Clubhouse is a new audio-only, ios-only, invite-only social media platform which is still in beta, and yet is absolutely on fire. The Clubhouse experience is like going to a conference and instantly being able to pop into any room where panelists are on stage. And if you’re listening to something that’s interesting and you want to contribute, you can raise your hand and (most of the time) get called up. And if it’s content that’s not so interesting, well, you can leave quietly without the awkwardness of having to walk through a crowd.
Over the past month, the Clubhouse chatter has been getting louder, and we keep getting the same questions from our clients – “How can we use Clubhouse to leverage our podcast?”
Cee Cee Huffman and I discussed this on a recent episode of the Earfluence Podcast, and we came up with 3 ways:
1) Find new guests AND get on other podcasts. It’s all about the true connection. When you’re sending out a cold email or cold DM to a potential guest, you don’t quite have that connection yet and it’s easy for someone to ignore your message. Per Cee Cee, “because Clubhouse is all about that interaction, if you are in these rooms and you raise your hand and you talk and you kind of build a relationship there, you all of a sudden seem like more of a person and less of like a text. So you can build a more meaningful connection that way, and you can have somebody be a guest on your podcast after that. So maybe you’re in a room and you talk and you really hit it off and you say, ‘Hey, I was in your Clubhouse room. I have a podcast. I would really love if you could come and join it. I really liked what you talked about.’ I’m really excited about because it makes the world a lot smaller and makes new guests more attainable.”
2) Follow-up on episodes. Let’s say you’ve published a podcast episode with great guest, and you’ve got all this amazing content, but your listeners have questions about it. You can follow-up to that podcast in Clubhouse. This is a unique opportunity to truly connect with your fans, and all of a sudden, you’re building your base of raving superfans. Also people that aren’t listening to your podcast now might stumble into these rooms, be interested in your content, then go download your podcast.
3) Live interactive podcast episodes recorded on Clubhouse. If you want to create a totally different kind of podcast episode, maybe an Ask Me Anything, you have the opportunity to do that on Clubhouse. Make sure you schedule a room and let your audience know that you’ll be recording – and they have a chance to be on one of your shows! Now be careful, when you press the record button on your iphone, the Clubhouse app screams at you in a big scary red background, “Heads up – Sharing recordings without the speakers’ permission violates the Community Guidelines and will result in suspension. Thx!” So make sure it’s very explicit to all speakers that this is a recording! But if you make it clear and you involve your superfans, you have a fun unique (and easy) episode of your podcast.
With that, Clubhouse is a super powerful tool to help you promote your podcast and build your audience.
Hope to see you there soon!
Episode Transcript
Jason Gillikin: Welcome to The Earfluence Podcast, which is a podcast about podcasting from a full service podcast production company. I’m your host, Jason Gillikin, CEO of Earfluence, and with me as always is Cee Cee Huffman, social media manager, editor, producer, just in general, doer of all things at Earfluence. Cee Cee, what is happening?
Cee Cee Huffman: Nothing much. It’s the morning, Monday morning. So we’ve never recorded a podcast episode at this time, so I’m just still trying to get my brain going.
Jason Gillikin: Okay, good. Well the reason that we’re recording this is Clubhouse, and it is just so hot right now. And what we want to talk about is how can Clubhouse be used to amplify your podcast?
And I’ve been getting a lot of questions about that lately. One concern about Clubhouse: is Clubhouse gonna affect podcasting negatively? And then two, you know, what can we be doing to help promote our podcast by using Clubhouse? So that’s what we want to talk about today. So first and foremost, what is Clubhouse?
So for those of you who don’t know what it is –
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah, since it’s invite only.
Jason Gillikin: That’s exactly right. That’s one of the things, it is invite only, it is a new social media platform, and Cee Cee, you’re the social media manager. I am not, I’m not on media platforms as, as you are. And when I, when I heard about Clubhouse being another social media platform, I’m like, “Come on, do we, do we need to do a, another one?”
I, I’m already not very good at keeping up with Instagram, Twitter. I’ve made a hard pass on Pinterest and, and TikTok. But yeah, another social media platform. So yeah, are you able to keep up with all this stuff?
Cee Cee Huffman: I mean, who really is. It seems like, every couple of months, there’s something totally new that we’ve never seen before that we have to figure out how to adjust and adapt to because everybody else loves it.
