Establishing and maintaining a business blog is unfortunately not as easy as sitting down and writing the first things that pop into your head. As in daily face to face conversations we can all be guilty of going off on a tangent now and then, and the same can be true of our blog posts. A little bit off centre this way and that can be interesting and add depth, but the most successful blogs offer a service and don’t deviate from that purpose. Here is how to keep your company’s blog on track.
Your blog, website and business will remain the ‘go to’ source of information, as long as you keep your end of the bargain and continue to publish useful content consistently.
As a small, proactive PR agency, we work on a mix of short term projects and longer term PR activity. Working on a range of clients and communications helps to keep us fresh and we enjoy being able to help fledging companies as well as large, more established businesses.
A short burst of activity can give a company or individual a boost and create the kind of impact they’re after. While longer-term pushes can build and sustain momentum as well as awareness amongst your target audience.
We want to position you and your business as thought leaders – trusted sources for commentary and information that journalists come back to time and again. The best way to do that is through a sustained approach.
Clients often ask what they can do to support that and the answer is quite a bit. We start with how they’re currently engaging with publications and journalists – including on social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter.
This is a good way to raise awareness, helping to amplify coverage and getting to know the content being covered.
These are good steps to take to help support PR efforts and get you even closer to the publications and writers that will be the most powerful for you.
To find out more about engaging with publications check out our post on the importance of working with local and trade press.
Recently, Armadillo Chairman, Chris Thurling, spoke to South West Business Insider on the topic of choosing your marketing agency. When dealing with creative abstracts such as brand, message, creative strategy, digital engagement and design, it can be difficult to know what exactly it is you should be looking for. Chris provides his advice on what to consider when seeking out a marketing agency that’s suitable for your business.
Should you look for sector specialisms?
Even though there can be good reasons to select a sector specialist agency, there are strong arguments the other way. One of the main benefits of using an agency with broad sector experience is its ability to bring fresh perspectives compared to in-house teams or agency specialists. Generalists have learnings from brands in different sectors that they bring to a brief, and ultimately the skills are transferable. Partnering with an agency that works across various sectors also decreases the chances of merely rehashing your competitors’ work and increases the likelihood of innovation.
The importance of ROI
An agency’s ability to indicate potential ROI ahead of the project depends mainly on how much information you are willing to divulge. The more transparent you are, the more accurately an agency can indicate the potential outcome. However, without detailed insight upfront, this can be difficult.
Think long-term
Crises such as the one we are living through often see brands choose to abandon strategy and go into panic mode. For example, brand building activities get dialled down in favour of budget savings or short-term customer acquisition approaches. Smart and confident companies tend to hold their nerve and continue investing in their brands with the long-term in mind.
These comments originally featured in the South West Business Insider, April 2021. Follow the link to read the full article, including comments from a variety of other business leaders and industry professionals.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time, LinkedIn was the platform that I felt the least comfortable navigating. Its whole demeanour is very different to other types of social media like Facebook or Instagram, and the content that’s shared on the platform is held to a very different standard and set of rules than I was used to.
Or at least it seemed that way.
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful platform. Did you know that LinkedIn now has over 722+ million members and that there are 11 million millennial decision-makers on the platform?
LinkedIn is an important part of any business’s social media strategy and in today’s blog post I want to share with you the five key things to remember when engaging/to secure engagement on LinkedIn.
Though the platform is indeed much more formal and professional than the likes of Instagram or Twitter, that doesn’t mean it has to be dry. In fact, having a clear personality and personal brand is incredibly important.
Make sure your voice is clear in every post and chose a profile picture that truly represents you and/or your business. Believe it or not, it doesn’t have to be you in a suit with a white background (though of course don’t use anything compromising either – I’d hope that goes without saying).
Make sure your about section is more than just your job title. Who are you and why do you love what you do? Why are you good at what you do? Again, let your voice shine through.
Be honest. Share your professional journey. We all want to feel connected, and nothing is more relatable than having to overcome obstacles. LinkedIn is about presenting your best professional self, but that doesn’t mean presenting your perfect professional self. People don’t actually engage with perfection, because we all know it isn’t real.
I don’t know everything about the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, but what seems to be clear is that LinkedIn loves sharing native content. This basically means that LinkedIn is more likely to show a piece of content that originated on the platform more widely, than a piece of content that originated elsewhere.
