Join the Waitlist

Android users will have to wait just a *bit* longer to join the club — Clubhouse that is. The social audio app’s co-founder announced that while Android access is in the works, it’ll probably be closer to summer before Samsung-ers can tune into whatever your marketing team is discussing on the app that day.

Although Clubhouse announced plans for more creator tools to help grow audiences and monetize events, brands should still think carefully about incorporating Clubhouse into their 2021 plans. Since Androids make up over 43% of the U.S. cell phone market, marketing efforts could be missing out on a huge potential target audience. 

While we wait for the best-known social audio network to let in the Droids, Twitter is taking advantage of the delay. Its Clubhouse-inspired Twitter Spaces opened up to non-iPhone users this month and will be fully usable by the public in April (Clubhouse is still invite-only). Our rec? Give audio on Spaces a try, especially if you already have a dedicated following on Twitter, so when Clubhouse invites Android users to the party, you’ll really know which “club” you want to join.

TL;DR: Because Clubhouse will be inaccessible to Android users until at least summer, marketers may want to find more inclusive options for their foray into audio.

Facebook Makes Room (for Audio)

Aaaaand speaking of more inclusive audio social, it doesn’t get more inclusive than Facebook. The most popular social media site in the world is working on its own live audio meeting rooms feature for its nearly 3 billion users. 

Facebook is slightly notorious for, let’s say, “borrowing” ideas from competitors (*cough* Instagram Stories *cough*). But an audio-only space isn’t too far off from Rooms, FB’s video feature introduced ast May, which enables users to create private video chats that others can drop into. 

Where brands essentially need to start from scratch to build their Clubhouse followings, a Facebook audio option could theoretically allow them to reach their existing followers, boosting engagement and referral traffic opportunities. Let’s just say that the fight for followers’ ears is shaping up to be a surprisingly fierce one.  

TL;DR: The competition for ears is heating up in the social audio world as Facebook looks to throw its (very large) hat into the ring.

Hone Your Draft

Sometimes, a social media platform announces a new feature and all we can think is, “I can’t believe this didn’t already exist.” Enter Instagram Story drafts, which will soon be hitting the app. While the ability to save your Insta Stories as drafts may seem like a minor update — even a no-brainer — it’s sure to be useful for social media managers everywhere.

For marketers who don’t use a third-party platform to post on social (or whose tools don’t include Stories), this update will make creating, scheduling, and posting Stories a far more simple task. (Any creator who has dealt with the perils of losing clickable tags after saving and re-uploading a Story as a photo will understand.) Now you can fully plan your Stories at any time and have all your interactive elements — think hashtags, polls, swipe ups, etc. — saved and ready to go when it’s time to post. A new feature that makes the content creation process smoother is a win in our book. And hey, now we have more time to plan our social audio strategy.

TL;DR: Instagram announces an update to add a “save draft” feature for Stories.

ICYMI