My First Week on Clubhouse

If you have no idea what Clubhouse is dont feel out of the loop. Up until Wednesday (December 3, 2020) I didn’t know what it was either. I was listening to the Kontent Queens podcast by NotoriousKia and Vicstyles and they mentioned a new social media app unlike any other. They talked about the real connections they have been able to make and how it has been “life changing”. If you thought life changing was an exaggeration, so did I when I first heard about it. That same day I saw another person that I follow Jennifer Lucy Tyler upload a picture of her Clubhouse profile on instagram and make a similar claim.

This now peaked my interest and let’s note how word of mouth marketing is still a great form of marketing and moves people through the funnel quickly. I found myself googling how to get an invite for Clubhouse and once I saw people were selling their invites I decided I was no longer interested. Not even an hour later I was asking my best friend Jana if she’d heard of Clubhouse and she told me she just joined and sent me an invite. It almost felt too simple. Once I got in I was nothing short of amazed.

When you first come into Clubhouse your contacts are notified that you are new and Clubhouse sets up a welcome party for you. My ever networking friend Jeremiah popped in my welcome room and told me he was giving an orientation the next day. At 9:30am the indoctrination of Clubhouse began and I have been hooked ever since.

Clubhouse is in beta, meaning that it is only being rolled out to a small invite only group and tested before being made available to the rest of the world. While in beta I am assuming they originally put out their MVP and are making regular updates. Due to that there are a lot of capabilities users wish the app had but, since it doesn’t an unlimited amount of workarounds have been created by the large black community on the app. The following are just a of the workarounds I’ve witnessed.

1. Using the mute button as clapping
2. Using the mute button as a way to notify the moderator you want to speak
3. New Lingo “PTR” Pull to Refresh
4. DMing without a DM feature

The workarounds are icing but the cake of the app is the rooms. There are rooms about every topic you can think of and you can create rooms of your own. The first two days I was very nervous to talk on an app with strangers but the conversations in all the rooms I joined were scintillating. On day 3 my friend A’sha and I decided to create a room recapping one of the shows we both watched. We laughed so hard and walked away with some great memories. I got to know her friends and other people I never would have met anytime soon especially since we are in lockdown again.

I think Clubhouse couldn’t have come at a better time. We are all still kinda stuck in the house and craving real connections. Being able to drop in on real time conversations and join in if you want makes you feel closer to people. Before you know it the hours have flown by and you have procrastinated all the things you said you were going to do. This isn’t a great reality but is the sign of a great social media experience. It doesn’t hurt that celebrities are on the app and if you get brought on stage in one of the rooms you get to have real time conversations with them. An experience you never would have been afforded any other way. There are stories of people getting jobs, gigs, networking with industry leaders and peers doing the same thing. Clubhouse is an app centered on community and with a year like 2020 it is what we needed.