If you’ve written a blog post, consider sharing it on your LinkedIn profile as a LinkedIn article rather than just a link. You can add a note stating where the content originated but it’s more likely to be seen when shared natively.
Like on any other social media platform, consistency is extremely important. If you want to receive engagement on LinkedIn, you have to engage with it yourself. Make sure you’re posting regularly. Don’t set yourself an unrealistic and strict upload schedule but think about how many times a week/month you could pop on and give your time.
Make sure as well as sharing your own content, you’re engaging with others. Comment, like and share content that interests you and is relevant to you and your business. LinkedIn isn’t about simply sitting there and shouting about how great you are. It’s not about sales. Like any social media platform there has to be a bit of give and take and you must demonstrate you are an engaged member of the business community.
If you’re having trouble thinking about what content to post, there are three categories that always go down well:
These are great go tos for forming content and are relevant across the board.
According to sprout social, the best times to post on LinkedIn are as follows:
Most people seem to check LinkedIn during their morning commute and on their lunch break. This is something worth considering. If you’ve got a great piece of content the last thing you want is to share it at a time when nobody is looking and have it get snowed under by new content published at the key times of day.
This is probably the trickiest of the tips to master as it’s completely understandable that your schedule might look different day-to-day. Try your best but bear in mind it doesn’t count as a fail if you miss it.
Now, it can be argued that connecting with everyone on LinkedIn is a valid strategy and I’m not here to dispute it. However, I would highly encourage you to find your community and ensure that your LinkedIn connections are meaningful. LinkedIn is more sophisticated than a popularity contest. Networking isn’t about having weak links with everyone; it’s about building strong relationships that serve both parties. Just like friends on Facebook, the people you add and never communicate with aren’t really your ‘friends’. Nurture your LinkedIn network as you would your immediate face-to-face business network.
Winning awards is a wonderful way to earn your business prestige and recognition within your industry. Awards are not only great for PR, but also for team morale, positioning yourselves as experts within a given field and encouraging new business consideration.
But, how do you win awards? The truth is, no matter how great your business actually is, it all comes down to your entry.
Awards entries take a lot of time and energy; something that business owners and employees are often pretty short of. They can be frustrating and long, and ultimately, that’s where we come in. We can help you craft that winning entry. At Carnsight we’ve written countless and we’ve picked up plenty of tips and tricks along the way. Today we’re going to share some of them with you. Here are 4 tips for writing a great awards entry:
Before you even begin writing your entry you need to identify which award it is you actually want to win. Scratch the surface and you’ll find there are countless different awards out there in every single sector and industry and so it’s important to find which ones are right for your business.
This takes a lot of research and usually involves a lot of whittling down, too. Awards entries take a lot of focus and so it’s not possible to enter every one in your industry. It’s important to know which awards are worth the most to your business. Which one would mean the most to you and your business to win?
At this stage, a PR can help you by thoroughly researching the awards within your industry and creating a list of suggested focuses. At Carnsight, we not only work to provide a list of relevant and exceptional award opportunities, but we ensure we understand the entry and judging processes in order to give businesses the best chance of success.
As we’ve stressed above, entering for an award is a lengthy process which requires a lot of thought. If you’re a business owner or someone who works for the business, the likelihood is you won’t have a lot of extra time to give outside of the work you already do. Taking on such a task on top of your existing responsibilities is a lot and this is another reason why getting help from a PR is a good idea.
A PR will be able to give the entry exactly the time and attention that it needs and deserves. They can focus on the project and ensure that it is completed to the best that it can be without needing too much of your time as a business. Not only this, but a PR will likely be able to complete the entry that little bit quicker, given their experience in crafting entries.
This is perhaps the biggest area in which we can help as a PR consultancy. It’s often difficult as someone who is incredibly close to the business to see the bigger picture. A PR can help you to craft a story within your entry, telling the judges exactly who you are and how you got where you are today. As PRs we are skilled at telling businesses stories and it’s something we do on a daily basis. PRs know exactly how to get under the skin of your business and how to craft an entry that’s relevant, inspiring, attention grabbing and honest.
A PR will also be able to help you give your entry that special something. With vast experience, good PRs are especially great at knowing how to make your business stand out from the rest. It’s important to know what your hook will be, what makes your business the deserving winner over the hundreds of other successful businesses that have entered?
There’s no point in writing a beautifully crafted award entry that raves about your business if you can’t back up what you say. Judges want proof of your claims and you will need case studies and value based evidence in order to validate your entry.
