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The Social audio app launched in 2019 has seen tremendous growth and traction across the globe. We are talking about none other than Clubhouse. It was initially designed for podcasts under Talk show, but the app was rebranded as Clubhouse. The clubhouse is a live audio app that allows people to listen to or actively participate in live discussions. Nothing is recorded. It was officially released for the iOS Operating system in March 2020, and approximately one year later, in May 2021, seeing the higher demand for this app, they have launched a beta version of the Android app, and the rest is history.

So, what are the features of Clubhouse?

Rooms

Clubhouse’s core feature is real-time virtual “rooms” where members can converse via audio. Rooms are divided into categories based on their level of privacy. There are open rooms that anyone on Clubhouse can join, and it is a default option when you are creating a room.

The next one is social rooms, in which only users followed by the moderators (the ones who create the room in Clubhouse) are allowed to join. In Which users need to receive an invite from the moderators to join the closed rooms.

Under rooms, there are three sections

• Stage
• Speakers
• Others

The profile picture and name of every user present in a room are displayed in the section and whenever a user creates a room they are assigned the role of a moderator, which gives them the authority to call users to the stage (to lead the talk) and mute the users if required and also to remove the users from the stage if wanted.

When a user joins a room, they are initially assigned to the role of a listener and the users will not be able to unmute themselves and the listeners can give the required notification to the moderators of the clubs of their interest to join the stage and speak by using the hand raise option.

When the user wants to leave the room, they can use the ‘leave quietly’ button, and it is also a default option.

 Coming to the next features, the events

Since there are many conversations that go on parallel in Clubhouse, users can schedule the conversations by creating events. So, while scheduling an event, moderators/users need to enter the event’s name, and they need to set the date and time in which the conversation will happen. Moderators can have the option of adding co-hosts to moderate the event. So, after the successful creation of the event, the event will be visible in the Clubhouse bulletin. Bulletin is nothing, but it shows the upcoming scheduled events and allows the moderators to set any notifications by clicking the bell icon respective to the event.

The next feature is Clubs,

In the Clubhouse, clubs are communities based on a common interest. There are many clubs in the Clubhouse across various topics, and the users could search the club with the search button.

There are three types of users under the club are

Admin – Who has access to modify the club settings, addition/remove users from the club, and change the user privileges if needed.

Leader – Leaders have all the privileges of a member, also authorized to create/schedule club-branded open rooms

Member – Members can create private rooms and invite more users into the club

And also, there are three types of clubs in Clubhouse:

Open – This is open to all

By Approval – In which the moderator or the admin needs to approve the request only then they can be able to be part of the respective club

Closed for Membership – It is exclusive to the membership

The next feature on the Clubhouse is Backchannel

It is the messaging function that allows users to have the option of interaction via text individually or within a group, it is the recently launched feature in Clubhouse.

The next feature is Explore

Explore in the Clubhouse is nothing, but the recommendations are based on the user’s people and clubs. Users will be taken to the explore page by clicking the explore symbol, which is a magnifying glass icon. On the explore page, users can look for people and clubs to follow, as well as find conversations organized by topic.

Clubhouse Direct payment

This is the app’s direct payment option, which lets users transfer money to content creators who have enabled the feature in their profile. By clicking on a creator’s profile, selecting “Send Money” and entering the appropriate amount to send, users can send money to them. Users will be requested to register a credit or debit card when they do this for the first time. The creator will receive the entire money. According to Clubhouse’s payment processing partner, Stripe, the user will additionally be charged a modest card processing fee.

Users can send money to a creator by going to their profile and choosing the “Send Money” option, then entering the appropriate amount and clicking “OK.” The money will be transferred.

Another feature is Creator First:

Creator First under Clubhouse is a program intended to help the content creators on Clubhouse build their audience and eventually monetize their content with a direct payment system.

After failing to get any sponsorships for the creators, Creator First paid $5,000 per month to 24 creator shows for 90 days. Users slammed the pilot programme for a lack of openness in the selection procedure and terms of the Creator First contracts.

Value Proposition of Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a place where anyone can learn anything at any time. Because you can’t register at random, it’s unusual to find people who don’t have anything to contribute to the website, and users are selective about whom they invite.

When the invite-only paradigm is exhausted, we may anticipate Clubhouse to function similarly to any other social media platform, with user-generated content being the primary format on the forum.

It quickly gained traction because of its successful launch, which attracted high-ranking individuals from around the world – billionaires, tech icons, digital marketing experts, celebrities, influencers, ex-CEOs of companies, and many more men of substance are in these rooms, sharing their experiences and making opportunities for others to learn.

Many celebrities in the entertainment industry, including Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Hart, Chris Brown, Tiffany Haddish, Ashton Kutcher, and others, have been active on Clubhouse, participating in lively debates in the rooms. Elon Musk even paid a visit to a Clubhouse room a few weeks ago, where he spoke and shared his ideas with the members.

