What is Clubhouse and what opportunity does it present for beauty brands?

The latest social media app shows huge potential for beauty brands, but there are teething issues.

It certainly feels like every day there is a new social media platform. Initially we tell ourselves that we have too many apps on our phone as it is, too many profiles to populate with content and only so much time in the day to devote to these things. As a colleague put it to me, every new ‘must-have’ social media platform feels like just another potential time suck.

But, on the face of it, there is something that sets Clubhouse apart from the others. So, what is it?

Up in the Club(house)

Clubhouse is an invite-only audio platform; there’s no text (beyond the name of the event), and no images. Instead, what you do have are open ‘rooms’ where you can listen in on conversations, debates or presentations in real time. It sounds voyeuristic and, truthfully, it feels it a little too.

As a user, your choices are to open a room, either by yourself or with others, or listen in on other rooms where you can raise your hand and ask a question or weigh in on a subject. From what we can see there is very little, if any moderation, so expect the good, the bad and the ugly - and everything in between.

What opportunities does Clubhouse offer for beauty brands?

Say you’re a skincare brand who likes to focus on education, communication and community building amongst your customer and potential customers. Where once you may have hosted customer events in store or at a venue where you moderated panelled discussions, Clubhouse offers you the same format, albeit virtually, in their rooms. You just need to create a room, bring in your speakers, and host-away. So far, so great. Complications arise when you’re restricted to inviting just the people who are already on the app; users are given invites that they can pass on but they’re limited.

Another obvious niggle lies in the lack of moderation. While some rooms are wildly informative and offer an inclusive environment for progessive thinking, as well as an excellent opportunity to connect with your audience about your brand, there are inevitably rooms where the conversation is less civilised and the content perhaps out of line with your own world views.

As with all new social media platforms, there are wrinkles to iron out but that hasn’t stopped an influx of celebrity users including Oprah and Elon Musk.

Is Clubhouse worth it?

In short, maybe. Clubhouse could be an excellent platform for beauty brands to host events and interact with their customers. Currently, the talks aren’t recorded but perhaps that will change in the future. Time will tell whether it has staying power.

How to make your social media work for you

Clubhouse is just the latest in a string of social media platforms; some turn out to have sticking power, others less so. We know that it can be a challenge to cultivate an effective plan for social media, knowing what content works best where, understanding how your customers and potential customer want to communicate with you and, ultimately, how to convert that engagement into sales. This is why we have developed our free Social Media Health Check so that, together, we can navigate the fundamentals of social media best practice and highlight areas of potential in your own social strategy. I would love to hear from you so do drop me an email to discuss.