Team Vippi breaks it down.

OMG, not another one? The onslaught of social media platforms has been truly exhausting for those of us who remember a nice coffee and a chat. 

However, Clubhouse is a little different, and it might be the just the platform that best accommodates the needs and interests of midlifers.

Team Vippi took a closer look at why you shouldn’t shrug it off as “just more social media nonsense” – and why its exclusivity is part of its appeal.

H2: What is Clubhouse?

Ben Leavitt talks about the possibility of Clubhouse replacing podcasts altogether.

In three words: a live, interactive podcast. You can listen in, contribute if you’re comfortable, or both. You can also run a chat room like your own radio show.

The chat topics are certainly not restricted to business – sports, wellness, race, BitCoin, and art all appear as talking points. Users can jump between discussions and engage as much as they want. Some sessions are more instructive, and some are simply enjoyable hangouts, making the format fun, flexible, and genuinely useful. 

So it’s not just the endless spewing of Twitter bullsh*t, terrible Facebook opinions, or vacuous Instagram poses you might be used to seeing. It’s a completely different social media experience that potentially opens it up to amazing possibilities, depending on how it expands.

Clubhouse has exploded. The humble app went from several thousand users in mid-2020 to over 3 million in January 2021, 8 million in February, and 13 million in March. Its growth shows no signs of slowing down. 

A third of those downloads took place in the good ol’ US of A. But the app is also gaining momentum in Germany, Brazil, Russia, and Malaysia, with Italy, the UK, and South Korea also latching on very quickly.

What is it about Clubhouse? Well, celebrity endorsements haven’t hurt it one bit. Drake, Elon Musk, and Kevin Hart are all members. Even *whisper it* Oprah has shown up in chatrooms. And its speakers hold social weight – Silicon Valley high-fliers are among many of its “elite” clientele. A Clubhouse account is something of a status symbol right now.

How can Clubhouse benefit midlifers?

“Clubhouse might well be the social media app midlifers have been waiting for.”

Team Vippi

There’s plenty of guidance on career development, early retirement, entrepreneurship, and investor pitching. It mostly involves experts talking about personal optimization and how to get the most out of every day while financially bolstering yourself, but it’s growing more varied by the week.

The common theme is that it’s social media with purpose and without a filter.

But you don’t just have to be the one listening – you can set up your own room. And voila! You now have both a radio show, a social following, and chatroom. You can meet new people based on your specialism. It can be a powerful element of personal branding if you’re looking for new work or investment because:

1. It shows just how up-to-speed you are with current trends and communication methods.
2. You’re a subject matter expert who’s unafraid of becoming an influencer and speaking about what they know.
3. You can invite other subject matter experts into your room to boost your network.
4. If you casually announce in a job interview that you run a Clubhouse room as well as, say, uploading YouTube tutorials and penning LinkedIn blog articles, it shows that you’re a forward-thinking individual who’s deeply passionate and knowledgeable about their chosen field.

Access

If you can gain access to a much-sought-after Clubhouse membership, you can treat it as a living, breathing extension of LinkedIn. The engagement is superb, and people have already built firm followings in their rooms.

The difference between Clubhouse and LinkedIn, though, is that LinkedIn feels very curated and deliberate. Clubhouse, on the other hand, features audio conversations that put you more in the driving seat, both as a listener and moderator. They’re fantastic sister platforms.

You’ll also be relieved to know that you don’t have to switch on your camera at all – it’s audio-only. That’ll be music to the ears of Gen X-ers who want to take part in seminars but can’t deal with yet more Zoom after a year of COVID.

What happens on Clubhouse?

Clubhouse isn’t only a gathering of industry leaders and key thinkers talking business (although there’s certainly an emphasis on that at the moment).

A Clubhouse theater scene has flourished in light of physical theaters being closed during the pandemic, and there’s an emerging Clubhouse dating scene if you’re looking to get back out in the world after a divorce or bereavement.