The Clubhouse has proven to be a platform for increasing knowledge by allowing you to engage in talks with people you wouldn’t otherwise have access to, learn from their extensive expertise, and apply it to your business. Clubhouse reserves advertising and subscription fees.

The expectations that the clubhouse parent company Alpha Exploration will turn the hype into money in the medium term are correspondingly high. The founders have not yet publicly commented on their plans, at least not outside of Clubhouse. According to digital analyst Kohlmann, the income model will most likely be dependent on other sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. “The first way is usually through advertising. “It’s clear that we’ll see banners and sponsored conference rooms at some point,” he says.

This is also indicated by a passage in the terms and conditions. For example, the commercial use of Clubhouse to advertise companies or products is therefore prohibited without permission. Companies may be able to buy this permit in the future.

“The second option is to purchase premium accounts that are ad-free or have additional features. Meeting rooms for companies that charge a fee could be a lucrative source of revenue “Kohlmann agrees. In the fine print, there are a few references to this revenue model. The parent company, Alpha Exploration, retains the ability to produce or charge a fee for “a subscription product or service,” according to the terms and conditions.

The quest for a viable business model becomes even more important as the app’s user base grows. Because the costs will rise as a result. Said Hashemi, an analyst at the German venture capitalist HV Capital (formerly Holtzbrinck Ventures), expects the clubhouse stars to want to be paid for their presence sooner or later. “At Clubhouse, the most successful rooms are those where famous personalities speak. Influencers, in my opinion, currently have none of it – at least not financially. If the Clubhouse wants to be a long-term success, it must give a compelling offer to influencers.”

Commercial applications for Clubhouse

As a new social media network, The Clubhouse will find its sweet spot in terms of commercial applications. Let’s look at some of the ways Clubhouse is now being used for business.

Business meetings

Business meetings can be held in the clubhouse. You may schedule a meeting with a date and time, invite your colleagues to the room, and set a reminder for the meeting, much as in Zoom or Google Meets. When a business meeting is conducted via Clubhouse, people who are camera shy or more confident without a video may be able to raise their points more effectively.

Finally, Clubhouse allows you to join a variety of clubs. Clubs on Clubhouse are similar to Facebook groups in that they are a smaller community of people who connect and raise themes for discussion. It is, however, audio-based. As a result, it’s a subgroup where you can have more personalized discussions. You now have a basic understanding of Clubhouse, including how to join, what it is, and how it can be used as a personal and business development tool by establishing connections with successful people, thereby enhancing your business.

A new way of doing podcasting:

Clubhouse appears to be a podcasting service. But there’s a lot more to it. It progressed toward podcasting by incorporating a social component (user-generated content and interactions) as well as a format that resembles radio and tales.

 A new format for digital events

The clubhouse is intriguing for people working in digital events since it can be utilized as a new platform to establish an engaged community of users.

The popularity of social radio platforms is on the rise. The Clubhouse looks a lot like the modern version of radio, with a solid social media component. While radio, as a medium, has been adapting to other formats like podcasting. Clubhouse brings that to the next level. A “social radio platform” that is fully user-generated, with thousands of digital audio rooms and shows, where any show can be produced, from broader audience topics to niche and micro-niche level subtopics.

What are the ways to generate money on Clubhouse?

You might be able to make money by arranging digital events and, as with social media, podcasting platforms, or radio, by • Recruiting sponsors for your events.

• The generation of leads

• Increasing brand awareness and developing a strong brand

• Creating a sense of belonging

• Advertisements for products

Clubhouse’s threats & opportunities

• With its current form, Clubhouse would struggle to build a business model based on the value given through chatroom content, as the value created is too intermittent to market. If Clubhouse wants to build a content-driven revenue model, it requires a means to assess the quality of its material and ensure its delivery.
• With the current design of Clubhouse, users cannot gather value made in a chatroom or “store talks.” This technological difficulty makes it tough to keep users because any value they gain from the chatroom is lost as they leave. 
• The lack of an in-app motivation system to encourage users to join chatrooms will be a worry in the future. Joining a chatroom is currently completely reliant on human interest and the suggestion mechanism, which isn’t always a competitive advantage for Clubhouse.
• Chatroom hosts may care about metrics like “number of chatrooms hosted” or “rating from the audience.” The more chatrooms a host hosts, the more reliable they are, the greater their reputation is, and the more fans and influence they have in Clubhouse, the less likely they are to leave.
• At this time, there is no way to control the quality of new members or the quality of chatroom chats. Whatever business model Clubhouse ends up choosing should support the build of a high-quality Clubhouse network and high-quality discussions.

What do you think?

Do you like Clubhouse and how it operates?

Have you ever tasted tequila? Probably. You might be a fan or not. But have you heard about Teslaquila? Or are you normal? Mathematically, it’s nothing but Tesla + Tequila = Teslaquila. Yes, Elon Musk’s Tesla. The guy who made himself the real-life Tony Stark. Wait, he made himself the Iron Man? His company has recently started rolling out tequila in cool and glamorous Tesla shaped bottles for real.