But I really like Clubhouse because it is a social media platform that you don’t necessarily have to pay attention to all the time. So like Twitter, you have to scroll and read, Facebook you to scroll and read, Instagram you have to scroll and read. TikTok is like, you can maybe let it go and walk away, but then you listen to the same video, like 15 times if you’re not back soon enough, and so that gets kind of annoying.
But the way Clubhouse works is you walk into these rooms, and they can be on any kind of topic. And then there’s just a bunch of people in there talking, and you can, you know, talk with the hosts and listen to what they have to say, so it really is like a live podcast episode.
And you don’t have to be on your phone all the time, which is the thing that I really like about it. It’s like, a passive social media. And you can listen to it really the same way you listen to podcasts, which is I think why people are saying “Is Clubhouse going to kill podcasting?” I personally think no, because it’s not the same, even though it is similar, it’s the most similar, it’s probably the best audio only social media, and the only audio only social media platform that I know of right now, but I think it’s still very different because it is like a live kind of chat room. It’s just, you get to talk instead of type.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah, definitely. And it’s like, it’s like going to a conference that you’re interested in and instantly being able to pop into any room and listen to it.
Cee Cee Huffman: Right.
Jason Gillikin: So you can listen in to whatever you want to, but then, you know, maybe you’ll get called to the stage.
Like you can even raise your hand and say, “I would like to talk,” and the host of that room may or may not invite you up on the stage to talk about whatever it is that you want to talk about, and you can also just leave a room quietly, if you want to.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yes. I like that it says leave quietly, I think that’s funny.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah. If you were in a conference, there’s no awkwardness of having to get up and just leave and go to another one ’cause you’re kind of bored of that, that particular content. And you can start your own rooms as well. So, if you wanted to just go ahead and talk about whatever it is that’s important to you, or you think you can add value to a conversation on, you could start your own room.
It can be by yourself. It can be with other people. You can invite people to speak as well. So there’s just so many things that can be done, but like you mentioned, it is invite only, it is only on iOS right now. So, for your iPhone or iPad, and it is smoking hot right now. Over the past month, two months, I have heard so much about it. And it’s, it’s in beta form, so it’s still relatively new, but it is, it’s moving quickly.
Cee Cee Huffman: I will say that something that is interesting because you know, we’re diverse in our ages is all of the people who I’ve found on there, who I could like friend are older than me. There’s one person who’s my age who’s my friend that I’ve been able to find on there that I can add, which I think is interesting as well, because I feel like, I don’t know.
I wonder how long it’s going to take for the younger people to kind of find it and join it, or if it’s going to have to be until it’s out of this like, beta testing kind of format. I also think that’s probably because it’s more like being a subject matter expert in whatever you’re talking about, and you have to work a little bit to become a subject matter expert, but I do think that that’s an interesting thing to note
Jason Gillikin: Diverse in our ages is the most kind way I’ve ever heard somebody call me older. That is so nice.
Cee Cee Huffman: Diversity is key! It’s a good thing!
Jason Gillikin: It’s a good thing, yes. But so why like, do you think that under 25 year olds are going to go to Clubhouse or is it just slow or is it something that they’re, they’ll keep spending their time on you know, other things like TikTok, for example?
Cee Cee Huffman: I honestly, I don’t know. I think I know some people who are under 25 who would definitely be interested in it and who would like to join, but maybe haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet , but there are some people who I know would not have as much interest in it, just because they are more into the act of scrolling kind of social media versus the passive kind.
I think it really kind of depends on where you are in your life and what you’re really interested in because Clubhouse seems like a place where you can do a lot more learning. There’s some rooms where you can walk in and just like talk and, you know, not really do anything too meaningful, but it is really a learning platform.
And I think when you’re younger, you’re less inclined to want to join those platforms, especially if you’re in school. It’s like, “OK, well I learn all day. Do I really want to go and learn for fun on social media?” Some people, yes, but some people, no, so I’ll be interested to see, as it gets more popular, how many more young people join.
