Haha! Got your attention there!
How many of you are perhaps accused by the significant others in your life that you may be addicted to social media?
The truth is, this can be good, or it can be very bad.
I’m going to talk about the good kind, the necessary kind, the kind you MUST engage in if you want to push open doors, build a fan base around your work and push yourself forward… because NOBODY ELSE is going to do it for you.
I’m not talking about wasting your time or being distracted from important responsibilities and tasks. I’m talking about strategy, managing your own PR and being in charge of your reach, your influence and your reputation.
I have found that the two platforms to keep open in front of you at all times, all day, no matter what else you are doing are Facebook, and a good twitter client, I use Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts as well as your facebook status updates from one client.
Your goal should be to engage people, both in maintaining existing relationships with friends and fans, but also seeking to engage new people every day. This is something that forms an integral part of any advice I give anyone wishing to do anything with social media. It’s a 24/7 365 job, it knows no time zones, no boundaries and it must go with you everywhere.
The fact is, too many creatives lurk in the dark waiting to be “discovered” as if there are talent scouts dredging the internet to find you and your undiscovered talent. I’ve got news for you… you will be waiting a very long time. Nobody is going to come to you asking for your demo tape, or your short film. You may have created a youtube or vimeo channel and left it there for Google to do the rest, I guarantee your channel will sit there at zero hits until you start getting it out there.
You need to take responsibility for your future, for your work, and promote the hell out of yourself. It’s not a ego thing at all, its simply standing up and making sure you are seen and counted.
I recommend that you have a intentional strategy, for your twitter, your personal facebook account, or personal fan page and any project pages you may have created, and start writing a blog. Get a real grasp on what you are trying to achieve across all these platforms and be coherent, brand yourself and make sure your branding is consistent. Be calculated and intentional with every single link you share and status update.
Give yourself a schedule if you need to and try to stick to it, an hour in the morning, and hour in the evening… more if you can manage it, or if you can multitask effectively and work with multiple monitors on your desk, keep it open on one screen to the side at all times and scan it every 10 minutes seeing if there is anything that should demand your attention.
If you find youself wondering what on earth will occupy even two hours a day, then you have an awful lot of work ahead of you and you shouldn’t even be contemplating a kickstarter or indigogo campaign.
Get involved in community… especially on twitter, join discussions, start discussions, participate in organized and scheduled conversations such as Scriptchat. Meet other creatives in your field, collaborate find out what else is going on, support others projects, take interest in others. I promise you an hour will go quicker than you can imagine.
Start writing a blog, and make sure you create new content at least once a week… make it good, write about what you know, what you have authority to write. Promote your articles on twitter and facebook. Content is what will attract people to you and your projects.
For further reading I highly recommend today’s post by Danny Lacey - You’re a Filmmaker, Get used to Self Promoting
and another article of mine published today – The Value of Authority
No matter what anyone tells you… it’s a full time job, and you still have to get all your “real” work done.