It’s all very well to say that your marketing campaign was an unmatched success, but can you prove that? One of the best ways to prove your business is to demonstrate its impact. What has changed for the better because of what your business was able to achieve and how has it changed? You might struggle to feature the full results but even % are better than general terms.
You can find examples of our work in the form of case studies here. Case studies are a vital part of demonstrating what you can do as a business.
To find out more about PR can help your business check out our blog post on the benefits of PR.
You can also see further examples of our coverage over on Instagram where we share new coverage every Thursday.
eCommerce sales in the UK have continued to rise over the years, growing from a market value of £513.5 billion in 2014 to £693 billion in 2019. The pandemic forcing more Britons to stay home has massively accelerated this growth, pushing retail eCommerce sales past 30% of total retail sales in 2020.
In the uncertain world that we all live in today, to say that promoting your online store is important would be an understatement. Capturing the attention of a digital audience, however, requires digital marketing know-how, and when it comes to getting a foothold in the search engine results pages (SERPs) there really are only two main marketing channels to explore: organic SEO and paid search or pay-per-click (PPC).
In this mini-guide, we’ll briefly explore the main tools at your disposal to help push your eCommerce sales and grow your brand online.
eCommerce SEO is the practice of improving the search rankings of your online store for a whole host of related search terms so that potential customers are more likely to find you whenever they use a search engine to look for relevant products. It includes tactics such as creating intuitive, navigable site architecture and using well-researched keywords in product and product category pages, as well as creating a whole host of informative supplementary content and guides to really demonstrate your industry expertise.
Whether it’s your home page or any of your product pages, all have a better chance of ranking high in the SERPs of search engines like Google if you apply eCommerce SEO.
eCommerce SEO is vital for any business with an online store, as it drives organic search traffic and is an investment in building a brand’s digital presence.
Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform which allows you to display advertisements on their platforms, including Google Search Network. You have to pay Google for every action users take such as clicking on your ad (hence pay-per-click), but only then and not before.
As with eCommerce SEO, your online store will benefit from Google Ads by appearing high on the SERPs, specifically in Google Search, with increased site traffic and potentially improved conversions and sales. The key difference is that paid ads are shown before organic search results, so they can get more immediate attention from people who use Google Search.
You get what you pay for with Google Ads, and you have to keep investing money into it if you want your ads to stay up. In this way, the ROI is very transient as it’s entirely dependent on you maintaining your click budget (unlike organic SEO where the investment takes longer to materialise but will give you longer-lasting results).
Google Shopping shows ads of products for sale on various Google channels, including Google Search, from online stores that take advantage of the service. People who click on a Google Shopping ad are directed to the product page of the seller’s online store where they can complete the purchase.
Convenience is one of Google Shopping’s major benefits, as you only have to submit product info and a picture for your ad. Google will take what you’ve provided and show your ad to the most relevant audience.
A Google Shopping ad shows the product’s price and aggregate user rating for products with reviews. Such info is useful for qualifying leads, as those who click on Google Shopping ads already have set expectations and are more willing to make purchases.
Google Shopping falls under Google Ads, so it’s PPC that you also have to budget for to keep your Shopping ads running.
SEO and PPC are good on their own, but when they are both done together, the results can be outstanding.
You can use Google Ads to test out keywords that you’re thinking of targeting for your eCommerce SEO efforts. Paid ads can quickly drive significant traffic to your site, which you can then check if that same traffic results in conversions for the keywords you targeted. Depending on the results, you can choose to use those keywords for your SEO or not.
Conversely, you can use the data from your eCommerce SEO keyword research to bolster your PPC campaigns by targeting keywords that you already know perform well.
There are other ways to synergise SEO and PPC, but the core principle when using both is to use the data gathered from one method to inform and optimise the strategies for the other.
For eCommerce SEO, the top three metrics to consider are the following:
All of these are available in Google Search Console.
Meanwhile, PPC campaigns measure:
Google Analytics lets you track all these metrics for your Google Ads campaigns.
Apart from on-site SEO and PPC campaigns, online businesses can also greatly benefit from being connected to a network of blogs and influencers within their industries.
There is the broad benefit of building awareness for your brand when other websites and thought leaders mention your company on their platforms. It also has a more specific and material benefit of getting links back to your eCommerce store, which is important to improve your ranking.
You can start by researching blogs and influencers that cover the kind of products you sell and talk to your target audience. Build a rapport with them by commenting on their posts and interacting with their social media accounts genuinely.
