How to get started, not get stuck in and how to turn it to your digital marketing advantage.
Every now and again I like to stray from the SEO path and talk about other types of Digital Marketing.
Because of course, they all help improve your SEO.
This week it’s a solo episode, with just me, myself, and I, and I want to discuss the new kid on the social media app block.
Clubhouse.
Some of you may already have dipped your toe in the Clubhouse pond, only to discover it’s full of willy-waving 7-figure entrepreneurs, and heart-centred coaches talking about authentic brands.
Some of you might have discovered amazing new connections and chums to banish the loneliness.
Or perhaps you think it’s a social media app too far and really can’t be arsed.
Or you’re on Android and just have to wait.
But in this episode, I’m going to give you the ultimate guide to Clubhouse.
How to get started, how not to let it take over your life, and how to turn it to your digital marketing advantage.
Tune in to learn:
- What is Clubhouse?
- The language and etiquette of the platform
- How to get started
- How to write your bio
- How to moderate a room
- How to start a club
- Who to follow
- How to improve your Clubhouse confidence
- How to use Clubhouse to build your brand
Listen to the podcast
Share the love
If you like what you’re hearing on The Recipe for SEO Success Show, support the show by taking a few seconds to leave a rating and/or comment on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher. Thanks!
And big thanks to Melissa Chandler for their lovely review:
“I’m so glad I came across this podcast. It’s full of helpful tips and fun angles that make my SEO juices flow.”
Share the meme
Useful links
- Clubhouse app
- Your first 7 days to Clubhouse Guide
- Digital Masterchefs
- Misfit Entrepreneurs on Facebook
- Request a club
- Link Tree
- Title Generator
Transcript
Kate Toon:
Every now and again I like to stray from the SEO path and talk about other types of digital marketing, because of course they all help improve your SEO. This week it’s a solo episode, just me, myself and I, and I want to discuss the new kid on the social media app block, Clubhouse. Some of you may have already dipped your toe into the Clubhouse pond, only to discover it’s full of willy-waving seven figure entrepreneurs and heart-centered coaches talking about authentic branding. Some of you might have discovered amazing new connections and friends to banish the loneliness, or perhaps you think it’s a social media app too far, and really can’t be arsed or you’re on Android and just have to wait. But in this episode, I’m going to give you the ultimate guide to Clubhouse, how to get started, how not to let it take over your life and how to turn it to your digital marketing advantage.
Kate Toon:
Hello, my name is Kate Toon. I’m the head chef at The Recipe for SEO Success, an online teaching hub for all things related to search engine optimization and digital marketing. And this week I’m talking Clubhouse. And if you’ve already discovered the app, you might find it a little bit intimidating. So I wanted to do an episode which takes you through all the elements of it, what it is, how it works, how to get the most out of it. And it’s just going to be me today, because I’m the most expert expert I know on Clubhouse right now. And honestly, no one’s an expert. I’ve only been on the platform six weeks myself, but it has had a major impact on my business. And I wanted to share that with you. So let’s get stuck in. What is Clubhouse? Clubhouse is a new platform that lets people chat in real time, share stories, give business advice and tips just using your little old voice.
Kate Toon:
It’s like having a conversation with some like-minded humans that just happens to be all over the other side of the world. And unlike Zoom, you can do it in your knickers because no one can see you, which is delightful. You can simply download the app only on Apple at the moment and use your phone mic. There’s no fancy equipment required. There are lots of rooms where people are talking about plugging in their Yeti mic or whatever. But most audio sounds pretty good just with the app and your regular phone. The thing is, once you get into Clubhouse, it has its own little language and its own etiquette. So I wanted to take you through some of that first. When you first get into the app, there’s something called a hallway, which is a bit like your Facebook wall where you can see all the different rooms going on.
Kate Toon:
So it’s like walking down a corridor, opening a door, listening into the room, deciding that’s not for you and then leaving quietly. So rooms are spaces where people gather to chat and the rooms are broken into three areas; the stage where the moderators and speakers are, you can see the person speaking because their little face will be flashing and they have a little green circle next to them to show that they are a moderator. The front row. These are people who are connected by one or more of the moderators, so they’re followed by the moderators and the audience, and that’s everyone else. They can only listen. So people in the front row and the audience, we can’t hear them. You can only be heard when you step up on stage and when you unmute your mic. Another part of Clubhouse are the clubs. So you can actually register clubs which are not related to you as an individual.
