Say "no" to marketing!
Volume 4, Number 8 | August 2010
Recently, I spent an invigorating afternoon hanging out with some really smart people while taping my friend Bonnie Gillespie's
Your Actor MBA series.
One of the smartest things I heard that day (and there was a lot of smart stuff) was actor-teacher Jack Plotnick's assertion that most of "that marketing stuff" didn't work for him, so he didn't do most of it. Instead, Jack spent his marketing time working on other loosely-related-to-acting stuff, like learning how to get out of his own way—removing mental road blocks to his success, rather than getting past gatekeepers. Or in creating shows he could perform in and finding stage time to play, rather than getting the word out.
In other words, he did not ignore the fact that he needed to get himself out there—he was just realistic about what was going to work for him (and, conversely, what was not).
These days,
Jack is online. He posts articles. He's begun dabbling with Twitter. But the core of Jack's strategy is that Jack does what works for Jack. And guess what? The more he hews to his own strengths, the more clear and less chaotic he is, the better he's able to be seen by others. In other words, the more Jack does what works for Jack, the more Jack works. (And the ones who cannot BELIEVE he doesn't postcard/Facebook/whatever? Not his people anyway!)
So—how can you be like Jack?
1. Review your landscape
You'll notice that I stressed Jack's ongoing work on his core competency—acting. Your first job at communicating A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G is making sure there's something worthwhile to talk about.
Everyone now knows that social-media creep is just as dangerous as TV-creep. So spend some time looking honestly at the ratio of time spent on Yer Thang to time spent yakking about it on Facebook. I'm no mathematician, but I'd say you should be spending a minimum of 3x as much time and effort on Yer Thang to talking about or promoting it. Bare minimum.
2. Quit what you hate
My friend
Havi decided she hated writing her "noozletter"—so she quit. (She also quit email, for which she is the hero of many.) Instead, she spends her outreach time hanging out on Twitter and her website, and guess what? Her business is just fine. Booming, even.
On the other hand, I love the conversations and feedback that come out of this newsletter and my blog, so (for now, anyway) they stay. And this July, I took on a Guest Editor spot at
Coudal Partners posting groovy links to their feed because it was fun.
The results? Well, so far, my subscriber base has increased, albeit modestly. But with rare exceptions, modest, consistent increase is what you're after, not flash-in-the-pan attention. Yes, you'll need to promote heavily when your big at-bat comes along. But it will be much, much easier if you have a dedicated following, rather than a big follower count.
3. Un-embellish what's left
Partly as an outgrowth of all the decluttering I've been doing at home, partly in reaction to the alarming increase in doodad-ery around me, I've been paring down my own already rather minimalist approach to things. Each week, I've been quietly tweaking my site so that it's cleaner and clearer: removing links, streamlining graphics, condensing language on static pages.
If you have a site with a lot of doodad-ery—flash "splash" pages, affiliate or other third-party graphics, embedded this or that, consider taking some of it off. If your resume is two pages, consider getting it down to one (or at least having a version). If you use four typefaces on your marketing, get it down to three; if you use three, get it down to two. (If you're using something that's already been used everywhere else, consider not using it at all.)
4. Edit. Edit. Edit.
Trim your reel. Prune your portfolio. Write better, shorter (knowing that all this takes longer). Walk into an interview with your schtick down pat so you can be 100% available to the moment.
Speaking of which, this is already long enough. Now stop reading, and go make something.
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FILM FREAK SITE OF THE MONTH
As someone who grew up with three networks' worth of TV, weekends-only movies in the actual theater, and no recording devices, much less time-shifting ones, I am fairly giddy with the new and amazing options that seem to crop up daily for viewing all kinds of media. New kid on the block is
MUBI, a beautiful site that lets you stream films (many obscure and hard-to-find) either individually, for a modest rental fee (some gratis, even!) or via an all-you-can-eat monthly subscription. Unlike janky, user-hostile IMDB, it's also a great place to keep and share lists, and to find great recommendations for other films to watch. And of course, there's
a lovely blog with all kinds of juicy stuff for film nerds. So far, it's blissfully free of mainstream crap—which is not to say there aren't plenty of mainstream films on MUBI, just that the ones that are there seem to be the goodies. Besides, we have Netflix for our lowbrow needs already, right?
FILM FREAKS' OTHER SITE OF THE MONTH
In what is possibly a communicatrix | focuses first, a second plug in the same month for time suckage, film-style.
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations is just that: a sprawling site chock full of places where the movies you know and love were shot, loaded with photos and stories and accompanying film-nerd detail. Sort by world location, actor, director and of course, by film title. Just don't plan on getting a whole lot of work done once you start clicking.
FILM FREAKS' FINAL SITE OF THE MONTH
So by now, you can maybe tell that I've had movies on the brain lately. Well, actually, it's been more like "streaming TV on the brain"—between burning up Netflix with
Damages (grrrrreat!) and
The Hills (uh—innnnnteresting) and (finally) finishing up
Lost on Hulu Plus, I'm a little sick to my stomach on television. Which leads me to the following recommendations: first, that unless you have a specific show you want to catch up on that you can't elsewhere (e.g., the final season of
Lost), you do NOT bother with Hulu Plus (currently in beta), as the commercials get really annoying; and second, that if you do put your money behind Netflix, that to get the most out of the "streaming" feature (by far the greatest thing about Netflix), you consider checking in with
this excellent devotee blog. It will help keep you up-to-date on what's being offered, as the Netflix interface is notoriously non-user-friendly for finding the good stuff. (I'd also consider keeping your own running lists of what you'd like to view elsewhere—if you're anything like me, your "Watch it now" queue will rapidly become wildly unmanageable.)
That means you can print it out, republish it, tattoo it on your butt, provided you give me credit (a link back to
my site is fine), you do NOT change ANYTHING and you do NOT use it to make money. (An email pointing me to the usage would be delightful. Thanks!)
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