Over time and with an established professional relationship, you can then ask to contribute to their websites with a guest post and get a link back to your online store in return.
Bitcade is a Bristol-based retro arcade machine manufacturer that was lagging behind its competitors in online search before Superb Digital implemented PPC and SEO campaigns.
Superb Digital, an SEO agency in Bristol, started with a Google Ads campaign, putting up both text and shopping ads. Sales shot up by 181% at the end of the first month and another 30% after two more months with further improvements to the campaign such as reducing their CPA.
With the initial sales boost and confidence in their digital marketing, Bitcade greenlit a full eCommerce SEO campaign.
We implemented on-site optimisation based on thorough competitor and keyword research, created a blog with rich, insightful content, building links with lifestyle and gaming bloggers, and overhauled the site design to make it more visually appealing and easier to use.
There were consistent increases in rankings and revenue for the first six months. This groundwork prepared Bitcade for the rise of digital purchases during the pandemic, resulting in a massive 297% increase in leads and a 370% upturn in revenue 12 months into the campaign. Suffice to say, Bitcade’s founder, Jack England, has been over the moon about the results and is continuing to invest in his digital marketing with us.
If you’re hitting a brick wall with your search rankings or have seen a recent drop then it could be time you engage with a reputable and trusted SEO agency. At Superb Digital we can help with your organic SEO and PPC campaigns, as well as other elements of your digital strategy.
Get in touch with us today and we’ll be more than happy to look into your online store (or any type of website for that matter) and put together a no-strings-attached quote.
E-Commerce is one of the world’s most lucrative industries. More than ever, businesses need to have an online presence if they want to keep their customers loyal to their products, services and brand. COVID-19 has only accelerated this need for organisations to get digital, put their product data online and offer a completely virtual service.
Of course, it’s easier said than done whether you’re a multi-national organisation or part of a smaller, specialised industry. Your main challenge is getting your product data from its source to your end user, quickly and accurately. And when your end user has the ability to interact with your product data in multiple ways, across any number of different platforms, that challenge grows in complexity.
So how do you manage this data flow? Having an effective Product Information Management tool (PIM) is key.
A PIM centralises your product data information and assets, including product specification data and any associated media assets, before distributing that data to multiple sources. Put simply, a PIM ensures your data flow is as efficient as possible.
In manufacturing, for example, it’s typical for product data to originate from older, legacy systems, where it’s input at the factory during the production stage. Then, the marketing teams responsible for selling these products have the daunting task of translating this data – often manually – in order to get it online. This process then often requires manual intervention again, to keep it up to date.
Processing the data manually in this way creates a disconnect between the marketing data and the product data: they’re never in sync with one another. And that leaves room for error.
According to Ventana Research, 46% of companies that don’t have one single source of product information, and instead, use Excel spreadsheets to manage product data.
This can be a serious problem. 47% of the above companies admit they often find product-related errors and almost 20% of those errors have a major detrimental impact on sales performance. PIM is the solution.
Your customers interact with your data on many different devices, through their desktop, mobiles, or even via their smart speaker. So, having an application with a modern Application Programming Interface (API) becomes essential in your data workflow.
By using a RESTful API your product data can be shared easily, as it’s exposed in a predictable, interactive format.
But not all organisations can commit the time, resource or budget to completely overhaul their systems, end-to-end, all the way to the factory level. Instead, there are other options.
To alleviate problems caused by disparate, legacy data, you can break the process down into smaller, more manageable applications. This is known as having a microservices architecture. Microservices are dedicated applications which focus on one dedicated function: in this case, in consuming your legacy data, transforming it into an end-user friendly format, then injecting that data into a PIM.
This approach ensures your original base data is kept up to date, and maintains data availability even if there’s a breakdown in one part of the workflow or chain.
Using cloud services, such as AWS, we can leverage tools like SQS and Lambda to support a decoupled architecture. Not only does decoupled microservices architecture prevent potential data loss, and preserve service in the event of application breakdown, it improves performance by offloading queue management and data flow into the Cloud.
A final but essential consideration, no matter what systems and applications you use: data security.
Experimental product data can be incredibly sensitive, so keeping it secure at both the point of origin and in-transit is important, as is ensuring pre-production data doesn’t accidentally end up publicly viewable. A PIM provides protection by implementing strict workflows for your data.
There are many applications and frameworks out there specifically designed as PIMs, and they range in price depending on the supplier and the size of your product data.
