Social Networking for Voiceover Actors: How to Make Friends AND Do Business

Voice talent cannot afford to be strangers to social networking. Many talent can be found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, even Pinterest. If you have a profile on social sites, are you taking advantage of all they have to offer your business? Are you maximizing these sites as a business tool?

These social network sites allow you to meet potential clients by reviewing their profiles and directly or indirectly starting a conversation with them about your voiceover services. But, if small business owners and entrepreneurs have such a magnificent business builder in these sites, why is it that most voice talent seem to spend time on social sites meeting other talent, and little time meeting potential clients?

If you are using social networks you should dedicate at least a few hours a week to finding and meeting people and updating your profile. Use the sites’ search features to look up other users who are in voiceover related businesses, the ones who are most likely to directly hire talent; audio and video producers, advertising executives and marketing managers. Having a drafted block of text ready to send to a prospect will make the process faster. (Save yourself hours of time by not having to create a custom message for everyone you meet).

Treat your social network profiles as if they are your OWN website. Be sure that your profile is ALL or mostly business. It should be clean, easy to read and all about your voiceover business. Try to keep personal stats to a minimum and make sure your phone and email info are highly visible. Some social sites do not give you obvious spaces in which to place such info – so you may have to get creative. Many social sites allow you to post audio too, so select an audio player for your demos that is easy to find and use.

If you have your own website make sure it links to your social network profiles and vice versa. If you find yourself overwhelmed with the process of updating social media accounts then get a personal assistant to help with the task or consider using a dashboard site to update multiple accounts at once. Hootsuite, Stacker, and Buffer are just a few of these helpful sites.

Your biggest key to social network success is to make sure you are contacting and making friends with prospective voiceover clients.  There’s nothing wrong with making friends with other voiceover actors – occasionally these interactions will lead to work – but at some point you have to ask yourself if spending time talking with other talent on social networks is really helping to grow your business.  Fraternizing with other talent may yield advice and tips about the industry but it will not often be a direct link to paying jobs.

704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com

Gabrielle Nistico, Gabby Nistico, The Voiceover Vixen, The Business First VO Coach, #VoiceoverVixen #VoiceOnFire #BusinessFirstVOCoach Voiceover Success, Entrepreneur, Marketing Strategies, Entrepreneur, Income, Social Media, Networking