How to use Clubhouse effectively as a motion designer

Hayley Akins (00:00): So you need to ask yourself questions. Like if I'm saying yes to this, what am I saying no to, what am I looking to get out of this platform? Am I currently working in another platform to get clients? And am I seeing results there? And can I combine what I do on clubhouse with some of the other platforms that I'm already using? Hey, hatchings welcome to the motion hatch podcast. I'm your host, Hailey Akins. Are you wondering about whether you should join club house as a motion designer, or if you can get any clients on club palace today, this is what we're going to cover in this episode. So please do stay tuned.

Hayley Akins (00:42): Let's get into it.

Hayley Akins (00:47): Hey and welcome. Hatchlings to episode number 88 of the motion hatch podcast. So today I'm going to attempt to answer the top questions that motion designers have about color pals. So the first question is, is it worth getting on clubhouse as a motion designer or a small studio? How can I get clients on color pals as a motion designer or studio? So we're going to talk about how to get direct clients and also how you might attract agencies and animation studios on color pals. The third question is, is clip house here to stay. And the fourth question I'm going to try and answer today is can Twitter or Facebook make something similar that might overtake clubhouse and make clubhouse redundant? So, because social media moves extremely fast pace, it's always evolving. This is mainly my opinion at the moment and it may change. So I hope you will find this helpful as an introduction to color pals and help you to make the decision to join or not. So to start off with, I kind of want to take you back a little bit. I was recently on the school of motion podcast in February of this year and I was talking to Joey and I actually wasn't unclear pals back then. So I just want to take you back to that moment, because this is kind of the start of the journey for me and the journey on declare pals.

Joey Korenman (02:11): Yeah. So a lot of the things you said, they kind of their mind, me of the things Gary V talks about, you know he's gone all in on every single social, social media platform that's ever existed, I think. And then as soon as he realizes this, one's not working, he just kills it. But because of that, he's able to get in really, really early on platforms, right? When they start up weather, cause he knows this may work. It may not, but if it works, it's going to be really valuable. And it's funny, there's actually a brand new social media platform. I guess it's a social media platform called clubhouse, which I started hearing about on Twitter maybe six weeks ago. And it was really at the time it was just like Silicon valley, VCs and investors talking about it because you know, Neval is on there and now Chris DOE seems to be doing, you know it's basically a live audio chat social network and he's doing these talks like seemingly every day. And I've heard the school of motion community start, start asking about it. So I'm curious why don't you use that as an example, here's a brand new social media platform. It's not obvious how this is going to turn into work for motion designers. How would you kind of guide your students and the mastermind artists you're working with to, to evaluate something like clubhouse?

Hayley Akins (03:32): I think this is a great question. I'm excited about it because I literally just debating whether I should have to get on that platform right now as well. So I have an insight for you, Haley, if you need one. Thank you. Thank you. I need to get an iPhone first. This is my, my biggest struggle, but it's fine. We'll stop. So yeah, I just want to say that I haven't used it, but I have done some research. So from the research, the kind of thing I think is really good, like you were saying for conversations and stuff like that. So people, what happens is as far as my understanding is that people are on a stage, you know, so Christo or whoever will be talking on a stage and then if they allow it, you can put your hand up and then you can talk to, so it kind of seems like you can get access to some people who maybe wouldn't have access to otherwise, you know, because you can actively have a live conversation with them.

Hayley Akins (04:27): And it's not as curated as something like a podcast, like what we're doing right now. So I think that it could be really powerful, especially if you're looking to get into a niche that isn't, you know, like you want to be emotions, as I know for a certain type of company or a certain type of industry, cause then you can get involved in these industry conversations, similar to what you do, if you would like go to a conference or something like that. And then you can kind of go to that profile, I think, and then you can go to the Instagram and kind of start a conversation with them there and be like, Hey, I heard you talk about this on CLO palace. That was really cool. You know, I'm interested in that kind of thing too, you know, so that's how I think it could work. But as someone who hasn't used the platform yet, you know, I just want to reiterate that, but that's how I see it working from the research

Joey Korenman (05:17): I've done. Yeah. I love it. It almost, that's a really brilliant idea actually. Cause it almost sounds like you can look at it like you're going to a conference.

Hayley Akins (05:26): So as you can hear from that clip of me talking to Joey, that I actually wasn't on the platform back then, but I was very interested in it. And then shortly after that I did get myself an iPhone and I did get on the platform. So this is kind of what I've learned so far and how I hope that it can help you to get clients on clubhouse and how you might be able to get in there and hopefully enjoy the platform and come and hang out with us there too in our motion hatch club. So if you want to find out more about motion hatch on color palettes, you can go to motion hatch.club to find out more there, but let's get into the first question. So the first question is, is it worth getting on clubhouse as a motion designer or small studio?

