Maximizing Your Clubhouse Presence: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know Make the most out of the time you're spending on Clubhouse. Here's how to use the social media app strategically to boost your influence and build brand awareness.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Have you gotten a Clubhouse invites yet? Once you're in this audio-only social club, you have the opportunity to highlight your company and enhance your brand.
However, if you show up in a room and start reeling off a sales pitch, you're going to turn people off.
What works better? Creating authentic connections by sharing valuable information and building relationships. These tips will help you be a good Clubhouse participant and increase your credibility on the fast-growing platform:
1. Give more than you get
No one is heading to Clubhouse hoping for a voice-only product pitch. People are flocking to this platform because they're looking for connection in a time of social distancing and isolation.
Make sure you're focused on giving — sharing your expertise, being an interesting and non-salesy conversational partner. When you give back, you'll grow your influence and attract more of the right people to your brand in the long run.
Related: How to Get Invited to Clubhouse
2. Be strategic
You don't have unlimited hours in the day, and you want to make the most of your opportunities to connect on Clubhouse. Research the rooms and conversations that make the most sense for you to join.
If there's a room you're planning to join, have an elevator pitch and some key points ready. You don't want to sound like a robot pitching your product. Take advantage of the opportunity to stand out and hit the raised hand button to request to be called onto the stage. Once on stage, focus on providing value either by sharing insights or providing feedback and questions that enrich the conversation.
Your Clubhouse bio is another important space where being strategic pays off. Focus on what you want to be known for, include what you do and who you help as well as all of the basics. Optimize your bio so that it is both engaging and searchable. Use keywords related to your expertise to increase your discoverability and drive visits to your profile.
3. Make connections
The big names jumping on Clubhouse are getting a lot of airtime: Oprah, Mark Cuban, Kevin Hart. Joining their chats can be a good idea to see how major influencers are guiding conversations or increasing engagement.
However, you can derive more benefit and make a bigger name for yourself if you niche down.
Instead of attending celebrity rooms, focus on the ones that are specific to your industry or your area. You'll meet people who can give you advice, provide referrals and have a bigger impact on your overall brand.
Related: Clubhouse Is Now Valued at $4 Billion, Thanks to Its Latest Round of Funding
4. Form a squad
There's plenty of Clubhouse love to go around, as rooms and conversations are being formed daily. Find a few people who are interested in similar topics and support each other.
You can join each other's rooms or create collaborative panel discussions that add dimension to your offerings.
For example, if you're a leadership development coach, you might consider bringing an energy management coach into one of your sessions to focus on boosting your team's energy and capacity. If you're a gym owner, you might partner with a local influencer who can speak to the value of personal training services.
If you partner with people whose audiences intersect yours, you'll both benefit and better establish your value within the community. You can also get permission from Clubhouse room guests to share their feedback (you must explicitly state it as a purpose of your room), which you can repurpose on other social channels.
5. Don't make it all about you
Instead of approaching Clubhouse to create rooms and lead conversations solely about your products or services, look for conversations where you can be an active, informed contributor and harness the power of collaboration and networking. Search for people or groups that interest you, whether they're in your area of expertise or have a tangential connection.
When you jump into those conversations and provide useful information, you'll gain respect and build thought leadership. You may find people reaching out to learn more about you because of the useful information you offer, which gives you a chance to forge stronger connections or to share your products/services more organically.
6. Migrate good conversations to other platforms
If you're really connecting with the people in a room, figure out a way to connect with them off Clubhouse as well. That might mean creating a strong value statement for yourself in your Clubhouse bio and linking your Instagram or Twitter account so they can find you.
When there's interest in what you have to say, capitalize on it and find ways to move them toward a stronger, more personal connection.
The biggest and best thing you can do on Clubhouse is to sell yourself without hard-selling yourself. Make yourself and your brand irresistible to the people you interact with because you're well-spoken, interesting, and compelling.
Don't be afraid to experiment and to go outside your comfort zone. Take advantage of this tremendous opportunity to showcase yourself authentically, perfect your elevator pitch, and to attract the kind of people you most want to work with or have as clients.