Likewise, every business has different workflows and product data structures. Once you include a legacy data issue you’re having, it’s rare that any off-the-shelf-solution will meet your requirements exactly. A custom solution is often the way forward. And this is where using a flexible framework, such as Drupal, has distinct advantages.
Drupal is an enterprise-level content framework with many applications. Traditionally it’s a content management system, but its latest version is much more than that.
Drupal has a powerful entity framework, allowing you to model almost any data. Its strong community – made up of real people struggling with the same challenges as you are – has developed countless modules and plug-ins to enhance functionality.
And what’s more, since Drupal is open source, there are no licence fees or user usage limits. So every penny of your investment goes where you need it: into solving your specific workflow and data modelling challenges.
No matter how large or technical your datasets, nor how specialised your business is, you deserve to get the most from your digital applications.
At Proctors, our team of technology experts have been solving problems for specialist businesses across the globe: from tech behemoths like Panasonic, to niche industry start-ups. When it comes to talking data, you’ll want to talk to Proctors.
We’re more than happy to put our heads together with yours and discover the best solution for your business.
Speaking to a journalist, especially for the first time, can be a bit daunting. Often we become all too aware of being recorded and of the significance that’s attached to each word. It’s easy to get flustered if you don’t fully understand the question or don’t feel like you have the perfect answer lined up. Talking it through with a PR agency or even a colleague in advance can really help.
Today we wanted to share with you some of our best tips for preparing for a journalist interview so that you can go into a meeting, on a phone call or, increasingly, on a video call with positivity and confidence.
The most important thing in developing your confidence going into an interview with a journalist is that you feel prepared. If you can, ask if it’s possible to see the kind of questions or areas the journalist would like to cover in advance. They may or may not want to share and these might not give you all the detail (many prefer off the cuff answers and discussion) but even some information will help.
You can also think of the kind of questions you might be asked so you can prep some answers, as well as refreshing your memory on any information such as reports or research you’ll need to know. It’s often helpful to write out some key bullet points that can sit in front you as a support.
This is important. It’s great to be interviewed but it’s also important to land some of your key messages during the interview. What do you want to work in there that would help your business and would be useful to say to the particular sector the publication focuses in?
It can be helpful to think of three key points that you can visualise as a triangle in your mind, but even one point about your expertise that would be good to come out is helpful. You should write it/them down and have it in front of you for reference.
You may feel you know what they cover, but be sure to have a good look at the publication your interview is going into so you can get a feel for what they cover. This way you can ensure what you have to say is relevant, and think of your responses in light of its tone.
Having a look at the journalists most recent work can help massively. You’ll get to know their voice and style, what topics interest them, and it can also provide you with reference points for conversation. You can compare and contrast, as well as getting a feel for the dialogue. Twitter is useful here as well as a Google news search.
Even though talking to a journalist might make you feel slightly under pressure, there really is no hurry. It’s important to remember that you are providing value in what you are able to offer. Take your time and don’t feel the need to rush your responses. Allow yourself to think things through as you would in any other conversation.
During the interview, the journalist will write down or record everything you say. Remember, anything they capture could be used for the interview so if you don’t want to see your words in print, it’s best not to say it in the first place. Unless you know them really well, treat everything you say as ‘on the record’.
If you want to share additional information that you’re keen not to attach to you, don’t do it during the interview. Instead, discuss it with your PR consultant or PR agency as there might be another way to share it.
Journalists aren’t trying to catch you out when they leave pauses after answers. Often people fill in the gaps and then say things they hadn’t prepared which leads to more interesting content – which is obviously what they’re after. So feel free to leave silences and let the journalist lead.
If you’re asked a statistic or figure that you don’t know and don’t have written down, feel free to say “good question – I’ll need to check that out. Can I email you back afterwards?” Don’t feel on the spot or you may make a mistake. It’s OK not to know everything immediately. If it’s really not something you can answer you can always say “that’s not really my area of expertise.”
The bridging technique is very important in dealing with difficult questions. For example, you could say something like: “That’s a really interesting question – but I think the key point is…” This will help you move on to something you’d like to highlight and can direct the conversation away from topics you might find difficult to cover. Remember, they are after interesting content, not trying to trip you up at every turn.
“One more thing” – it’s often the final question that trips people up. The formal interview seems to be over and before you say goodbye, the journalist asks an extra question that might catch you off-guard. Remember, the interview isn’t actually over until you say goodbye and hang up or leave the room. Be aware of the last question.
