I’ve been engaging in a very specific form of laziness lately.
The metric tonnage of questions asked daily on social media by voice talents of all experience levels could stun a team of oxen. I try to answer as many questions as I can when I have time. I’ve been finding myself having less time to answer them and noticing the same questions are asked over and over and over. It’s both tedious and time-consuming to come up with original answers every time. A few months ago, I came up with what I thought was a clever solution…
Since I’ve blogging about voiceovers for 10+ years, I’ve covered most subjects that are brought up. So now, when an aspiring voice talent posts a question like, “How do I get an agent?” instead of spending anywhere from 5-30 minutes crafting a thoughtful answer, instead I just post a link to a blog entry where I have already articulated my thoughts on the subject of landing an agent. Turns out this wasn’t a great idea.
Instead of accompanying the blog entry link with an appropriate prologue of some sort, most of the time I’ve just been slapping the link on the thread and dusting off my hands. It’s come to my attention that some have perceived it as laziness and self-promotion. I know because not one but two close friends of mine called me out just last week. While I haven’t been thinking like an opportunistic jackass promoting my coaching business, this behavior has made me look like one.
I apologize for my lazy link-posting. Posting the link is fine, but not adding some context has been laziness and the optics have been deservedly not-so-great. I should have been more engaged. Your questions should be given their due consideration and thoughtfully answered. I’m all about having smart Systems of Thought and being efficient, but this wasn’t well-thought out. Intent good, execution bad.
TIP OF THE WEEK
What can we learn from this?
Social media has become just awful. However, it’s a necessary evil in this breakneck-speed age we live in to more effectively stay in touch with family & friends and as a marketing tool for us as entrepreneurs. On top of that, it’s easy to fall into bad habits originally intended to make our lives easier. How can we do better?
Make sure your content has value; whether it’s a blog post, the sharing of a video, article, or just your thoughts. The amount of hyper-personal baggage and political vitriol posted regularly makes me wanna recommend therapy and some deep knee bends or everyone. And please please please stop posting pics of your food. It always looks gross.
If you’re going to comment on a post, thread, tweet, or what-have-you, have a contributive point. Repeating what everyone says or interjecting your politics, religious beliefs, or just plain ole’ negativity doesn’t help anyone. Don’t take a conversation off course just to serve you. Oh, and for the love of Pete, stop posting the comment, “Following”. Just Like the post or adjust your notification settings for the post.
Think before you click. Look at what you’re about to post and ask yourself, “How would I feel if someone posted this on my thread? Am I being helpful? Patronizing? Supportive? Dismissive?” Then read it again and adjust accordingly.
NEWS AND NOTES
Thursday, April 25th @8PM EST: Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar, ‘Keeping Clients Coming Back’. I’ll tell you the REAL secret to client retention. Click here to sign up!
Thursday, May 16th @8PM EST: Edge Studio Business and Money 201 webinar, ‘Time Management’. Click here to sign up!
Thursday, May 23rd @8PM EST: Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar, ‘Thriving in a Smaller Market city’. Click here to sign up!
Thursday, May 30th 9am-3pm EST: “The VO Tech Deep Dive and eLearning Extravaganza!” Tickets on sale now!
September 13th-15: “VOcation NYC” Click here to register!
HAPPY HAPPYS
Happy Bulldogs are Beautiful Day and Jelly Bean Day!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Tom Dheere is a 20+year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for hundreds of clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a voiceover business & marketing consultant known as the VO Strategist and produces the comic book “Agent 1.22”.