Hayley Akins (06:12): Well, we can answer this question by tackling it in a way that I would tackle any opportunity. So you need to ask yourself questions. Like if I'm saying yes to this, what am I saying no to what am I looking to get out of this platform? Am I currently working in another platform to get clients and am I seeing results there? And can I combine what I do on clubhouse with some of the other platforms that I'm already using? So for example, for me, this looks like experimenting with adding some clip house, audio onto the podcast. So I'm getting double the amount of output for the amount of effort that I'm putting in. So last week we did a clubhouse with our motion design mentors, and then we put that audio onto the podcast. So if you haven't listened to episode 87 yet, please head back and listen to that because that was a really, really great episode.

Hayley Akins (07:06): It was really good. So we decided to take the audio from clubhouse and put it on to the podcast. So you can all listen to it because obviously clubhouse is a place where it's live and then it goes away. It isn't recorded on the platform. So I'm recording them separately, obviously as per the terms of clubhouse, I'm getting permission from everybody that I'm recording to put out elsewhere because you shouldn't record rooms, unless you have expressed permission of the people who are joining those rooms. So that's just something to keep in mind as well. So as well as I am also learning a new platform, which I can then help you to cut out some of the learning time and hopefully get straight to the results you want, which I assume probably for most of you is getting clients from this platform. So in conclusion is clubhouse worth getting on there as a motion signer.

Hayley Akins (07:58): I think that it entirely depends on you, how much time you have, you know, how much you're willing to put in the platform. And you know, is this going to take you away from other things that you should be doing? So in our client quest costs, we actually do a client and social media audit. And this really helps you to figure out where you should be spending your time because social media can be really overwhelming. And I only want you to spend time on platforms where you're really getting results. So my advice to you would be to concentrate on one platform at a time. So if you think that's clubhouse for you, then I definitely recommend getting on the platform. We're going to talk about some of the benefits of clubhouse very soon. And I'm also going to tell you how you could get some motion design clients on there.

Hayley Akins (08:45): So the next question that I'm sure you're all here for is how can I get clients on clear palace as a motion designer? So personally I, that clubhouse can be a powerful tool to get clients or customers because attracting clients is all about relationship building. So clubhouse actually makes it extremely easy to build relationships. I found that the same motion designers come back to our rooms again and again. And I've noticed that. So if I was your perfect client, for example, it'd be extremely easy to get on my radar by coming into my rooms and asking to contribute on the stage. But my clients probably aren't hosting their own rooms right now. So how do we go about building relationships with them? We'll, let's start with direct clients. And then we can talk about agencies and animation studios later on. So let's talk about how to get direct clients on clubhouse.

Hayley Akins (09:39): I'm a firm believer that if you want to have more direct clients, you probably need to niche down in some way, because there's so many clients that potentially could hire you. It makes it very difficult for you to find them. If you aren't targeting a small group of people. So you can niche down in three different ways, you can niche down in style market or skill. So let's tackle style first. This is probably what most people are familiar with. You basically need to find clients who could use your style. So it's about searching for brands maybe who kind of have a similar brand style as you have in your animations and things like that. And then we could talk about markets. So market could be a certain type of customer with a particular problem. And skill obviously is if you're a 3d artists or something like that, and you just do characters design, then you're obviously niche down on skill.

Hayley Akins (10:36): So by niching down in one of these ways, it can make it easier for you to identify your clients. So the most straightforward example of this is obviously a market niche. So say you love surfing. You could search on club pals for all the clubs talking about surfing. So you can check out these Cubs and the people that are in those clubs, and you would likely find some people with similar interests and also some business owners. So I actually did a search for surfing and I found quite a few clips. One of them was actually hosted by the chairman of surfing England. So maybe this could be someone who might need some motion design. So you could search for things that interest you and insert yourself into those conversations and start to participate with them. So you could also follow people like CEOs, agency, owners, marketing managers, and click the notification bell on their profile to see when they speak so that you can join in the conversations that they're involved with.

Hayley Akins (11:34): So I think this would be a really great way to find some direct clients on there and also to kind of warm them up and build your relationship with them slowly over on clubhouse. So next, I'm going to talk about how you combined agency clients and animation studios on clear pals. So you can search to see if the owners or staff are on there and you should turn on the notification bell for when they speak. You should set it to always, and I wouldn't follow them into rooms that you have no interest in, but if they're in a room that aligns with your interests or they're talking about the motion design industry or something, you can get involved with the conversation and add your 2 cents. Or maybe you could ask a question, then this is the best way to engage with them. And it makes it as natural as possible.

Hayley Akins (12:22): So clip house is pretty good at showing you the conversations that you might be interested in, especially if you click that notification bell on clubs and people that you like to follow. So if you see a room, you like the topic of you can actually now RSVP to those rooms. So you just kick the notification bell in the app to be notified when that room goes live. So clip house does send you a lot of notifications, but if you set it to very infrequent, then you can get not as many notifications because I actually had it on very frequent to start with. And to be honest, it was pretty overwhelming. So that's just a little warning for you, but I think you have different levels of frequency that you can ask your phone to see different types of notifications. I would also suggest that you get involved with some of the motion sign rooms on there.