If you can bear these tips in mind during your interview with a journalist, you have little to fear. Often our anxieties are just in our heads. Entering anything with a level of preparedness makes a world of difference to our confidence so relax, give yourself time to prepare, and enjoy.
If you’d like some helping landing an interview with a journalist feel free to contact us here, and we can discuss how Carnsight Communications might be able to help.
There is a lot going on in the world right now – a pandemic, Brexit, and a lot of global uncertainty, but there are also a lot of opportunities.
Global trade is rebounding far quicker than it did after the 2008 financial crisis. Shipping volumes returned to levels in half the time that took to reach post-Lehman. Central banks are continuing to steam ahead with unprecedented financial support packages, driving some global stock markets to record gains.
Most importantly, different countries will recover from this period at different speeds. Which ones will recover faster? Which markets show the opportunity most suited to your expansion plans?
Maybe you have spotted an opportunity?
You need to consider these three things when looking to expand into new markets in 2021.
You have been working with your agency for a couple of years. They have a solid team and presence in a few different countries. You have talked to them about moving into different markets. It was a conversation that brought you excitement. They may have even offered to hire in specific countries for you. “Great,” you thought.
Do not remain with your existing partners for multi-market growth unless you have an extremely good reason to.
Dig into their network properly – assess their depth of expertise in different markets. Do they partner? Do they have a handful of account handlers in different countries and call that ‘international’? What is their client base? Which markets do their client base operate in? Are they showing bias by leading you into new markets based on their own experience?
The key to having a successful international partner is that they genuinely demonstrate to you that they have a substantial network that they have full control over (not partnerships). They need to be focused on the ways and means of providing the agility and connectivity that powers that network.
Customer experience has been an excellent buzzword for a few years. And yes, worry not, we have a customer journey loop we are proud of as well.
If you are looking to expand into a new market, the fundamentals should be understanding the culture and context of a new market. It is not about customer journey mapping in a conventional sense, but it is about truly getting to understand the culture, the context and how to reach customers in your new market. You can only really do this by assembling a team of people who deeply understand the markets you are moving into.
Get your context and cultural understand wrong and you have spent a lot of money and time launching into a new market badly.
What we have seen from clients who engaged with us throughout 2020 is that almost 100% needed help in planning their entry into new markets. The business case was there and strategically it made sense, but the substance in a business case needed building.
This comes from deep exploration into new markets. And by that, I do not mean spending time on ‘Google Market Finder’. I mean local insights – insights based on cultural understanding and a very deep level of data that is well assembled to digest and interpret.
Processing this data, at speed, is very difficult to do well across multiple markets without the right toolset and teams experienced in handling this data. Look for true added value from tools that your partner is offering or look to acquire some. Find a partner who will present you with assimilated data in ways you did not know possible to give you the context you really need.
Spend time interpreting and analyzing this data and ensure your entry into a new market is data-led and well researched, so you fully appreciate the opportunity (and pitfalls) of your strategy.
Clubhouse is the social media network that’s taking the world by storm. Despite only launching in April last year, the app had 8.5m downloads at the end of February 2021 and users including the likes of Elon Musk (@elonmusk) and Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck23).
Drew Benvie (@drewbenvie), social media expert and founder of Battenhall, joined a Bristol Creative Industries event to share tips on how entrepreneurs, marketers and other creatives can use the app to grow their profile.
Here’s a summary of his advice.
With 8.5m downloads compared to Facebook’s 2.8bn active users, Clubhouse “is teeny weeny as a social network”, Drew says, but due to the high profile nature of its users “it’s really starting to turn heads”.
Drew believes Clubhouse sits in a space between social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok and audio/video platforms like YouTube, Spotify and BBC Sounds. “At first I thought this is going to change social media,” he says, “people are going to start listening to things instead of writing or reading, but actually the data suggests it’s increasing use of other social media, and it’s also not really cannibalising mainstream audio or video. It’s kind of complementing that too.”
Drew says what excites him about Clubhouse is that “anyone can rock up, it’s really them and it’s unscripted”. That includes high profile people. Drew was hosting a room (we explain what that is below) about social media and Damian Collins MP (@damiancollinsmp), the former chair of the Parliamentary committee that grills big social network bosses, showed up to listen and then asked to speak. The next day he joined again.
