it’s very tough to shut them up and make sure everyone else who wants their turn is able to get it. And of course not everyone will.
Sometimes the host is very very opinionated, after all they formed their club on clubhouse, so they want to promote themselves to you, prove that they know what they’re talking about, sell themselves and impress their listeners.
There’s a lot of ego in the room, I guarantee you!
There are usually a couple or more moderators, I guess you need it as lots of folk will ask to come on the ‘stage’ the known term for being given the opportunity to get your voice heard. If the host is speaking, they may not have the time to allow people on the stage, but then again I don’t know because I haven’t hosted anything as yet.
If you’re an attendee and asking to go on stage you have to tap a little hand ✋ and of course you will feel SO grateful to the host/moderator for letting you on and of course the host/moderator will feel like they’ve done you a massive favour, so here is where the social connection (dopamine hit) will be made and now you’re both chatting to each other and more dopamine gets formed and you both feel like you’ve known each other forever. A very clever thing actually!
Some hosts have gone mad with the amount of clubs and shows they’re putting on, they definitely love the sound of their own voice and have been kept back in their speaking careers, so they’re going full out. In my honest opinion a bit over the top!
You can’t request your own Club-house until you have hosted at least weekly, 3 times and been shown to be active on the app. Here’s the official rule; We do have an unusually high volume of club requests right now, so we are prioritizing clubs for people who have already hosted a weekly show 3 times.🎙️ Here’s the form to complete once you’ve done that: https://airtable.com/shrN5MT2zOHsqkGxZ
To begin with you will of course do lots of listening and maybe piping up to say something and almost certainly you will be tapping on many faces to look at profiles and decide who to follow. Remember that to get followers for your eventual opportunity to host your own show you will have to follow others and as we know, not everyone will always follow back, especially on Twitter, basically non-existent nowadays, so not sure how they will fair.
Okay basically that’s it for now, I’m still learning and maybe one day soon I will get my own show up and running soon.
See you in the Clubhouse very soon!
Michael out…