Going deeper into Elon and his next-gen product ideas taught me more than I anticipated. One word. GENIUS. There were and are many such marketing geniuses. Marketing is a pretty broad topic, nonetheless. And people like Elon have used that to their advantage. Read on to know-how.

For example, Tesla is known for making cars. Electric to be specific. From electric cars to a posh sounding tequila bottle? It’s a very vague transition. But guess what? People are buying it (what do you mean it’s for the Instagram story?). People are checking it. People are talking about it. People are even writing articles about it. This is all about advertising. Nah, not the Tequila. Elon advertised himself. His ambitions. His god-like public image. Everything is a result of genius marketing. This can be further classified as a marketing strategy, marketing technology, branding and what not! Even if Teslaquila is just a small batch made, it has been receiving more attention lately. Studying about this ‘phenomenon’ gave many insights into how creative and strategic marketing can be.

 In any business, the fundamental thing is to sell products. That’s how you make money. But whom to sell? And how to sell? Well, there are various marketing devices that have to be put into use here. These can range from raw marketing, branding, advertising, strategies, and so on. By incorporating the right devices at the right time, one can sell anything.

First of all, have a look at the following established definitions of marketing strategy.

One thing we can infer from the above paragraph is that marketing is nothing but a carefully planned promotional strategy of the product. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. From Elon Musk’s Teslaquila (as discussed above phew!) to Jezz Bezos and Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, marketing strategy played an instrumental role in the success of every venture in the world. How would the world know about your amazing products and services? Marketing, coupled with the appropriate strategy. It’s as simple. In marketing and promoting your product, the sky’s the limit for creativity. Such examples are found throughout history because it’s so important.

The way you advocate the implementation of various marketing strategies decides how well people would respond to your product and how well you can reach out to people.

How to do this is a good question. For instance, we are right now in a global pandemic. Things seem to be catching up to pre-covid era, but slowly and steadily.

 Think of a strategy to directly reach out to consumers in their homes. Not all are hating the WFH facility. Many even embrace it. Hence it can be predicted that they intend to permanently adopt much of their pandemic-friendly behaviour such as online shopping, home fitness and streaming video shows and pretty much many things. Also, it’s more cost-efficient to use online marketing projects. It may also be a win-win. Reaching out is not a problem in this case. Advertising might become trickier. Fresh, entertaining and engaging ad experiences can be a welcome break in consumers’ well-worn and homebound routines. This has increased chances of the consumer checking the product to break their monotonic routines, for a change.

But consumers are becoming increasingly conscious, socially, financially and politically than any point in history. Hence, understanding consumers’ psychology has become more important than ever. It’s undeniable that the pandemic has drastically changed our spending patterns. When to use above the line and when to use advertorials and such questions need to be considered.

 But in what magnitude these have to be implemented depends on the situation. Throughout the digital age, businesses have amassed massive paper trails on their websites and social media accounts. With a small amount of work, consumers can easily go through a company’s services, feedback to see which are offering lip service and which ones genuinely care about them. Any inauthentic or inaccurate statements about the commitment to consumer satisfaction can quickly be debunked, ridiculed, and shared virally across the internet.

Hence, care has to be taken. Data capture is easy in this pandemic era when people have time. So, B2C advertising can be implemented. Does the 80 – 20 rule i.e. 80% of the products are purchased by 20% of the consumers,  works here? Time will tell.

In some times, out of the box strategies give the best results. Remember the Tesla Cybertruck incident (another marketing stunt, same as Teslaquila). The glass advertised as bulletproof cracked on live TV testing. How could this be?

Well, this was premeditated. That failure was a pretty good way to create a sensation and get to the news. This was a marketing strategy, time, and tested.

Elizabeth Holmes founded the health company Theranos and she is on the Forbes list of most disappointing leaders. Yes, you read it right. ‘Disappointing’. Her branding and marketing levels were so good that the once richest man in the world Carlos Slim Helu partnered with her now-defunct blood-testing company. But finally, everything came to an end. Her fame, the company, everything crashed. The shortcomings and inaccuracies of Theranos’s technology were exposed, along with the role Holmes played in covering it all up. Theranos and Holmes were charged with massive fraud, and the company was forced to close its labs and testing centres. Her business model was that blood tests could be conducted using just pin pricking a finger and proprietary technology to even detect cancer and cholesterol. This was all covered up by her marketing strategy.

She had her persona with her like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, which served as the prime marketing tool. Outbound marketing, darkest marketing all these played little role in this case.

This tells how important it is to reallocate budget towards different marketing strategies at different times. The pandemic situation is one such time when the marketing budget should be reallocated instead of cutting it down. This is a recession time, let’s cut down marketing and advertising budget and use it for something else! Well, this is wrong. Just because it’s easier to cut this down doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. We can learn more from Teslaquila!

About the author:

Sathvik Boorgu is an MBA student from IIM Indore.
She was one of the participants of Optimization – an article writing competition organised jointly by Mercur- I, Marketing club of IIM Indore and Marketing Lake.