Jason Gillikin: That’s such a great point because, you know, when I was 25, I – it was all about an entertainment, right? And if I’m, if I’m using, if I’m going to, let’s say an espn.com, if I’m watching something, if I’m on social media – I wasn’t on social media at 25, but you get the point. Like, it wasn’t – like, reading for educational purposes and to grow professionally? Not really my thing at that time, you know? But, but now it certainly is, and maybe it’s because I’m older, maybe it’s because there’s just so much other, content out there that I’m aware of. BUt yeah, I’m guessing you’re right a part of it is because the, the older crowd wants to be educated more.
Cee Cee Huffman: Right.
Jason Gillikin: And that’s not a knock at all. Like, like you said, you’re, you’re, you’re already having gone through school so recently, and you’re already learning in so many of other ways when it comes to social media, you just kind of want to be entertained, which is, which is fine. But, let’s get to that education.
So, this podcast is about how can Clubhouse be used to amplify your podcast? So I’ve, I’ve found, we found some ways already that that can be used, or some ways that Clubhouse can be used to amplify your podcast and get your audience more involved and, you know, just make it a better podcast, right? The first one.
Well, I’ll leave it up to you. What do you want to talk about first? What are – what’s one way that Clubhouse can be used to amplify your podcast?
Cee Cee Huffman: I’m going to say, let’s see the first one I came up with, and the one that I was really excited about, is that it can help you find guests for your podcast and help you be a guest on other people’s podcasts. I think that the connection that Clubhouse has is really interesting because you can email these people, message these people on LinkedIn, DM them on Twitter, Instagram, whatever, but there’s only a small chance that these like maybe bigger names will be able to have time to read those things or very, like, even smaller than that have time to respond to those things.
But because Clubhouse is all about that interaction, if you aren’t in these rooms and you raise your hand and you talk and you kind of build a relationship there, you all of a sudden seem like more of a person and less of like a text and a DM, you know? So you can build a more meaningful connection that way, and you can have somebody be a guest on your podcast after that. So maybe you’re in a room and you talk and you really hit it off and you say, “Hey, I was in your Clubhouse room. I have a podcast. I would really love if you could come and join it. I really liked what you talked about.” That’s automatically putting you a leg up from just shooting it out into space, you know, a random DM, so I think that’s something I’m really excited about because it makes the world a lot smaller and makes new guests like, a lot more attainable.
Jason Gillikin: Awesome. Let’s unpack that a little bit. So let’s, let’s do a real example here. Let’s say we, as a producer for Diversity Beyond the Checkbox, or Jackie Ferguson, the host of Diversity Beyond the Checkbox, want to reach out to guests. And what would she do?
What, what would she start to listen in on? And what would she, how would she try to connect?
Cee Cee Huffman: Right. So, it’s organized based on topic. So, she could go in there and search for a room that’s talking about, diversity, equity and inclusion in whatever kind of form she’s interested in talking about on her podcast.
And she can listen into these people who are talking. If she likes what they’re saying, or she has something to add, she can raise her hand and talk to them directly. And it has their name, you can add them as a friend, and then you can build a relationship with them like, almost immediately. Like I said that in like, 30 seconds. It is that quick and easy to do.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah. Yup. And, or she could start her own room, right, about her particular topic and see who comes to this and who is interesting to talk to and who would be a great guest for the podcast. And because it is an audio only format, well, you know who’s gonna be engaging. You know, who’s going to be exciting.
You already know who’s going to be a good guest on your podcast.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yes.
Because that’s a, that’s a key part to having somebody on your podcast. It’s great to have like an awesome resume, but if you can’t present your ideas in a thoughtful, like, concise way, you’re maybe not a great podcast guest. Doesn’t mean you’re not great at what you do, it just means you might not be an awesome podcast guests. We call that, in journalism, we call that a good talker.
Jason Gillikin: There you go.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah.
Jason Gillikin: And we’ll get, we’ll get emails from PR agencies all the time saying that, “Hey, this person will be a great guest on your podcast and can talk about this, this and this,” which can be helpful, but you just don’t know.
And you have to do your homework on whether or not they would be a great guest before you’ll even respond to that email. Like, you’ll have to go find them and find a video that they did, or you’ll have to go find a podcast that they’ve done already. You know, with, with Clubhouse, you know, right away whether or not they’ll, there’ll be good at it. You know, one thing about reaching out to guests or finding, finding guests for your podcast, trying to get, trying to be a guest on other people’s podcasts is with Clubhouse, and it’s still in beta, but you can’t really reach out to people. You can’t connect with – I mean, you can follow them and they can follow you, but there’s no way to communicate other than audio-ly – audio only? Audio-ly? Okay.
