Hard to believe I joined Twitter 14 years ago. I feel practically ancient.
Reluctantly, for me, a profile on Facebook came shortly thereafter followed quickly by a LinkedIn account.
Those are still some of the foundational social media platforms. Lord knows of the thousands of 3rd-party wannabe and also-rans that have come and gone since then.
Now Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, Pinterest, What’s App, TikTok and others seem to have staying power, and they — like their predecessors — all have the promise of being “free”.
No outlay needed to be one of the cool kids!…and that’s still the hollow promise of today.
Sure, you can be present on all those sites for free. You can see what’s happening, post arbitrarily, and still feel like you’re one of the “in” crowd.
You can even get exposure for your VO business using all the right gifs, videos, memes, pictures, and tools for scheduled and automatic posts.
“…the legacy “free” media — you know: TV — is losing its luster among advertisers, and has been suffering viewer and ad dollar erosion for years…”
But don’t fool yourself. Social Media today is all part of the most monumental, passive-aggressive bait ‘n’ switch scheme of all time.
Why? Because the legacy “free” media — you know: TV — is losing its luster among advertisers, and has been suffering viewer and ad dollar erosion for years. Now it’s become a flood.
Where are they going? To the internet. No really. In a BIG WAY.
That means: ...whatever little exposure you were hoping to get on those FaceBook-friendly posts of yours are lost among big-dollar advertisers and constantly changing algorithms...
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Who gets the most exposure? The person/company/client/subscriber with the $$$.
So by all means post away (please make it part of your marketing plan, though. Please?). Start conversations, respond to friends and prospective clients. Post videos, links, and pay-it-forward.
Just know — less and less of it is being noticed.
It’s being lost to the businesses and people who are paying to be noticed, and the Instagrams, YouTubes, and FaceBooks of the world are giving them top billing.
What’s the solution for us relatively low-budget freelance voice-actors? You will have to spend money to get noticed on Social Media. No more “free”.
–OR–
There IS the good old fashioned alternative:
- client referrals
- word-of-mouth
- warm-calling
- postcards
- emails
- research
- personal visits
…you know, the kind of marketing that actually requires hard work (sarcasm intended)
CourVO
