HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVELY AS AN ACTOR
Before we dive into nerd tricks to help you make the most out of social media, it’s worth first discussing the significance Social Media has for actors.
Twitter and other social media platforms have given you a tool to instantly reach out and connect with anyone and everyone. 10 years ago, if you wanted to start building relationships with important people in the acting industry, you had to ingratiate yourself in the right social circles, attend the right parties and brown nose the right people.
Now, you can get noticed by acting industry influencers at the touch of a button. However, actually developing these relationships online is an art form in itself, and one which the majority of actors have got painfully wrong.
All too often, I see people using Twitter to dive into conversations, completely uninvited, just to promote themselves. Let’s say, in real life, you were at a theatre bar after a show and you spotted a director you want to work with discussing the play with a couple of people. You wouldn’t run up to them, throw a business card in their face and yell “HIRE ME” before running off into the night, would you? Yet everyday I see some chump essentially doing this by crashing in on people’s Twitter conversations with little more than a sales pitch and a link to their Spotlight page.
Instead, you should use social media to reach out and make connections.
For example, you could open up a dialogue with your favorite director by messaging them after you see their show, letting them know what you thought of it. Be creative and be intelligent, add thoughts and opinions that perhaps they haven’t heard before.
You can even build a following and promote yourself by posting things that offer real value to others in the acting industry. Tweeting casting calls, interesting and useful blogs (including this one *hint hint*) and genuinely insightful thoughts on the industry will gain you followers. With social media, your top priority should be giving people a reason to follow you!
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use social media to actively promote yourself and things you are performing in, but once again, it’s all about being sensible. In real life, no one likes people who talk about nothing but themselves, and it’s the same on social media: make sure that self-promotion is just one aspect of what you post.
So, now that you have an idea of how to use social media as an actor, there are a number of free tools you can use to make the most of it.
1. Buffer and Hootsuite
The first is Buffer and Hootsuite. Both of these tools essentially do the same thing by letting you “queue” posts. This is great because you can schedule a bunch of Tweets/statuses at once, to go out at pre-determined times throughout the day. This means that you can maintain your presence, even when you’re away from your phone or computer.You can also queue awesome webpages and blogs you see, so instead of having to share your favourite content then and there, you can schedule it to post at a different time.
2. Mention and Google Alerts
By using Mention you can keep track of people mentioning specific phrases and keywords all over the internet, including on social media. Let’s say for example, you were a Hispanic actress. By setting Mention to scour the web for things that mention “Hispanic actress casting”, you can make sure that you never miss out on a relevant online casting call ever again. Google alerts do a similar thing for the internet as a whole. The applications of these tools are endless, and they can really help you get a handle on what highly relevant things are going on, online.
3.Find and follow the right people
How useful you find Twitter is largely down to the people you follow. If your feed is full of Tweets from interesting, important people who are relevant to your career, you’re going to get a lot more out of it than if you just follow some friends and Stephen Fry. Use Twitter’s search function to search for relevant keywords which interest you. Usually, savvy Twitter users will include such keywords in their Twitter bio. You can use this to find and follow, for example, Los Angeles based casting directors.
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