Cee Cee Huffman: I don’t know
Jason Gillikin: You can’t write them a message is what I’m trying to say. But, they have your Twitter account right there, and your Instagram account, so you can just go ahead and send a DM on Twitter or Instagram right away.
Cee Cee Huffman: Right, which I think is honestly kind of smart. It keeps their platform really simple without a lot of extra stuff, but gives you access to the extra stuff.
Jason Gillikin: Oh, okay. So I figured it would be just in the next form they would, they would provide that, a way to, to chat with people
Cee Cee Huffman: It’s possible that they will, but I, I think it kind of makes sense that way, because why would you want to be able to DM someone on an audio only platform?
Like that’s the, that’s the spice, that’s the point, you know, you only get to talk to people through audio, but maybe that’s just me.
Jason Gillikin: That is a great point. You’re probably right, yeah. I’ll be curious about what they do, but I think you’re right on that. So, one of the things you said, finding a guest for your podcast and then also being a guest on other podcasts.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah.
Jason Gillikin: One thing I would advise here is shoot for the stars. So, you know, when you’re trying to be a guest on other people’s podcasts, which is a great way to promote your own podcast, you know, you can, you can try to connect with some of these people that are on Clubhouse that have big podcasts, like a, like a Lewis House, for example, is somebody who’s on podcasts or somebody who’s on Clubhouse and has a huge podcast.
Shoot him a message, you know, because Clubhouse is not – although it’s growing – it’s still in beta form. It’s not huge right now, and so if you want it to connect with a Lewis House, or somebody who’s bigger in podcasting, go to their room, ask to speak, show yourself, you know, show that you know what you’re talking about, about a particular topic, and that way that person will be much more inclined to say, “Yes, I would like you on my podcast,” than they would with, as you said, a cold email or a cold message.
Cee Cee Huffman: Right. There’s no, I mean, there’s no reason not to try. Like you, what is that quote it’s like from The Office, you lose a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take or miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. It’s true. Like you, it really can’t hurt anything. What, what’s the worst thing that can happen?
You don’t get on their podcast and your life stays exactly the same. Well, at least you tried!
Jason Gillikin: That’s exactly right. And start a room. Like, what’s the worst that could happen there? Nobody shows up? Oh, well, it’s going to be gone, you know, the moment it’s, it’s there any way there’s no recordings of, of Clubhouse just yet, so that’s a great one. So finding guests for your podcast and being a guest on other people’s podcasts.
Another way to amplify your podcast with Clubhouse is to follow up to your current podcast episodes. For example, let’s say you’re, you’re doing a podcast, and you’ve got this great guest, and you’ve got all this great content, but your people have questions about it, and you can do a follow-up to that podcast in Clubhouse.
So let’s say you bring your guests on to Clubhouse, and then all of a sudden, there’s a way to interact with your super fans. There’s a way to engage with people that want to ask questions of you and of your guests that they wouldn’t be able to any other way.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting way to do it, too, because podcasts are really like finite, you know, you cut the episode and it is what it is. And people can maybe, you know, find you on Instagram or find you on Twitter and DM you and ask you these questions.
But again, just like I was saying with finding guests, a cold DM or a cold like, message like that is going to be a lot harder to get a response to versus saying, “Hey, we just did this episode every, you know, day after we post an episode, at this time, we’re going to go on Clubhouse and answer any questions that you might’ve had about anything that we said, so come and join us,” whatever. That just makes so much sense because then people have an opportunity to learn, especially if that’s what your podcast is about. Like, you know, teaching people, amplifying your expertise. You get on there and people can ask you questions, and that’s great because it builds a stronger relationship between you and your audience.
And you just become a lot more personable that way. So they’ll probably like you more, which is great. Then there’s a way that you can build a more, a stronger audience base because you have this kind of like set schedule where you can be like, “Okay, we’re going to release the podcast on Wednesday, every Thursday at one, we’re going to have a Clubhouse,” and you build a committed audience that really will interact and engage with you, which is super important.
