If you are an event professional and you’re not already exploring the Clubhouse App, you might be surprised by the following statistic.
As of March 2021, Clubhouse has 20 million weekly active users. This is TEN TIMES where they were in January 2021 with 2 million, and the numbers continue to climb globally.
If you’re not familiar with the app, Clubhouse is an audio-only social networking platform that launched in March of 2020. The app was built by co-founders Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth, and while it’s currently only available on iPhones, Clubhouse is developing an Android version that’s coming in May.
What’s Clubhouse really like? Think of it as a mix between listening to a podcast and sitting at a table during your favorite conference with others in your field you’ve never met before. It’s like that. And after a long year of social distancing and missing connecting in-person at events, it fills a need for emotional connection in many of us.
The Clubhouse App is buzzing with event industry experts and professional speakers actively engaging in real time on the platform. They’re sharing their strengths, questions, insights, and predictions for our industry. They’re collaborating on rooms, building clubs, and finding like-minded partners for projects. And they’re taking conversations outside of the Clubhouse platform where they’re making deals.
Here are three ways that I believe that Clubhouse will enhance the event industry and improve attendee experience.
1. Expands the conversation outside of the conference or event’s app.
Think of Clubhouse as an opportunity to take conversations outside the platform. Clubhouse can become part of a hybrid event strategy. Just as you would create a campaign or a hashtag around an upcoming event, consider creating a similarly-branded club or room around your event, and promote it to attendees.
For attendees looking for a way to connect and engage beyond a chat box in your event app, Clubhouse can provide that connection by creating a means for conversation.
2. Provides the framework for exclusive member-only content and access to talent.
As the name indicates, Clubhouse has the ability to create clubs, and as part of a club, you can create a room that is either open to all or is for members only. You can also decide to make some rooms public and reserve others for exclusive member content.
To provide additional value to paid or VIP event attendees, consider paying and inviting your keynote speakers, celebrities, and emcees to participate in the conversation after the session, allowing for real-time Q&A and exclusive access.
3. Builds communities.
In 2021, an emerging trend across industries is towards building communities – of clients, fans, employees and like-minded individuals. As we have all dealt with social distancing over the past year, we are eager to feel connected, and communities help us do that.
What is new to this phenomenon is that when I asked event professionals about industry trends for 2021, communities are becoming a compelling part of considering which events to register and attend. I’ve heard that some of these communities are driving the creation of events, versus the traditional pattern of events creating communities, which I found fascinating and will certainly be an event trend to watch.
The co-founders of Clubhouse are considering other interesting ways to leverage the app including:
- Company town halls and meetings
- Concerts and comedy shows, paid or free
- 24-7 news channels
- Celebrity interviews
- Charitable events to raise awareness and financially benefit a cause
The Clubhouse App is only continuing to grow, and when the Android version becomes available later this spring, and competing audio-only platforms emerge, I expect audio-only format use to surge. Now is definitely the right time to evaluate Clubhouse as part of your event strategy.
AAE Speakers has launched the Event Insiders Club on Clubhouse, and I invite you to join our conversations. We’re talking with industry leaders about ways to make all of our events and conferences better. Our rooms are growing, so join us! Whether you’re new to Clubhouse or a long-time user, this is a fun, emerging community to become a part of. If you’re an event professional and iPhone user looking for an invite, send me a DM, and I’m happy to help you get started leveraging Clubhouse to expand the reach of your event. See you in the club!