Hayley Akins (13:14): So we host a weekly room at 4:00 PM, UK time and 11:00 AM Eastern standard time around the business side emotions line. So please do pop by for that and have a chat. If you want to check out more about our motion hatch club on clubhouse, then go to motion. Hatch.Club. Also dash studio host a great room on a Friday at 6:00 PM UK time called MoGraph lunch. So if you want to hop on that one too, I highly recommend it. There's also a club called motion Zion and Dave co is pretty active on there. So you could follow those as well to get involved in the community and start making connections with other motions, designers and animation studios. Remember, this is a long game we're playing here, building relationships slowly and naturally. So you should know when it's the best time to reach out to people, either via email or DM.

Hayley Akins (14:06): When you have been speaking with them on ClearPass for awhile. I do actually know someone who got some clients recently unclear palace without really reaching out to them. But I do think that it's a long game. And I think that you should think about it as giving value to other people and serving first and really just thinking about how you can contribute to the community. And I think that way it will feel very natural to you and you will reap the rewards later. So I hope that gave you some ideas about how you might be able to get clients via ClearPass. So I guess the next big question is, is clubhouse here to stay well, ClearPass had 10 million downloads in February, but it's actually down to 900 in April, but it did just launched the Android app in the U S so I think that may and June will be really telling if the numbers go up or down or not.

Hayley Akins (15:01): So really time will tell, but as Gary V said recently, even if cliff house isn't here to stay, this type of audio only social platform will be. So I think it's really great to get involved. Traditionally things that build community generally have pretty good, same power, for example, Facebook groups. But the problem comes when the platform start to reduce your organic reach in place of ads. So they can monetize the platform, which is why right now, clubhouse, in my opinion, is a great place to be because you can have genuine conversations with people, and it's pretty easy to get involved and find people and rooms that you're interested in. I also think it's really smart that they've given clubs, the ability to invite members in. So if you'd like an invite to cup house, then we will add link to join our club in the show notes.

Hayley Akins (15:49): This might run out and expire at some point in the future. But as of now, we still have quite a few invites to give out. So I'd love it if you could come and join us in our club. So the final question that we're going to tackle about ClearPass today is can Twitter or Facebook make something similar that might overtake club house. So I think generally from our discussion so far, but is it worth it to join? And is it here to stay? I think we've probably identified the, you know, if it's right for you to get on an audio only platform, I would spend some time on color pals and yes, maybe it will go away. So you should always not put all your eggs in one basket, but I think it is good to mainly focus on one platform and use 90% of your time spend on that platform.

Hayley Akins (16:36): And then maybe experiment with 10% of your time on another platform. So maybe color pals is your 90% or maybe clubhouse is your attempt scent of experimentation. But I do think it is worth getting involved right now, as I said, because the organic reach is pretty good because they're not monetizing it yet. That's not to say that they won't do that in the future, but let's talk about these other platforms and can they overtake clear palace by adding these audio only functionalities to their platforms? Well, as we know, Twitter and Facebook are already trying to do this. Twitter spaces is live. I haven't used it myself. I think it might be currently only in beta, but I believe that people are becoming a bit jaded by spending too much time on some of these platforms. And they're genuinely finding that aren't as useful as they once were.

Hayley Akins (17:26): So I definitely think there's room for some new competition, like club house. And I really welcome it because I think platforms are generally very good when they start out, when they're not monetizing as much as we saw, you know, quite a few years ago with Instagram, it was a really great platform to start with. Now. I think it is a little bit harder to be found. So this is why I'm recommending a lot of motion designers posts on LinkedIn. Cause that organic reach over there is much better than Instagram, but it's okay if he's still on a post on Instagram. Of course, because I do know that a lot of studios and art directors are looking on there to find motion designers to hire. So I don't think that Instagram is dead or anything like that. I just think you should experiment and try other platforms as well.

Hayley Akins (18:14): So I hope these tips and overview of my thoughts have helped you to form your own opinion of house and hopefully build some great relationships there that will lead to more clients for you and help you to grow your motion. Same business. I love it. If you could join me on clubhouse sometime soon, we host a room every Thursday at 4:00 PM, UK time, 11:00 AM Eastern time. So please do join us there. If you want to follow me on clubhouse I'm @ Hailey Akins, you can also join our motion hatch club on there. So just search motion hatch in the clubhouse platform, or alternatively, you can go to motionhatch.club and find all the information there. So I hope you'll join me in a room soon. And if you've enjoyed this podcast today, please do share it with your friends on social media. We are at motion hatch on Twitter and Instagram, and please do subscribe because we've got some great podcasts coming up for you. We release a podcast every other week on a Tuesday, so do watch out for them and do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. I appreciate you. See ya.