Can an audio only app Clubhouse make it in the world of highly visual social media? We investigated the new social phenomenon that is loved by people like Elon Musk.  

Every year there comes a couple of new apps or social media platforms that are marked in buzz wordy marketing media as 'The New Facebook'. Of all of those, in the last years only TikTok, formerly known as Musicl.ly has made its way to the mainstream.  

Clubhouse is buzzed to be the next one. The thing that makes their conquer of the world a bit different is that it is 1. audio only, 2. live-only 3. still invitation-only and 4. still iOS devices only.  

Clubhouse was launched in April 2020 and already has a 1 billion USD valuation with a fast-growing user group of millions of users worldwide.  

Part of a wider audio trend 

Audio has been living a high life for a couple of years. Podcasts, voice activated bots like Alexa and Google Home and the rise of audio books has been increased in the time of the pandemic.  

The popularity of this app also taps into the wider trend of social media becoming livelier and more shareable. Instagram has grown in live streaming all the time, and Facebook has introduced along with YouTube features, where you can watch something live with your friends.  

Live obviously has its downfalls: it is a huge time commitment from a person, content is unedited, and it is hard to build a following for something that is achieved. Clubhouse itself says in their blog that they are considered an archive and other further developments making it more usable for podcasters.  

In Europe, the app has been highly popular in the beginning of 2021, blooming specially in Germany, UK, and Scandinavia.  

This is how Clubhouse works 

It is basically like any social media app with profiles and searches.   

You need to be invited to be in by an existing member. In the app you can enter different rooms where discussions are going on. Rooms differ from local communities to interest based and issues from hot marketing topics to religion, history, hobbies, entertainment or anything under the sun. You can also start your own room or schedule it for the future.

If you join a room, you can ask to join a stage to talk by raising your hand, in some room you can only listen.

Content is not recorded or archived, thus not edited. This also causes a very unedited stream of rambling, even Elon Mush was not an interesting interviewee.  

Like this link here above, there are thousands of recordings from Clubhouse that are spreading on other platforms. Multiple podcasters have started to conduct their interviews there, and after that fact they publish the show on a podcast platform.  

Some possible futures for Clubhouse can be predicted:

• Will it be bought by a bigger multinational company, like Bytedance (owner of TikTok) or Facebook (owner of WhatsApp and Instagram)? Yes, it is very likely.
• It has all the right elements to be big, but is it there yet? No.  
• Is it a fascinating and hooking app? Yes definitely. If you love audio and podcasts, it is the perfect app for you.   

Possible futures for marketers  

Audio, how live features develop and the ever-evolving social media sphere are interesting places to follow. I would also take a step back when ‘The New Facebook’ emerges, follow it, but put my marketing investments into it when a significant amount of my core target audience would be using it. 

How would people in the app react to a brand starting its own room to chat? There have been a few examples to date. Some brands have set up their accounts for the future, and maybe just linked it to the other social medias at this stage. 

What I would encourage brands to think is its own strategy to audio in total (including voice search, sonic branding, podcasts etc.), and see then later when Clubhouse it opened up to all and more popular, if it fits to that strategy. What Clubhouse brings is a new way to target the ultra cool and trendy people at least. 

There are no advertising solutions yet. Like the early days of Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, apps like this will first build an audience, and worry about the advertising options later.  

Clubhouse has been successful in securing funding for the future development of the platform and is set to expand during this year. With expanding services, investors will want to see also money coming in, so there must be ad solution in the horizon.  

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Any thoughts on the above or feedback? Drop me a note, or an audio message :D 

Have the best spring, 

Sonja Vukmirovic

Head of Content & Social