By Andrew Parr
Either you have already read Part I of our Clubhouse Series, “The Clubhouse App for Restaurants: What Is It and Why Is It Relevant,” or you are already ahead of the curve and figured that out on your own. Now, you need to know how to use Clubhouse, and here is your mini User Manual.
8 Steps to Get Setup (after you download the app - Google Play or App Store)
Profile Picture - Upload a quality picture/headshot that’s shows off your personality.
Descriptive Bio – The first four words of your bio show up as your “official title,” so choose wisely. Up to 12 words will show up as an extended title/about. Full profile bios can be extensive.
Social Accounts – You can connect your Instagram and Twitter accounts to Clubhouse. This is an important function to build a following and have followers connect with you outside of Clubhouse.
Notifications - Toggle on the “Send Fewer Notifications” button. If you turn them off, you won’t get notified when we start a room you are a part of. If you don’t set “Fewer Notifications,” Clubhouse will blow up your phone.
Follow - When prompted, follow your contacts who are on the app. If you have been invited to be a moderator or speaker for an event, you must follow the event organizer to be added to an event. You can also follow your favorite clubs and people on the app. When you are in a room and find someone whose insights resonate with you, follow them!
Share/Promote - Be a good collaborator and support getting more butts in seats for a room if you are a Moderator or Speaker. More on this below!
Interests - Select at least 7 interests so rooms that show in your “Hallway” are more on topic for you, directing you to content you want to hear. You can select more if you wish.
See How A Room Works - Prior to your first time being a Moderator/Speaker, enter any random room for a few minutes. You can enter any room that sounds interesting in your Hallway. You’ll just be in the audience in the background so there is no pressure. Spend five minutes and you’ll get a sense of how things work.
So, now that you are all set up, let’s go back to how to share and promote the room you are in.
Share/Promote: Tapping on the event itself, you will have four options:
You can “share” the event which will bring up the iOS or Android share widget, which allows you to send the link through options like text messages and your other messaging applications.
The “Tweet” link will compose a tweet for you including the public event link.
“Copy Link” will copy a URL which shows information about your event to the public.
“Add to Cal” will allow you to add the event to your favorite scheduling app so you don’t forget about it!
Ok, you have downloaded and set up the Clubhouse app on your phone as well as shared and promoted the room that you will be participating in. Now it’s time for the main event, and you are entering the room.
What Happens After I Enter a Room?
After you tap on a room to enter, you’ll see the ‘Stage’, as well as who is in the audience.
The Stage: You’ll see a listing of everyone on stage, with their profile picture and first name identifying them. You’ll see the party emoji if the user has joined in the past week, and an indication of whether that user is muted. When a user speaks, you’ll see an outline around their picture activate to indicate they’ve talking. The green ‘star’ icon indicates who is a moderator in the room as well.
Room Actions: At the bottom, you will see an action bar with some buttons that allow you to interact with the room. What you see here depends if you are on stage or not.
If you are in the audience:
Leave Quietly -This will take you out of the room
Plus - This allows you to ‘ping’ or invite someone who follows you into the room. You can only “ping” people who follow you.
Hand Raise - This allows you to let the moderators know you would like to come up to speak.
4. If you are on stage:
Leave Quietly - This will take you out of the room
Plus - This allows you to ‘ping’ or invite someone who follows you into the room.
Microphone - This allows you to either mute or un-mute your microphone.
A Quick Tour of the Clubhouse App
Explore: tap on the magnifying glass icon to find people and clubs to follow
Upcoming calendar: tap the calendar icon to see upcoming events and shows.
Activity feed: tap the bell icon to see recent notifications about contacts who just joined the app, new followers, invites to join clubs, messages from Clubhouse support, etc.
User profile: tap on the photo at the top right (or photo slot if you haven't added a profile pic yet) to navigate to your user profile, edit, access settings & important links.
Who's online: the "online" button at the lower right of your home screen takes you to a screen, also known as the "sidebar," where you can see which of your friends are online. You can also just swipe right-to-left from the main screen to get to there!
Rooms: if there are rooms live, you'll see them in the hallway, with title, names of speakers, names of listeners that you follow, and the number of participants. Tap to join!
Hallway: shows a top menu bar, a reminder of the upcoming scheduled events, and a bottom menu bar for starting a room of your own.
Backchannel: The ARROW icon is for “Backchannel” chat feature. Use this to direct message a user or start a group chat with fellow Moderators.
What’s The Etiquette?
In addition to the formal "rules," these are things that we'd want everyone in Clubhouse to be mindful of, regardless of the room they’re in:
Be respectful. This is self-explanatory — our community has set an amazing precedent thus far and we strongly believe in this.
Share the stage. Most rooms have many speakers on stage, rather than just one or two. Having a large group on stage is fun and engaging, but also means it's important to be considerate of others who are on stage, whether you're a moderator or just a speaker.
Be mindful of diversity. The diversity of users, backgrounds, and perspectives makes Clubhouse special, and we believe it's important to keep this in mind — whether you're organizing an event, deciding who to let on stage, taking turns talking, etc.
Don’t fanboy / fangirl. When celebrities join rooms in Clubhouse, people sometimes get quite excited, and want to put the spotlight on these figures. However, generally the experience for them and others in the room is better when everyone is treated as an equal! Authentic conversations from person to person, irrespective of status, are powerful.
Welcome the newbies. One of the most amazing things we’ve seen in Clubhouse is the culture of welcoming newcomers. Newbies have a "party hat" badge on their profile photo when they're in a room so that people can welcome and invite them to come up and speak.
Well, that’s it. It may seem as though there is a lot here, but like most social apps, Clubhouse is quite intuitive once you start to explore. Download the app, set yourself up, get in, and engage.
Andrew Parr, Angry Olive Consulting's Founder, is a restaurant and hospitality industry leader with over 25 years of experience including consulting, project management, restaurant operations and talent acquisition. His education includes a BA in Psychology and History from the University of Wisconsin along with a JD from Hamline University School of Law.
Andrew was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Denver with his wife Jody and their dog Cooper. Andrew is a Past President of the Board of Directors for the Scleroderma Foundation – Rocky Mountain Chapter.