I originally shared this in our “Lawyers on Clubhouse” Facebook Group. Because so many of my friends, who are not lawyers and not part of the group) wanted to see the post, I’m sharing it here too. If you think this post has value, please feel free to share the link with other friends who are enjoying the Clubhouse platform.
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Tips For Moderating a Clubhouse Room.
I sat down with my team to come up a list of tips to help all of us moderate our Clubhouse Rooms. After we got past the “it’s like herding a bunch of really smart cats,” this is what we came up with. Please share any additional thoughts in the comments and I’ll update the post as needed.
By the way, I shared an earlier related post, “Clubhouse Tips for Lawyers and Law School Students” that’s a good place for new users to start.
#1: Starting Your Room
When you start your room, there’s a good chance you’ll be the only person in the room. That’s OK. It’s normal. It can take a few minutes for people to find their way over to the room, even if you’ve been promoting it on your social platforms and blogs (see #6 in the above link).
The key is to have something going on while people are coming in. When you see people down in the audience, welcome them by name and let them know, in a friendly conversational way, what the room is all about. For example, I was part of a room with Bob Burg, author of “The Go-Giver” series of books. As people started coming in and while I was alone on stage before Bob arrived, I started with, “Hi Julie, it’s good to see you in the audience. This is going to be fun. Bob Burg will be joining us and after a few minutes, we’ll be asking everyone to raise their hands and come up to the stage to say hello and ask questions. Please do me a favor and hit the (+) button and please invite your friends, who will want to meet Bob, into the room…”
I’ll continue to chat about my day, maybe something that’s relevant to the topic or that happened in the news, and just keep the audio live so that people who come into the room stay in the room. If you have a co-moderator, you can incorporate the above with small talk for a minute or two until you decide it’s time to formally start the presentation, discussion or immediate Q&A.
#2: Give Context to Your Room
Many people in the room may not know exactly what the room’s about or who you are. Take 30-60 seconds to set the stage focusing on the benefits to your audience. Introduce yourself and immediately let everyone know what value they’re going to receive by listening and participating in the room. If you’re co-moderating a room, plan ahead to introduce each other with a short 30-60 second introduction. I always ask the other moderator to text or email me a short intro and then modify it down to something short and sweet. The idea is to give everyone in the room a reason to be there and invite others into the room. At this stage I also usually mention the room will be open for an hour (or whatever the time frame is) so that everyone knows the general game-plan.