Are you part of Clubhouse? It’s the hottest trend on LinkedIn, but is not part of LinkedIn. Clubhouse is what the cool kids are discussing. You can find it on LinkedIn by following the hashtag #clubhouse.

You will find celebrities participating on this 24/7 platform. Note that these celebrities are not incognito, as everyone needs to use their real name. 

The Clubhouse platform is in beta mode, yet it seems to be the hottest new social media app that is audio-based and brings together people worldwide. 

It’s like a live interactive podcast and radio talk show, though you must be invited to speak by the club’s moderator.

People are meeting, connecting, sharing stories, viewpoints, chatting, teaching, learning, networking, making new friends, etc.

Currently, it is only available for iPhones and iPads with a download from the app store. You will have to wait if you are an Android user. The developers, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, need to hire more programmers to build for the droids.  

According to CNBC, by May 2020, with only 1500 users, it was already valued at $100 million. It is now reported to have over 600K users as of December 2020. 

The beauty of this platform is that you can multitask – aka listen and work on other things. When you participate in clubs or run your own club, you earn invites to invite others. I tend to listen while I cook!

If you don’t get an invite yourself, you can download the app from the App Store and enter your profile and hope someone will sponsor you. If you have an invite, you can gain access. When you set up your BIO, you can add some pizzazz by including emojis. 

Note that the website is bare-bones at joinclubhouse.com. The team uses the app notion.so for their productivity workspace documents. Notion is a competitor to Evernote. 

There is the good, the bad, and the ugly on Clubhouse.

Some experts freely share their knowledge, and you will leave with new nuggets of wisdom or inspiration. 

You will attend other sessions that are, let’s say, meh. People share what you already know, so you leave empty-handed and wonder why you wasted your time.

And then there are the ugly sessions where people spew knowledge of what they know, but they really don’t know what they don’t know. There may be others exhibiting inappropriate behavior or hate speech and, in that case, are removed.

Please read and understand their Community Guidelines. 

There have even been music jamming sessions where people are sharing their musical talents.

Here is an excellent Clubhouse Intro from John Esperian, who explains all of the basics with some visuals.

You might want to join the Welcome room on Wednesdays and also the Town Hall on Sundays.

Just know that the maximum amount if people in a room is 5000 and they have reached that on occasion.

Are you wondering why you have a little party hat on your profile? That identifies you as a new member in the first seven days.

If you want to jazz up the background behind your profile picture for your Clubhouse photo, check out Profile Picture Maker. 

So, I hope you can get on Clubhouse and see what all the buzz is about these days on LinkedIn and other social media.

When you do, make sure you follow people and clubs that are in your interest area so the algorithm knows what to suggest to you.

AUTHOR BIO

Lynne Williams is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Great Careers Group, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, that provides career education and networking. Lynne also writes for vista.today, montco.today, and delco.today