Tips to Build your Clubhouse Following and Host an Engaged Room

Clubhouse, the fast- growing live audio social platform, is becoming the coolest place to hang out to discuss just about anything. Some of the interesting rooms we’ve come across hosted by Nigerians are: Naija Professional Vibes, Big Ballers Club, Knights & Kardinals, Raising Consciousness, Arewa Youth Forum,  Fresh Vibez, Igbo Nation, Be Transformed Tribe, Money Rule The World, Yoruba Palava etc.

As a creator, if you’re wondering how to make your mark on the platform, especially now that the platform has introduced advanced features to help creators get paid, here are a few tips you can use:

• The first step is a no-brainer – invite your friends, colleagues and community to Clubhouse! The easiest way is for your tribe to download the latest version of the Clubhouse App on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Once they download it, they can make an account & start joining you in conversations. You can also send them an invite – select the envelope located on the top of your screen. Lastly, if you are the creator of a club, select ‘Invite People’ to start having people join your club.
• Host and participate in great conversations if you’d like to grow your personal network and reach. This is how you get seen & discovered.
• Use the events bulletin/calendar: to let people know about your room. The bulletin is where Clubhouse members list conversations that are scheduled in advance, often with a specific theme or topic, some hosted by a club or panel of members.
• Share your events publicly: Either from the event bulletin or from the event preview on the All-Rooms screen, tap on the event that you want to add. A half-screen will pop up showing you the option to: “Share” – generates a link you can forward or copy and share via message or e-mail, “Tweet” – drafts a tweet with the event title, hosts, and link to the conversation, “Copy link” – copies the event URL to your clipboard.

Clubhouse is big on encouraging members to talk with each other not at each other, so the number two point above is very essential to winning on the platform. Observing proper etiquette when hosting or participating in rooms therefore becomes crucial. Here are a few points to note if you’d like to host an engaged room. These same rules apply if you’re a speaker in other rooms.

1. The more speakers the better: This feels counterintuitive, but helps bring in more perspectives, feels more casual and serendipitous. This also tends to bring in more people as listeners since more people get notified. The audience also enjoys seeing groups on stage, as it feels a bit like they’re listening in on a group hangout. The sweet spot it somewhere between 5 and 15 speakers, but we’ve seen less and more work too!
2. Help speakers share the stage: It’s not as rich or engaging a conversation when one person dominates the room, so moderators can avoid this by actively encouraging others to speak. One way to do this is to watch for people who unmute (this is an unofficial signal that a speaker may want to chime in, or offer a reaction or response)
3. Don’t be shy about ‘managing’ the stage: Sometimes the stage will get too big and it’ll be harder to keep the conversation flow without disruptions or people talking over others. Don’t be shy to move people to the audience once they’ve shared their thoughts — best practice to let someone know politely that you’ll move them down.
4. Develop your own style: As we said, this isn’t a science, but an art! So feel free to experiment, try out multiple moderation styles, have fun, and find what works for you!