Clubhouse is an app on which users host, listen to and participate in audio groups, known as rooms, where typically one or more moderators host live discussions.
Clubhouse is currently only available on iPhones and iPads. You also need an invite to get access. Speak to someone you know who’s on Clubhouse and ask them for one.
Once you’re in, set up a bio. You can add whatever you like including links to your Twitter and Instagram accounts. You can follow people on Clubhouse but there’s no messaging functionality within the app.
In terms of what username to pick, Drew recommends your real name as Clubhouse is all about real people having conversations.
The Clubhouse algorithm is still “a bit ropey”, Drew says, so to find interesting people to follow select topics that you’re interested in and look for interesting people talking about those topics.
Clubhouse connects with your phone address book so it will show you your contacts already using the app.
When you follow someone, click on the alarm bell icon in their profile and you can select to be notified always, sometimes or never when they speak on the app.
Rooms (sometimes known as events – see below) are where the conversations take place. All rooms are live and they are not recorded so you can’t replay them (although lots of people are secretly recording rooms and uploading videos to YouTube such as this one with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg). At this point in Drew’s talk, an attendee said she was in a room with Brad Pitt!
To get used to the app, join rooms that look interesting to you. A room has three tiers; a stage with the people speaking (some of whom are moderators), people being followed by the speakers and everyone else.
Everyone not on the stage is muted and you can’t speak. If you want to speak, you can raise your hand and a moderator can invite you to the stage. Moderators can also remove people from the stage or from the room completely.
It can be nervewracking to speak for the first time but hang out in rooms that appeal to you and when you’re ready and have something to say, raise your hand and speak succinctly.
Your followers can ‘ping’ you to join a room. Exit a room with the ‘leave quietly’ button.
Rooms can be:
The app will show you rooms based on who you follow and the topics you’ve selected.
If you click ‘start a room’ and select the type, it will go live instantly.
If you want to schedule a room for the future, Clubhouse describes that as an ‘event’. Create one by clicking on the calendar icon at the top of the app.
Clubs are anchors for your activity on Clubhouse. They are like what Facebook business pages are to your personal profile. It allows people to follow a theme. There are thousands of clubs covering all sorts of topics including social media, artificial intelligence, movies, public speaking, comedy and start-ups. Within a club, individual rooms are created to have live conversations. When a room goes live, you’ll be notified.
When you get on the app, click the magnifying glass icon top left and you’ll see lots of clubs to follow.
To set up your own club, click on your profile image at the top right of the app and then the + next to the icons of clubs that you are a member of.
When starting a room or a club, Drew recommends planning with other people to maximise exposure. When someone is co-hosting with you, make them moderators.
Listen to rooms to pick up best practice moderator skills such as introducing the show/room/event (they are called all those things!), welcoming people to the stage and keeping the conversation flowing.
To build momentum, it’s a good idea to host a room at the same time every day, week or month.
Drew says speaking in a room tends to grow your following by around 10% of the room’s total participants. You’re also likely to pick up followers on other social networks if you’ve included links in your bio.
You can’t send someone a link to your profile on Clubhouse but you can send them a link to an event you’ve planned.
People are also using other social networks to promote events such as this Twitter account for The Good Time Show, which is part of Good Time, one of the most high profile clubs on Clubhouse. An event with Elon Musk in that club broke the app!
In Clubhouse, you’re talking to strangers and you’re listening to strange conversations. There have been reports of trolling and harassment so Drew advises being safe by not allowing random people to speak in your rooms or letting them be moderators.
Other social networks are already taking on Clubhouse. Twitter Spaces is live and Facebook is rumoured to be building an audio product.
“A wider brand audio strategy on audio is something I would absolutely recommend you start considering if you think Clubhouse is interesting for you,” Drew says.
Think about why your audience would want to engage using audio and harness influencers across Clubhouse.
Drew Benvie runs ‘Trending’ which has a room discussing the latest social media trends every Tuesday and Thursday at 11am GMT.
He also recommends ‘9am in London’ created by Abraxas Higgins (@abraxas), one of the most followed UK Clubhouse users. His club hosts a daily “no agenda” room at 9am GMT.
You can follow Drew on Clubhouse at @drewbenvie and members of the Bristol Creative Industries team, Alli Nicholas, Dan Martin and Chris Thurling, at @allinicholas, @dan_martin and @christhurling.
If you’re a Bristol Creative Industries member who’s on Clubhouse, let us know by following us or sending us a tweet.
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