Welcome back to Between Bells. Fadia Kader is no stranger to hard work.
Last year she was named head of strategic media
partnerships at the audio based social media app clubhouse
back in january. The company achieved evaluation of over $1 billion
Thanks to a booming user base and currently boasts 10 million weekly active users
India's long history working at the intersection of music branding and tech has
helped users best utilized clubhouse and she's not slowing down anytime soon.
Joining us now is Fadia Kader head
of strategic media partnerships at clubhouse video.
Welcome to the show. I've spent a lot of time on clubhouse.
I'm really excited to have you.
It's been about a year since you joined the platform.
You were previously at Instagram for four years.
Have you applied what you learned at instagram to your new role here at clubhouse?
Oh my goodness, well, thank you so much for having me actually,
today is my one year anniversary at clubhouse.
So this is like perfect timing um, how I applied the things I learned at instagram
at club house.
I mean it's so many things I learned on instagram as far as you know, moving fast,
really building authentic and like
real relationships with our partners was a key factor in my success.
I would say at instagram and I was able to bring a
lot of those relationships and not just from my time at instagram.
I mean a twitter complex stuff jam and all the things I've done before.
It's just been accumulating over the years.
So you know, um instagram was the last place, but
I'm here now. Yeah, congratulations on your one year clubhouse anniversary.
What are some things you've been able to accomplish in your role
and what are you looking forward to implementing moving forward here?
I think the biggest accomplishment that I've
had in my role currently at clubhouses,
the amazing team that I've been able to build.
Um, you know, we have some amazing subject matter experts across thought,
leadership,
uh, sports entertainment, news and media publishers.
So the team is extremely diverse, not only in their skill sets,
but just their backgrounds.
Um, that's the biggest thing I'm mostly proud of,
is just building this amazing Avengers team as my uh,
CMO Maya would say the other thing is just like making
sure that we've created a space where in social audio,
uh,
community members creators can feel seen by their favorite
public figures and brands and just like it's,
it's a,
it's an area where they can go and have conversations in
real time and be part of the conversation as well,
potentially by being on the stage,
how is bringing music and entertainment to
this app helped clubhouses success here?
The way music and entertainment has helped.
I mean, you know, when anything happens right, and pop culture, uh,
the first thing you want to do is talk to friends.
So you hear your first, like your,
your favorite artist or you watch your favorite movie,
you want to find a place for someone to talk to
and sometimes your friends aren't available in real life. So
you know, having those moments come on
clubhouse, like for instance, we had uh Deepti and Natalie from Love is Blind,
join us for international women's Day last week and
they were able to talk about all things,
Love is blind and you know, our community members like don't get that first row seat,
everybody has a first row seat a clubhouse when it comes to entertainment and music.
That's absolutely what I loved at clubhouse.
You really heard from the person that was on the platform?
I do want to talk about competitors amazon just launched a similar
app to a clubhouse that lets everyone be their own DJ.
How is clubhouse staying competitive in a
space that's becoming more and more saturated
to be honest with you.
Like we are the category first leaders,
We are 100% focused on social audio as opposed to, you know,
it's not just a feature that we've just like bottled up and put on there.
We are a medium that is 100% focused on community and social audio.
So that is our differentiator,
that is the biggest differentiator that we have.
Like we put all our time and resources and efforts and intentions
into social audio.
It's not just something that we can just throw away
because we've also built a community along with that.
Um, and the community is a standout.
Like, you know, you can build a feature, but you cannot build community,
uh huh and you can't buy community either,
I would say that's the main thing, I think that's really smart.
No, that makes complete sense.
I do want to talk about some controversy with clubhouse,
they've come under fire for some anti Semitic speech harassment,
conspiracy issues,
it's not the only platform,
I mean clubhouse is certainly not alone when it comes to this,
but how is the app working to make sure it's users are feeling safe?
I mean, I cannot stress enough our shout out our policy team,
shout out our trust and safety team,
we have teams that work 24 hours a day we take and you know,
when clubhouse first started, it was a team of 45
and it was at the height of its popularity.
Currently, you know, our team in,
on the Trust and safety side is working nonstop 24 hours a day,
they look at every single, you know, complaints that they have,
so we action pretty fast and I've worked at platforms in the
past where it took a long time to action on certain things,
but
that's the benefit of being so small,
is such a small team were mighty and nimble and flexible and we move and
you know, action accordingly.
Generally social media has come under scrutiny in
recent years for its impact on young people,
especially young teenage girls,
what advice would you provide to a teenager who's new to social media,
unaware of the toll it could take on them mentally.
I mean,
the first thing I would say before we get into
the mental part of it is just understand that,
you know, you're you're the internet never forgets.
That's the biggest advice I tell my young nieces and nephews that all the time.
So whatever happens on the internet, no one's going to forget it,
it doesn't just happen and it goes away.
You know what you do online, sticks with you for a really long time.
Now when it, when it comes to the mental health aspect of it,
I have to remind all young, you know,
um listeners and like social media users is that you
know what you see on the internet is often curated,
it's 10% reality, if that honestly and the rest is a curated reality.
So like take things with a grain of salt,
understand that you are not
your value and who you are is not based on
what you see or what you're trying to emulate.
You are your own unique individual and that's the most important thing.
Fantastic advice.
Vidia cater, head of strategic media partnerships at clubhouse.
Thank you so much for your time. Vidia