Kate Toon:
They’re like collections of humans. Think of them like communities. You can get invites to them, people can join them, be followers, and you host rooms through your club. Bit confusing. You don’t have to have a club to host a room, but if you have a club, you can host your room through it. I’m going to talk a bit more about that throughout the episode. So some clubhouse phrases, raise your hand. That means you click the little hand at the bottom of the screen and you can be invited onto the stage by the moderators. Reset the room. So that is when the group moderators pause, reintroduce themselves and the topic of the room. Some room moderators do this all the time, and they’ve got like 17 moderators. So it’s super frustrating hearing all of them tell you how wonderful they are again. So yeah, that’s not fun.
Kate Toon:
Add value, these people. It’s when you say, “Hey, does anyone have a question?” And someone puts their hand up, just like at a conference and says, “Hey, look, I don’t have a question, but I’d like to add some value.” And sometimes they do. And sometimes they don’t. So there’s lots of Clubhouse etiquette, which you’ll discover as you journey through the platform. If you do get invited up on stage, you must mute your mic. It’s super distracting if you’re banging away at something in the background or your cat is barking … cat barking, you know what I mean. This is background noise. It will ruin the flow for everybody else. It’s an audio only platform. So if you take over the audio, everybody in the room is going to hear you. So mute your mic when you join the stage. You can flash your mic fast when you’re on the stage to clap.
Kate Toon:
You can flash it slow to try and get the attention of other moderators to say that you want to speak. Often it’s just like seagulls fighting over a chip, all the moderators wants to speak. So that’s one way you can manage that. It’s really important to decide your moderation style and decide your speaking style. I’ll talk more about this as we go through. You want to give the moderators a bit of love. You don’t want to interrupt people because you wouldn’t like to be interrupted. When you’ve had enough time to speak and you’re done, you can leave the stage. You can also leave the room. You shouldn’t really promo too much. No one likes a promo-er. And of course, remember you do not know who’s in the room. So be careful what you say. Anyone can be listening.
Kate Toon:
So in Clubhouse there are huge rooms with 5,000 people in them and there are smaller, more intimate rooms with 20, 30 people. You go to some rooms and there’s already 60 people on the stage. You go to others and there’s only two or three. Which rooms you decide you want to get involved with will be up to you. Some people like to listen and lurk. Some people like to interact, and one of the questions I get asked is, “If I’m in a big room, how long should I wait to ask my question?” “I’m in a room with Amy Porterfield. I could get a chance to speak to Amy Porterfield. How long would you wait?” Well, it depends what else you’re doing. If you’re washing up and going for a wee, you can wait as long as you like. If you’ve got work to do, then maybe you won’t wait so long.
Kate Toon:
And if it’s a really valid question and you just want to rub shoulders with someone famous. So one of the first things you do when you head over to Clubhouse, sign up and I’ll include links to all of these things in the show notes. First of all, you’re going to choose your handle. Your handle’s your @-whatever. So I’m @katetoon. I’m @katetoon on Instagram. I’m @katetoon on LinkedIn, and I’m @katetoon on Clubhouse. The people who run Clubhouse recommend that your @, your handle should be your own name, not a business name because it’s kind of a person-to-person platform. So you’re going to choose your handle, you can even do that now, even if you’re not on the app, you don’t have an invite, you can do that now if you’re on an Apple phone. And then you have to wait for an invite to be invited onto the platform. They’re trying to do that whole FOMO thing.
Kate Toon:
But there are loads of invites going around. At one point I heard they’re exchanging hands for like $3,000. If you need an invite, lots of people in my Misfit Entrepreneur community have invites, just go in there, do a post, someone will have one. So once you’ve got your invite, you’ve got your handle, you are in the platform. One of the first things you’ll be prompted to do is set up your bio. So let me talk you through that. Your bio is what people see when they click on your profile picture, and the editor that you can use is just the basic plain text editor. There’s no markup, no hyperlinking or formatting really. It’s like plain text emails. I like to edit mine in the notes app on my phone and then cut and paste it in. So what you want to include are things like your, obviously your handle will be there.
Kate Toon:
You’ll also get to choose a picture. The picture should be of your face, not your business logo. It should show you nice and clearly on a clear background. You don’t want to let your cousin Kevin’s elbow edging into the shot. Strong contrast in colours work well. And then don’t keep changing your picture. You want to keep it consistent. After time, you will get recognised in rooms. And if you go onto Clubhouse, you’ll see, I have a picture of me as Wonder Woman, and that has caused quite a stir. So quite interesting, which profile you’re going to pick. Some people and frames to make them pop. I’m going to include a little link to a tool in the show notes that will help you do that. If you really need to have something flashy, then go for it. But really, hopefully your profile will speak for itself, or you will speak for yourself.