Heck, there’s even karaoke if you feel like busting out Never Gonna Give You Up without showing your face.

You can easily hop between the industry chats, self-help and wellness talks, and panel discussions as you see fit. Chats are run by Moderators, who can invite listeners to contribute and relegate unruly contributors back to the role of listeners.

The crucial element: Nothing is recorded. What happens in Clubhouse, stays in Clubhouse. This means that the conversations are free-flowing, unfiltered, and insightful (if, on occasion, pretty raw).

Who can use Clubhouse?

Despite its booming popularity, Clubhouse’s user base is actually quite restrictive – for now. You can’t join without an invite (they clearly don’t want random stragglers to trash the house party just yet). It’s also only available for iPhone (and not yet even optimized for iPad), but the developers are planning an Android expansion in the near future.

You can set up a username and add yourself to a waiting list for access. And however funny you find HughJanus69, make sure you choose a professional, slick username that highlights some aspect of who you are and what you have to offer.

Likewise with your profile pic: use that company headshot or get your children to take an Insta-worthy portrait shot on their phone of you looking a million bucks.

Remember, there’s no video, so your username and profile pic are going to be people’s impression of your brand – make it stick. Think of it like dolling yourself up for a disco night out. The slicker you look, the more people are going to come over to your corner to hang with you, and so your network expands.

How to get invited

Well, there’s the rub! Every new user only gets two invites, so they’re usually extremely selective about who gets them. 

Invites are going up on eBay and there’s “pay-it-forward” invite schemes as well. But scammers are everywhere. In the early days of Spotify, for example, people would sell 12-month subscriptions for $25 and then just… keep the money without doing anything.

So if you can’t get a friend to invite you, it’s best to wait to join until the site becomes more widely available.

The drawbacks of Clubhouse

The absence of recording means that conversations can get a little bit extreme. In the age of tweets from a decade ago coming back to haunt us, there’s freedom in being able to speak publicly without the risk of being recorded.

Free speech is awesome. But it sometimes lends itself to pretty brutal content, and this has led to an occasionally “bro-y” environment that can freewheel into misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and racism.

There aren’t really site moderators, as such – even though the “moderator” of the conversation can kick harmful contributors out, there’s nothing in place that stops the person wandering into another chat and doing the same. No one gets kicked off the site for the content of their speech.

Some will see the lack of moderation as a good thing, but others will see it as an open invitation for harassment and bullying. Only time will tell whether this turns out to be truly harmful or whether Clubhouse finds a balance between protecting and censoring their users.

Takeaway

You might have had enough of social media – but give Clubhouse a chance (when you can get hold of it).

At the very least, you’ll gain some food for thought and perspective from industry leaders in the same way as a podcast. But you also stand a very strong chance of building up a great network while you engage with investors and thought leaders.

While Clubhouse is growing, it’s still relatively new and has only really boomed in 2021. So you’ve still got a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor as a moderator. Finally, those Silicon Valley bros have remembered our generation.

Article resources

Curry. D, et al. (2021). Clubhouse revenue and usage statistics (2021).  https://www.businessofapps.com/data/clubhouse-statistics/#:~:text=Most%20of%20Clubhouse’s%20growth%20has,all%20active%20on%20the%20app. 

Griffith, E. (2021). What is Clubhouse? The invite-only chat app explained. https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-apps/131466/what-is-clubhouse-the-invite-only-chat-app-explained 

Kurutz, S. (2021). Join Clubhouse! Umm, what is Clubhouse? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/at-home/clubhouse-app-explainer.html 

O’Connor, D. (2021). Everything you need to know about Clubhouse. https://www.thecut.com/article/what-is-clubhouse-the-new-social-media-chat-app.html 

Tillman, M. (2021). What is Clubhouse and why is everyone talking about it? https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/155697-what-is-clubhouse-how-does-it-work-how-to-join