Jason Gillikin: Oh, for sure. That, that is a great point. And then also people that aren’t listening to your podcast now, well, they might stumble into these rooms and then go listen to your podcast. So it’s a way to build up your audience, both in Clubhouse and in your podcast.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah. And you can potentially – we tried this and we failed, so this is actually the second time we’ve recorded this episode, but you can actually, potentially, as long as people know it’s recorded, which I’ve seen some of those since then. So other people do it as well. You can record episodes in Clubhouse. So maybe you want to do a Q and A, you don’t want to take questions from, you know, your Instagram story, whatever.
You can do a live Q and A with your audience that you have on Clubhouse, and they can ask you questions. Some of those people might stumble in there, they might not be from your audience though. And you can say, “Hey, this is a recording for this podcast.” Then maybe there’ll become a listener because everybody wants to hear themselves.
You know the same way you want to see yourself on TV, people want to see themselves on the podcast. Maybe they’ll send it to their friends and be like, “Listen to me on this podcast,” and then you build a bigger audience that way, too. So it’s just like the amount of spider web connections that are possible with this for podcasting is super cool.
Jason Gillikin: That’s a great point. Those, those live episodes, getting your super fans actually on your podcast, which they would absolutely love. And you mentioned that this is our second time recording this because we tried in Clubhouse to record it, and it didn’t work. Like we had, we had tested it out – and this is a good lesson for everybody who wants to record episodes into Clubhouse.
Test it out, but test it out in the way that you’re actually going to record it. So what I mean is when we, when we tried it first, it was just with our phones and we just pressed the record button on our phones. but neither of us had headphones in. And so when we recorded it, well, when we tried to record it –
Cee Cee Huffman: Recorded it in air quotes.
Jason Gillikin: Right. You know, we think we’re recording, and then we had headphones in. We didn’t even think that could be a problem, but you know, we both look at our, we both look at our phones and, and listen to it and it’s video, but no audio.
Cee Cee Huffman: Obviously nothing when it’s an all-audio platform.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah. So that, that did not work out.
So, if you are going to record live episodes, make sure you practice first. And, and just, just go for it, too. So these are, these are great ways that Clubhouse can be used to, to amplify your podcast. So just to review these, you know, one, you can follow up your podcast with Q and A type episodes. Two, you can find guests for your podcast. Three, you can try to be a guest on other people’s podcasts, and then four, you can do live episodes, which is really exciting. And a lot of fun. Yeah. Well, what are we missing here?
Cee Cee Huffman: I think that’s all of the main points of what it can do for your podcast. But like I said, I think it’s a really cool platform.
And I think if you can get invited into the exclusive Clubhouse club, then you should definitely join and check it out. I like to listen to it, you know, just getting ready for something, or maybe while I’m working passively. There’s a lot you can learn in there. And I mean, I’ve never been to a conference, but if it’s like a conference, it seems like a very low key, fun conference.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah, definitely. Now. And I’m excited to see what Clubhouse does, you know, how do they improve it? What, what type of momentum do they keep up? Does somebody tried to copy them? You know, like, like Facebook does so many times with other media platforms. So what happens from here? That’s a, it’ll be very exciting to see, but gosh, I really think this one has legs. And it’s a, it’s an exciting place to be.
Cee Cee Huffman: Definitely.
Jason Gillikin: You mentioned it’s invite only, if you need an invite, just let us know in an email, we can figure that out for you.
But, if you wanna follow us on Clubhouse, I’m at Jason Gillikin, J A S O N G I L L I K I N. And Cee Cee is at Cee Cee Huffman. C E E C E E H U F F M A N.
Cee Cee Huffman: Yeah. The next time we record we’ll try and make sure it actually works and you can join us.
Jason Gillikin: Yeah. It’ll be a lot of fun. But yeah, I’m excited to see everybody on Clubhouse and, and you can follow up on our podcast as well. And for everybody who’s listening, if you are looking for full service podcast production, or even just editing or launch strategy, give us an email, go to our website we’re info@influence.com, or you can just visit our website, Earfluence.
For Cee Cee Huffman, I’m Jason Gillikin, and we’ll see you next time on the Earfluence Podcast.
The Earfluence Podcast is a production of Earfluence Media and is hosted by Jason Gillikin and Cee Cee Huffman.