Kate Toon:
That’s the whole point of the platform, right? So your bio is your opportunity to talk about yourself. You can include what you like. Go and check out mine @katetoon. You’ll see what I’ve included. First up is a brief description. Only about the first 30 or so characters can be seen when someone taps on your profile picture. They have to double tap to see the full thing. So make those first 30 words count. You can either make it a description of what you do, how you help people. I’ve kind of shown off in mine a little bit. So it depends. I think you should experiment there. Then you want to have a longer description, including who you are, what you do, who you do it for. You want to have topics that you like to talk about because that’s going to help with your Clubhouse SEO, helping you get found. You could list some upcoming rooms that you’re hosting, any awards, maybe a mention of whatever lead magnet you have, some personal info, you’ve got a cat.
Kate Toon:
What pronouns you use to describe yourself, how you say your name, lots of people have pronunciation guides in there. You’ll also get the opportunity to link up your Instagram and your Twitter, but that’s it. You can’t link your Facebook or your LinkedIn or anything else right now. Some people go crazy with the emojis. I think keep them to a limit, it can look slightly hysterical if you’ve got like 72 emojis of rainbows and unicorns. Just keep it on the lowdown. So once you’ve built your bio, you’ve got your picture, you’re ready to venture out into the world of Clubhouse and it can be a bit daunting. So first thing is going to be deciding who you’re going to follow. You can use the search to search for people with interests that you like, similar topics.
Kate Toon:
You can look for people’s names that you know. You can also pull in your contacts and see if there’s anybody who is already on the platform that you know already. You’ll probably have already been given a few famous people. So if you start to see a lot of seven figure entrepreneur groups, it might be because Clubhouse gave you some notable influences when you joined. So you can go and unfollow those. And otherwise your feed, your wall, your hallway is going to be full of fancy-pants massive rooms. And maybe right now, you just want to go into smaller rooms. If you get the opportunity set up a club, at the time of recording this podcast, it actually closed off the ability to set up clubs because I think they’ve just had so many applications. So clubs are communities where people can gather. I have a club, it’s called The Misfit Entrepreneurs.
Kate Toon:
I named it, not after myself or after one of my businesses, but after a community I have on Facebook called The Misfit Entrepreneurs, which is also my book. It’s kind of what I call myself. I’m not a real entrepreneur. I’m a misfit entrepreneur. So it felt like it was inclusive to lots of people. It was interesting, and it’s building quite well. It’d be great to have a club from get go, lots of people are still waiting, but try and get one as soon as you can. Just keep testing the link, which I’ll include in the notes for the episode. And hopefully they’ll open that up again soon. People can either follow your club, you can invite them to be members, and then you have a choice about whether you want to allow other people to host rooms in your club.
Kate Toon:
My friend, Tony Cosentino has a WordPress Q&A club, and he allows other people to host rooms. I’m not letting other people host rooms in the Misfit Entrepreneur because it’s kind of my brand and I don’t want what anything they do to reflect badly on me. So clubs are a bit … they’re good. We can’t quite see how they’re working, there’s a lot of admin involved. You have to manually add people one by one, but I’m sure they’ll improve on that as the platform moves along. Now, the biggest issue of Clubhouse is not being confident about speaking. I think it’s really important to set your intention when you go on the platform, otherwise you could be on there for hours. So today I just want to listen and get comfortable, or today I want to speak in at least one room.
Kate Toon:
Today I want to make one connection with somebody in my industry. Today I want to run a room, build my authority and get some more followers. Think about your intention as you’re going in and that might vary on the time of day. I’ve got a lot of speaking tips and as an accompaniment to this episode, I do have all of these points in a little downloadable guide, called Your First Seven Days on Clubhouse. So if you head to the show notes for this episode or head to katetoon.com/club, you can grab that downloadable and go through all these tips and stuff there. It’s really cool. So I’ll carry on. It’s really important that you warm up before speaking. Don’t let the first time you speak on Clubhouse be the first time you speak today. Do some me-me-me, some fa-fa-fa’s, have a glass of water, but don’t have that awful lip smacking sound. Horrible, horrible. Hate that sound.
Kate Toon:
Learn to use pauses. It’s tricky just like on this podcast, because often people can say um and uh because they’re trying to talk too fast and their brain can’t catch up. Um and uh is the brain buffering, trying to find the next thought. So take a breath and wait for the next thought to come. You don’t need to race through everything. Now I’m lucky I get to record a lot of podcasts. I know what my foibles are when it comes to speaking. I have some idioms that I say again and again. I can get a bit Northern when I’m angry or tired. So I’ve worked on my voice a little bit. If you’re listening to this podcast still, maybe you’re okay with my voice, took me a while to be okay with it. You’re going to find that you hate the sound of your own voice. We all feel like that, but you get used to it.
