Clubhouse’s Fall From Grace: A Lesson for Marketers and Businesses

Is Clubhouse still a thing? I dont know about you, but my Samsung has put that app to permanent sleep after not being opened for a long time.

The thing is, Clubhouse, which allows users to gather in audio-only chatrooms, is losing its fame. If it has not already. Even the king of Clubhouse, Axel Mansoor, announced earlier this week that he is pulling his popular room Lullaby Club from the platform. 

Clubhouse’s quick rise to fame is quickly falling and there are lessons to learn from it. Was it just a pandemic-boosted fad?

At its height, the audio app’s explosive growth gave most of us so much FOMO for its iOS-first-invite-only strategy. Android users were left to wait for months for the app to arrive on Playstore while seeing it being the talk of the internet – how discriminating! I dont think this was a good strategy, but it did a pretty great job at hyping Clubhouse. 

But that strategy might have cost Clubhouse in a long run. In a world of instant everything, you do not have to make people wait. Not to mention how many others are willing to copy your success and take your users. By the time Clubhouse arrived for everyone, people have already been used to Clubhouse-like (copycats) services within the platforms they use daily. So most did not even see the exclusivity of Clubhouse. Twitter launched Spaces, Facebook launched Rooms, Telegram launched chat rooms. The audio feature suddenly became all over the social media platforms.

The expansion to Android barely made a difference. The thrill had run out, and people moved on. I once wrote on my two LinkedIn posts (see them below) that Clubhouse was taking an awfully long time to launch on Android. 

 

A Lesson for Marketers

When Clubhouse gained popularity, some marketers swam to the platform to find greener pastures. But as the platform growth plateaued, marketers quietly abandoned it and returned their focus where they get the most from their marketing efforts – Linkedin, Twitter, or Instagram. 

So what is the lesson here?

Well, avoid the shining object syndrome. Marketers are always tempted to join the next big thing (observe the metaverse hype). But the grass is not always greener on the other side.

You do not have to be on every shiny new social media platform. Especially when you do not have a platform-based team and enough resources to juggle multiple platforms. Being present and active on two or three social media channels will give your business enough visibility. 

It is wise to not dilute your marketing efforts by jumping on every trending social media and end up doing poorly on all of your social presence. If you want to be everywhere, try to work with marketing agencies that provide platform-based marketing.

Lessons for Business Owners

In a world of instant gratification, it is easy to assume the business you start today will take off tomorrow. That you will soon be receiving orders from customers. This is only true if you live by Instagram realities.

So what is the lesson?

Be grateful your business took longer to grow and succeed. Overnight successes like that of Clubhouse do not end well.

Populism has its limits. Too much hyping of your product will only heighten people’s expectations. Once they get hold of it, they may find it not what it was hyped to be. Try to hype with moderation.

Also, neglecting platform users may make them resent your product once you decide to bring it to them. It is the world of instant everything, do not try that iOS-first strategy as Clubhouse did. Unless you are playing the status game, your app needs users. You cannot limit yourself by releasing it to only one OS.

Clubhouse is struggling. Was the audio app just a pandemic fad for bored and isolated people? Or, did Big Tech kill Clubhouse due to their copycat behavior? The answer is somewhere between.