My goal from the very beginning of my acting career was to be a successful working actor. I had the dream that I could make my living as an actor for my entire life, despite the discouraging statistics around job outlook and wage projections for working actors.
In the “old days” before the Internet, the acting landscape was a whole lot different than it is today.
The old-school way of building a successful acting career consisted of landing a job, doing it well, and then landing another job that was more visible, doing it well, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Growing your acting career was based on making new contacts, gaining experience, honing skills and talents, and ultimately (and most importantly) doing “good work” on stage, on screen or in the recording booth.
With persistence and a little bit of luck, eventually the right people would take notice and better opportunities would lead to better jobs and increasing levels of success.
That was how the game looked to me as a young, fresh-out-of-college drama grad embarking on my journey to live my dream and be a successful working actor.
And, do you know what? That simple approach has served me quite well over the years. Even as I transitioned from stage and screen acting to being a professional voice over actor, I still found that if I primarily focused on doing “good work” at every step along the way, one success always lead to another. It was a clear, predictable path.
A Lot More to Professional Voice Over Acting Than People Realize
In today’s internet-driven world, being good at what you do as an actor (especially a professional voice over actor) is still most important. However, there is a new part of the success equation that can create some daunting challenges for many would-be voice over actors just starting out. And even for the seasoned pros, it can still be a time-consuming and arduous treadmill.
TRUTH: We working actors have to do a whole lot more marketing of our talents and ourselves than I ever imagined would be necessary.
Sure, I expected I’d have to promote myself and my profession to some degree, and make lots of new contacts along the way.
But the level and type of marketing that seems to be required today to keep the new business flowing is completely unexpected.
Not only do we have to perform the good work that is at the foundation of our profession, but we have to build and maintain a great website, create fabulous “google-worthy” blog content that builds our audience, contribute profoundly to social media and, in general, stay on top of the constant technological changes that affect how we market our services and selves.
Our livelihood as actors no longer hinges on simply doing what we do well. Now, we also have to build and maintain an intriguing online persona that is attractive to our potential clients as well as to the world in general.
No pressure there!
In a memorable interview, the highly accomplished, talented and ubiquitous Kevin Bacon was asked on The Today Show about how he would navigate the waters of social media, in addition to simply plying his acting craft, if he were just starting out in the entertainment industry today.
Fast forward to about the 2:45 minute mark to hear him speak on this topic…
He was obviously pretty reticent about the idea. He mentions how when he was young and building his career he “really just wanted to be a serious actor,” (doing good work) and the idea of being a “personality” was the last thing he wanted to think about.
Kevin goes on to say,
Now, in a funny way, if you want to be taken seriously (as an actor) you almost have to be more of a personality and you have to nurture that part of your persona. And that’s a kind of pressure I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with.
I guess in a way, he prefers a full six degrees of separation from his audience over the one degree provided by his Twitter feed.
I’ll bet William Shatner would agree, especially after a particularly memorable Twitter backlash he was hit with soon after Leonard Nimoy’s death.
When William Shatner tweeted over the weekend that he had a prior charity commitment that would prevent him from attending Nimoy’s funeral, he got hit with a negative (and totally inappropriate IMHO) Twitter-storm of responses. Wow, makes me wonder why celebs put up with that kind of “fan support.”
Oh yeah, because they HAVE TO!
I guess these days, if you’re an actor or celebrity, YOUR business is EVERYbody’s business. It’s all apparently just part of that persona-maintenance project.
How Does an Actor Manage It All
While the pressures of celebrity are not part of my universe, I do still have to play a similar game of persona managing.
So, if this is the new normal, how the heck do we keep up with all this stuff? And by stuff, I mean all of the chores we have to do in addition to our actual professional skills for which we actually get paid!
1. Outsource What You Can
For working professional voice over talents, one way to manage it all is to outsource, if we can afford it. Procuring agents, forming a marketing team, hiring (or in my case marrying) a business manager, an audio editor and others to help us out, can free up huge amounts of time which allow us to get back to the work of doing our good work.
However, one must be mindful to manage and maintain these relationships as well, since they can easily disappear or be disrupted. Additionally, delegating the management of marketing our persona to others can be very tricky business and demands some oversight. These types of relationships must be chosen very carefully.
Based on the Twitter backlash received by Shatner, along with the social media horror stories many companies have lived to tell, it’s also imperative to be very careful about what gets posted on your social media accounts.
2. Find the DIY Marketing Approach that Works Best For You
If we can’t afford or just don’t want to go down the road of hiring extra help, we can still look for ways to get the biggest bang for our personal efforts using whatever marketing strategy seems to fit best. The content generation approach is certainly not the only way to go, but it seems most effective if you are trying to build good search engine rankings.
In addition to publishing regular blog posts, you can also to choose to incorporate additional DIY marketing strategies such as:
- Keyword research and SEO
- Scheduling social media posts in advance for an entire week, or month
- Investing in automated marketing software that takes care of the repetitive tasks, like email nurturing
- Expanding your exposure with guest blogs and responses to industry-related questions in forums and groups
Finding DIY marketing tactics that gel with your personality and strengths is key. But the tricky question around this whole marketing approach question is “how much time will I have to spend on my marketing?”
The tricky question around this whole marketing approach question is “how much time will I have to spend on my marketing?”
Every minute I spend marketing is a minute I’m not spending recording a job, preparing a quote or crafting a custom voiceover audition. This is the primary reason why I’ve chosen to delegate as much of my marketing chores as I can. That way, I can stay focused on doing my good work and earning the income that allows me to keep on living my dream of being a successful working actor.
How do you manage the marketing chores that are required in your business? I’d love to hear your comments, especially if you have found effective strategies that are working well for you.
