Why Might Clubhouse Become The Next Big Thing?
Nobody thought it would be possible to create a new popular social media platform. However, one has actually emerged and gained good traction in the last few months.
Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio app with 2 million weekly active users, up from 600,000 in December 2020, and is valued at around $1 billion, up from $100 million in December 2020.
On the one hand, the numbers look promising. On the other hand, the technology doesn’t seem sophisticated. The user interface looks like the UI of Slack and Notion combined. The idea isn’t revolutionary as well — here is TTYL audio social network founded in 2018. Even the name is stolen from the Clubhouse project management software.
Why have only a few heard about TTYL, and thousands are waiting in line for an invitation to Clubhouse?
Here are some reasons I’ve found for myself.
Bandwagon effect
It’s hard to resist when you come across the sixth article about Clubhouse in a single day or when all your friends have already asked whether you’d gotten in. Even if you’re the biggest hater of trendy things, you have no chance to avoid the curiosity of checking out what this is all about.
Scarcity and exclusivity
The notion “forbidden fruit is the sweetest” is a part of human nature. You can register for Clubhouse only with an invitation, and as a user, you have only two invites to send to others.
This sounds contradictory as the platform’s growth becomes limited with only two invites per user. However, the more active you are on the app (moderating rooms, speaking in rooms, etc.), the more invites you get. The company is trying to boost user activity in this way, which reveals that they’re pretty confident in their value offering and believe that the user base will be growing, even with such limitations in place.
Famous network
An opportunity to eavesdrop on how Elon Musk is giving Robinhood’s CEO Vlad Tenev a grilling over the restriction to trade on GameStop sounds interesting to many. Furthermore, different people can find conversations, aka “clubs,” moderated by influencers they’re interested in.
The reality is tech projects started in Silicon Valley garages are likely to perform better thanks to the opportunity to be noticed by influential people at a project’s initial development stage, and Clubhouse is one of them.
Right time
Can Covid take credit for the rising popularity of Clubhouse? Maybe. It can definitely be in charge of the platform’s boost. The pandemic has been a part of our lives for quite a while, and we all miss face-to-face conversations. Connecting with others on Clubhouse feels more human than watching stories on Instagram or commenting on others’ Twitter posts.
It’s often hard to explain what stands behind viral marketing or how it can be planned and measured. However, it seems like viral marketing is one of the best solutions for such products as social media.
We can expect current clickbait headlines like “An undergrad student made $1 million on TikTok” to be replaced by headlines like “30-year old professional made $1 million on Clubhouse” soon.
However, how sustainable might such a “hype” marketing approach be? What will happen when celebrities’ discussions on Clubhouse aren’t a novelty anymore?
