Social Media: an artist’s key to freedom
This piece might be my “pièce de ré·sis·tance” purely because it’s directed at the resistance: Say goodbye to the way things were, embrace where we are now, and welcome in all of the wonderful things to come.
While that advice applies across all topics- your fashion sense, your DVD collection, and your politics- I’m actually talking about social media. This PSA goes out to all of the artists who dwell on the way their careers used to be in the pre-Internet past, who are frustrated with having to learn how to be at-home producers, roll their eyes at self-tapes, and resist marketing themselves on social media.
“People don’t want to see videos of my dog when they come to my page for my music.” False. “Who cares how many followers I have or what my hobbies are when I’m auditioning for scripted roles?” Fair point, but also flawed reasoning.
Here’s why social media matters to your entertainment career and how you can shift the way you view it in order to make impactful changes right now:
1. First and foremost, you have to start thinking of yourself as a small-business owner. Set your artistic talents up like the local mom-and-pop store, complete with products, sales, clients, advertising, employees, R&D, and budgets, then everything you do will outline and scale like a small business.
See your talent as a tangible product available for purchase. People need to know how they can access your gifts in order to pay you for them. Dancers have a performance rate and a choreography rate; musicians can be paid by the gig and per download with their production time factored in. When artists establish themselves as a business, with products and services offered in exchange for money and equity, then the free market can welcome them in as a legitimate entity.
Stop circling your thoughts around why you’re not booking more jobs and start making your service easier for people to buy. Your time and talents are the goods and services that your business trades. What a relief it’ll be to shed the desperation and insecurity of the “starving artist” mentality and usher in the power of your contributions. This the most important reframing that you can do. With this in mind, you can:
2. Utilize social media as a free broadcasting resource to advertise and distribute your services instead of just seeing it as a means to kill time. Wait, when did the thing that used to distract us from our jobs, actually turn into our jobs? The minute you desired the spotlight. Time to get to work.
Social media is the television of today. An estimated 79% of Americans have a social media account as of 2019, compared to only 44% who are subscribed to cable TV. Once shows like American Idol, DWTS and The Voice incorporated text-voting into their viewing experience, the marriage of simultaneous television and social media watching on multiple devices, otherwise known as “Social TV”, was born.
If you’re someone who aspires to be in the media’s eye, please stop ignoring the free broadcasting network that’s right in front of you. You have your own TV channel! Act like it! [Isn’t that what you want?]
Each platform is a separate network with a distinct audience. Which kinds of people are likely to watch “your show”? The family-friendly sitcom base of Facebook? The information-driven students of YouTube? Or the trendy entertainment-stimulus of TikTok? Choose the platform with the audience that you want, create honest content for them, and attract the collaborators that accelerate your mission. If you’re developing a career as an artist of any kind, and you still aren’t utilizing the free television network that’s being offered to you to distribute your content, then you’re missing a layup-business move that’ll catapult your career forward.
Once you’ve breezed through the first two steps: accepting yourself as a small-business and embracing the fact that you’re no longer able to avoid social media and still have a career in the entertainment business, then it’s time to start building a balanced diet.
3. Your feed should nourish you and your audience (it’s called a feed for a reason). It should reflect your ideals, educate and entertain, just like your friends, books, and television do IRL. So just like your diet and exercise, analyze the content of your feed - consumption in and out - and trim the fat.
Remove the junk food disguising itself in annoying accounts, and unfollow the people that you dislike. That means if the bodies are too muscular or the faces too made-up and you find yourself getting frustrated or being “sold-to”, then you’re following the wrong accounts. If you perceive it to be full of complainers and braggers, then that’s a reflection of your real-life too because the algorithm served you up the accounts that you either liked in the past or are connected to through your friends list. Your wall and your real-life can be as helpful or harmful as you choose. So, if you cater your outlook to be what you want to see in your media world, then that’ll be all that’s reflected back to you.
To be successful in adopting any new habit, as James Clear states in his New York Times Best Seller, Atomic Habits, first you must remove the pain points that prevented you from doing the action in the first place.
Once the fat is gone, what do you choose to eat? Fill your feed with things that you love. Follow the hashtags that genuinely interest you in order to find the voices that you want to hear from. Every community has an online presence, and the best way to assimilate into a new medium is to find your people. Start with your “why”, as Simon Sinek states in his bestseller of the same name, and you’ll find your tribe. Be it surfing, sports, gardening, or the soothing satisfaction of pimple-popping, keep sifting through the options and be guided towards things that interest you.
Once you’ve gone down the rabbit-hole and found your community, you’ll also find the sense of humor you want to deliver, the talking points that you could blab on about forever, and the convictions that spark you into action.
That’s what you create your content about: sustainability, snacks, animals, gaming, mental health. Anything and everything that makes you, you. You read that right: Share your personal life in order to get paid.
The easiest way for artists to create income through brand sponsorships (I see you rolling your eyes at the suggestion of being an influencer, but keep reading) is to intertwine aspects of their lifestyle on their social media so that brands can identify their shared audience. Create stories around your pet so that pet brands see that you’re their people. Post a timelapse of your next culinary creation so that food and beverage companies understand which kind of consumer you are. Speak out against waste next time you walk upon trash in your neighborhood. Choose the aspects of your life that genuinely exist in your heart already, so that it feels like fun instead of work. Soon, you’ll find that the same people you were seeking out in your initial research, are now seeking you.
Social media is the new open-air bazaar in India where people exchange goods, services, and ideas. It’s the Central Market of Valencia where hugs and laughs are shared over wine and food. Name any cultural gathering that has thrived throughout history and you’ll see community at its core. Social media is how our human community connects today; it’s our current general assembly of the people. And it will carry on with or without your participation.
So let’s start with those baby steps first, to see how they feel: shift your mindset, recognize the value, trim the fat and show the world who you really are. You’re a small business. Social media is your TV. Unfollow the nonsense and connect with your people.
I’ll be over here casting and producing dreams in the meantime. Find out more about us at https://www.commonthreadent.com/
