Since the last article I have organized more events on Clubhouse. As I continue to learn and practice, I’d like to share some new thoughts from a PR practitioner’s perspective.
Serve Your Target Listeners
Listeners are the most important stakeholders on Clubhouse. To expand your listener base and truly connect with them in chat rooms, you’ll want to consider the time zones they’re in, languages they use and how to engage them after the chat.
- Identify the #1 Time Zone
Obviously, it’s ideal if you, your speakers and your target listeners are in one time zone. However, it’s often challenging to find a schedule that works for everyone. When it comes to scheduling, I’d like to identify a primary time zone that works for the majority of listeners, and then ask the speakers to accommodate. This makes sense because it aligns with the goal: to have and connect with more listeners. Actually, most speakers understand this and are willing to wake up earlier or stay up late.
To decide your primary time zone, you may conduct a few tests before the event. A simple test consists of two chats, one at 9pm EST and the other at 9pm PST, on the same day of a week. More complex tests involve more time zones, such as Europe and Asia. Take notes of the number of participants during these test chats, and you’ll know which time works best.
One more tip: you may create a recap article and post it on social media. In this way, non-attendees can also learn about the chat, and the materials can also be re-used in future copies. This is very useful especially for thought leadership chats. We’ll talk more about recap articles later.
- Language-related Issues
Clubhouse chats are often joined by international participants; you may also plan to invite international speakers to share the stage, with some help from interpreters. However, I recommend using no more than 2 languages in a single chat, and any interpretation should be brief. Too much interpretation following one’s speech can easily distract the listeners, and can dilute the truly interesting content, resulting in a waste of time and loss of traffic.
Actually, based on a thorough understanding of the listeners, you may remove interpretation for bilingual events. See the example below:
In a series of events featuring an American artists but targeting Chinese-speaking listeners, the moderator used to also serve as the interpreter. Every time the artists finished a couple of sentences in English, the moderator would briefly summarize what they had said in Chinese. Later, we realized that most attendees were actually bilingual, so we tried hosting some chats with less or even no interpretation. These chats turned out to be more popular than the well interpreted ones.
- Post-event Engagement
Clubhouse chats are great opportunities to find the right people. During the chat, you can browse the listeners’ profile pages and find their social media handles. Within a few taps you’ll connect with them on social networks. You may go from there and develop Twitter lists or spreadsheets.
When an event ends, these lists will help you in many ways. With your own, growing lists, you’ll be able to learn more about your audience, interact with them on various channels, and distribute new event announcements effectively. In addition, you may find some investors and potential partners. For startups this can mean a lot.
What Are Competitors Doing?
Although you should focus on developing your own event, please also take a look at your competitors’ events. Are they hosting chats at the same time? If the answer is yes, then there may be a real time competition, and your listeners can easily get distracted by what’s happening in the other rooms. As a result they are likely to leave your room and never come back.
While it’s not possible to always avoid hosting chats when competitors are also on Clubhouse, it’s great to expect such a situation and have a plan in mind. Consider the following example:
One of our events started at the same time as another similar event hosted by an influencer who was far more popular than our speakers. Throughout our event, we saw people quitting the room, which was pretty discouraging. Fortunately that event ended earlier than ours, so we were able to gain more listeners near the end of our chat, when we opened the floor for questions so the speakers could have more to talk about, and the moderator was able to repeat the key messages.
What if the Speaker Hasn’t Arrived?
While speakers can arrive late, they don’t often miss the entire event. Fortunately, Clubhouse provides a casual setting so the temporary absence of the speaker is not a big deal. There are many ways to continue with your plan and get the most important things delivered.
During the preparation phase, consider the following:
- Do a thorough research of the featured speaker, so the moderator will be able to introduce this person to the room.
- Invite the speaker’s friends, the more the better. They can share good stories about the speaker without distracting people with irrelevant topics.
- Be ready to extend the chat for x minutes so the speaker who arrives late can still finish the agenda as planned.
Inviting enough friends of the speaker can really change the game. One morning we were scheduled to host a chat featuring an artist, who had been working all night and apparently did not hear the alarm. As most of the agenda was focused on this speaker, the moderator decided to initiate a casual chat with his friends. While we were calling the missing speaker again and again, we were surprised that one of his friends was such a great talker, who shared a lot of funny stories that also connected the dots in our speaker’s career. Thanks to this friend, we attracted many people to our room, right before the speaker arrived.
Should There Be a Script?
Having a script helps. Similar to traditional media relations, it’s advisable to give your moderator and speakers some proposed questions and ask them to provide a few key points that sum up their answers. Actually, some celebrity speakers need to have their agents approve these content in advance. The script also lessens the burden for interpreters.
However, I don’t recommend preparing a highly detailed script. If you must have one, you’d better remember it instead of looking at it once in a while during the live event, otherwise it’s going to be obvious that you’re reading instead of talking to people. It’s like shooting a movie: you want to remember your lines and talk naturally, not reading aloud in front of the camera. Remember, if your event comes with a script, it’s the moderator’s job to make it natural. You may use the script as a guide for the conversation, instead of doing exactly what’s written on it.
For professionals, scripts keep us aware of the essential marketing content in our agenda; they force us to say what has to be said. If such content must exist, try to keep it short. Speaking from my experience, the ad time during a Clubhouse chat sees the major loss of listeners. The longer you sell, the more people will leave. Imagine you jump into the room which hits you with ads – you will probably leave in 5 seconds.
On or off the Record?
After our first Clubhouse events, some fans of the speakers asked us for records of past chats. Publishing recorded chats seems a good way to generate press materials, but think twice before you hit the record button.
The Clubhouse app is not a professional podcast tool. Therefore, the sound quality is closer to phone calls than Spotify. If you must record the chat, you need to make sure that every participant is aware that the room is being recorded. This could interrupt the event and make people uncomfortable. Most people come to Clubhouse to relax, and there are so many rooms out there. Is it worth pushing some of the listeners out of the room because you’d like to record everything?
Speaking from my experience, I’d recommend taking notes instead of recording. With the notes, you could easily put together a recap article, send it to the speakers for approval and correction, and publish it on your site. This is a great way to add valuable content to your brand, especially during the early stage. These notes can also be divided into many social media posts (such as quotes + photo of founder) that can be shared with followers across the internet.
Feel free to follow me on Clubhouse @jiexipang
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Jessspeng 