Kate Toon:
I think it’s a good idea if you’re waiting on stage to speak to practice what you’re going to say so it doesn’t come out in a jumble. When you get on stage, most of the time you’ll be asked to introduce yourself. Don’t just launch into your question. So you can say, “Hello. My name is Kate Toon. I’m an entrepreneur here in Australia. I like cheese. And my question today is…” Or “Hi, my name is Kate Toon. I’m an SEO and copywriting digital marketing mentor. And the point I wanted to add today is blah, blah, blah.” So get that little intro ready, make sure it’s not a monologue or soliloquy. We don’t need a 17 minute introduction. Just get stuck in. Don’t start with an apology. Don’t say, “I’m so sorry. I hope it’s okay to ask this.” Don’t apologise for taking up too much time.
Kate Toon:
Yes, be succinct. You don’t want to waffle on, but take your space. Hold the mic. Say what you have to say. Super important to be present. If you’re waiting on stage, you could be called upon at any time, so don’t go scrilling off to have a wee and then suddenly you’re called up on stage and you have to hold that wee in. Be present. If you’re just in the audience, you can do what you like. You can just bumble about. I think it’s important to listen to the other speakers, acknowledge them, refer back to the points that they made, mirror the language that they have. That’s just going to help you ease into the room a little bit gentler, easier. So you have joined the platform, set your bio up, found some people to follow and practiced your speaking, now you’re ready to moderate and collaborate.
Kate Toon:
So you can set up a room really easily. You can just start a room on a whim at any time, or you can preschedule them using the little calendar function, which you’ll see when you get into the app. When you’re running a room as a moderator, you have all the power. You can promote speakers to be moderators. You can mute other speakers. You can send other speakers back to the audience. You can allow people in the audience to put their hand up. You can invite them up to speak, blah, blah, blah, power, power, power. You can also, if you add someone as a moderator, they can actually chuck you off. Don’t you be go adding moderators that you don’t know who they are. Make sure it’s people you trust.
Kate Toon:
And there’s strength in numbers. When you’re just starting out it can be quite comforting to have another moderator. I like to go in alone. I’m a solo beast. And if I do get other moderators, I explain to them how I like to moderate the room. I don’t like to have 17 people on the stage. I like people to be quick. So explain that to your other moderators so you’re not annoying each other. Often what I do is have a little Facebook chat open at the same time, so I can chat to them and say, “Oh God, let’s get this person off the stage. They’re a nightmare,” or whatever we need to say. When you’re coming up with your room titles, I think it’s a good idea to maybe use blog post headline generators.
Kate Toon:
Try to think about your room in terms of the topic, the audience and the benefit. What are they going to get out of listening to your room? So memberships for small businesses, make money, save time, boost your business brand, expert doable tips. I also like to add things like Q&A on the end and I also like to say how long it’s going to be, just to set people’s expectations. When you’re running a room, I mean, there are rooms … it’s so meta. There are rooms about running rooms, about running rooms in Clubhouse. I think it’s just important to be respectful. It is not a podcast. You’re not there to just preach to your audience. It’s meant to be interactive. You got to get pretty good at moving people up and off the stage if they’re rambling on. You don’t want to just sit there patting the bottom of your co-moderators.
Kate Toon:
It’s meant to be a levelling platform, an equalising platform. So don’t be all lofty and fa-fa-fa. Try and get in with the people and talk to them. So every now and again I think it’s a good idea to re-introduce the room, say what you’re talking about, maybe set some guidelines for the room. Like, “When you come up on stage, please only ask your question and try to keep it under two minutes.” Just keep saying that and then people will start to understand how you like to run things. I think you need to be a leader though and I think if people are offensive or they’re being rude, you need to get them off the stage. You can long press on someone to block them. I think you can encourage people to come up on stage, give them permission, ask them questions, and I think you don’t need to overly sell.
Kate Toon:
So listening to all of that might sound a bit overwhelming. Oh my goodness. And what is the point? What is the point of running rooms and moderating and having a club? Well, I think it’s going to be different for each person. Since I joined the platform, at time of recording, I have about six and a half thousand followers and many of them have then gone on to join my email list, join my Facebook group, connect with me via messages on Instagram and LinkedIn, and several of them actually went on to buy a membership in my Digital Masterchefs membership, because they’d heard me in the platform, I’d built up that know, like and trust and they were ready to take the next step. So I do think it can turn into sales, depending on your type of business.
