Lately, I can barely open my news feed on either of the social networks I participate in without seeing yet another post about Clubhouse.
Some of my friends in business are doing amazing things with it.
Some tried it and decided it wasn’t for them.
Now, I’m Hearing People Say Clubhouse Will Be The “Death Of Podcasting”. (No, It Won’t.)
Listen: there have been so many “deaths of e-mail marketing” over the past few years – the Gmail tabs, CASL, GDPR were all supposed to kill it off – and what happened every time?
Those who had been doing e-mail marketing the right way all along not only had nothing to fear, but a lot to gain due to these shifts culling the herd of spammers and bad actors.
Plus, Clubhouse includes pretty much everything EXCEPT the unique value that launching and hosting your podcast provides.
We’ll get to that in a second.
Granted, Clubhouse Is An Awesome Platform, If It’s Your Thing…
First, Clubhouse is really easy to use.
Once you get an invite and set up your account, you can immediately dive into conversations and rub elbows with people who almost definitely do not offer free strategy sessions and will not ordinarily leap at any offer to hop on a call real quick so anyone can pick their brain.
However, within the framework of Clubhouse, you actually CAN do some of these things, largely because the connotations about those phrases is not present within the mindframe of what Clubhouse is about.
One of our recent guests on the Business Creators’ Radio Show has acquired a huge Clubhouse following and is monetizing it like crazy. (Tell him I sent you when you reach out, he’s an awesome guy.)
Since Clubhouse is all about making connections, you can get booked on lots of shows and find great guests for your own show.
In that sense, I agree, Clubhouse is good for podcasting.
However, Clubhouse Is Absolutely NOT A Replacement For Launching And Hosting Your Podcast!
Problem #1 is you have to stay within an app rather than use a website. No web-based interface. GALACTIC fail on their part, and I won’t stop saying so.
In contrast – your podcast website, as well as syndication networks like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Libsyn, Blubrry, Audible, and so many more, are easily accessed using ANY current-standards device or operating system.
Problem #2 can be found in the limitations of Clubhouse:
You cannot record or download the audios of your conversations (yeah, I’m sure there’s a hack, just like the ones that let anyone download your YouTube or Facebook video to their hard drive, but still)
It’s ethically and culturally a bad form – possibly a TOS violation, and you could get into usage rights issues sharing what other people say – to multipurpose any content generated within Clubhouse onto any other platform
It doesn’t stream or syndicate anywhere – the conversations never leave the bubble of Clubhouse so they will do exactly nothing for your search-engine marketing in the way launching and hosting a podcast will
Problem #3 is the simple fact that it’s not the same conversation.
When you interview a guest on your podcast, it’s a 1-on-1 conversation where you build the know, like, and trust that leads to business relationships in a focused way.
Clubhouse does not give you a “green room” to do the business-talk part of the deal the way podcasting does.
And while it allows other people to listen and even chime in to your conversation, it requires them to be physically present within Clubhouse…
…unlike podcast episodes, which continue to work as your unpaid 24/7/365 salesperson for years, on multiple platforms simultaneously, to an asynchronous audience.
Hang Out In The Clubhouse If You Want, But Nothing Gets You R.E.A.C.H. Like Launching Your Podcast
If you’re on Clubhouse and using it effectively, you’re laying groundwork for designing your three podcasting avatars and identifying your First Division Launch Lineup – two key components of The Podcast R.E.A.C.H. System.
Plus, when you hold your Townhalls, you can say “subscribe to my podcast”, which boosts your listeners and downloads over time.
Now put 1+1 together and make them equal more than 3 by launching and hosting your podcast:
And I will add…that the sheer amount of FOMO generated by people posting in complete and utter desperation of needing an invite just boggles my mind. It’s as if being on Clubhouse is some new form of crack. Unfortunately, very few will benefit from this social network, the rest will be victims of yet another shiny object that they believe would be their saving grace in helping them be better marketers.
I’ve seen it with so many things that have come and gone. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon with all these bright shiny objects, because FOMO. A small amount of people take the time to actually master it and own it.
When the flash wears off and the dust settles, what’s always still there, plugging away?
– High-quality, engaging content
– Search engine marketing, including the “backlinks” they say will “go away”
– E-mail marketing
– Podcasting (which has been around a lot longer in basically its current form than most people realize)
The only thing I’ve seen “catch” in the past 7-10 years is livestreaming, and that’s basically merged with podcasting – in fact, it’s an optional component within R.E.A.C.H.