Kate Toon:
I am a digital marketing coach. I have products and services that people can buy. If I was a service-based business, I think that could also work. I could promote my mad copywriting skills. If I’m an e-Commerce store, maybe it’s a bit harder. I don’t know if it’s going to be that easy to actually sell product through the platform. But of course you can talk and be friendly and build a community who then want to buy from you because they like you. So it can work for that as well. So one of the important things with Clubhouse is to really have the after-Clubhouse experience works out. As I said, right now, you can only link to your Twitter and your Instagram. So what’s on there? Do you have a Multilink link in your Instagram? So I’ve got a little start here page where it’s got all my different things that I offer.
Kate Toon:
You can have a Linktree link there. Mine’s just a page on my website. So I can say, “Hey, it was great chatting to you. If you want to get my free guide or you want to see my waitlist for the Digital Masterchefs, head here.” And people can take the next step. They can join up. They can join my email funnel and then I can market to them how I want. But other than that as well, if you enjoy a room, if you enjoy chatting someone, I think it’s fine to direct message them by Instagram and say, “Hey, I loved your stuff.” Several people have contacted me after Clubhouse rooms to say, “Will you be part of this virtual summit?” “Will you be a guest on this podcast?” I’ve won three, now, three paid speaking gigs through the platform and people connecting with me and asking me to speak on topics.
Kate Toon:
So it can move into other things. You just have to have those things ready to go. And if you enjoyed someone and you want to be on their podcast, whatever it may be, you can go to their messages and talk to them. It’s quite fun on Instagram, obviously you can leave an audio message so they’ve just heard your voice. Instead of writing out a message, you can leave them a voicemail instead. So, look, there’s a lot more I could say about the platform, but really, it’s not that complicated. You get on, you get used to being in the different rooms, you get used to the language, and then you decide whether you’re going to use it to learn, you’re going to use it for connection, collaboration, or you want to build your brand.
Kate Toon:
So I’m very much using it to build my brand. I’m seeing it as a top of funnel marketing strategy, much like a podcast or speaking at an event. And then I’m leading people down into my products and services. It can be a huge time suck, so really be aware of using it intentionally. I’m using it in the morning when I’m walking my dog or in the evening when I’m cooking. I’m not letting it interfere with my middle of the day. I’ve also found some amazing SEO buddies on there. One of the places I communicate with SEO people is Twitter, but I find Twitter a little bit intimidating if I’m honest, and Facebook groups can be a bit rah-rah, everyone trying to show off. But I found a really lovely collection of SEO humans on there, including Noah Learner who I’m going to be doing some Clubhouse rooms with.
Kate Toon:
He’s just a lovely dude. And for me, it’s great now to have somewhere where, if I’ve got a question about SEO, I feel I can go and ask that in a safe space where I’m not going to be judged and people go, “Why are you asking that question? That’s really basic.” It’s a great place to go and discuss things, get opinions. It’s actually built up my confidence quite a lot because the people in the SEO communities I’ve joined have been super friendly, which we know in the world of SEO, isn’t always true. So yeah, I’m really loving the platform. I really think you should dive in. If you do, come and find me @katetoon. I will make you for a welcome. I’m running rooms about SEO copywriting, SEO Q&A’s, but also about creating lead magnets, email funnels, running memberships, running businesses, money, all that kind of stuff.
Kate Toon:
Anyway, I’m babbling. I’m going to finish up. So that’s the end of this week’s show. Don’t forget to head to katetoon.com/club to download my seven-day free guide to Clubhouse. It’s also on my Instagram profile @katetoon, and you’ll find me on Clubhouse @katetoon as well. You can also search for my club, The Misfit Entrepreneurs. If you have questions about digital marketing, then feel free to head to my I Love SEO group on Facebook. And if you’re looking for a community that supports entrepreneurs and shares current digital marketing trends, check out the Digital Masterchefs, just Google it. Digital Masterchefs. The waitlist is currently open. I like to end the show with a shout-out to one of my listeners. And this is the lovely Melissa Chandler. Oh, thank you, Melissa. “I’m so glad I came across this podcast. It’s full of helpful tips and fun angles that make my SEO juices flow.”
Kate Toon:
How lovely is that? So if you enjoyed the show, please don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you heard it. Your review will help others find the show and learn more about the lovely world of search engine optimization and digital marketing. And you’ll get a shout out on the show. As I said, don’t forget to check out the show notes for this episode at therecipeforseosuccess.com, where you can learn more about Clubhouse, check out the useful links and leave a comment about the show. Until next time, I hope to Toon in to a room with you on Clubhouse soon.
