How to Make Career Connections on Social Media
The better you are at staying in touch with people you meet on set, in class, and at events, the more opportunities you’ll create for your acting career. But for many of us, staying in touch with people we’re not really “friends” with can feel awkward or insincere.
To help combat those feelings, here are three simple tips to help you make connections on social media for your acting career.
1. Find them on social media
Once you’ve met someone in person, the first step to staying in touch is to find them, follow them, and connect with them right away. Thank them for the meeting, experience or the few minutes you spent talking with them. This reminds them how they know you and will help you bring your offline connection online.
If you’re connecting on Twitter, add them to a Twitter list. As you make more connections, actors you’ve worked with, casting directors, friends, and those random people you followed back just to grow their following all get mixed together in one feed! Twitter lists let you group people—like everyone from a show you did—in one place so you’ll only see the conversations in that list. If you’re new to Twitter lists here’s a quick video that shows you step-by-step how to set them up.
2. Set up a Google alert.
Google Alerts is a free monitoring tool that sends you alerts whenever a keyword you type in, like a director or production company you’ve worked with, appears somewhere on the web. If, for example, your director is nominated for an award or speaking at a screening, Google Alerts will email that information to you so you can either congratulate them online or plan to attend the event.
It’s a great way to keep track of what your industry contacts are doing so you can stay in touch with without having to spend time researching them. Keep in mind the more authentic face-to-face connections you can create, the deeper that relationship will become.
3. Add value to the conversation.
Once you’ve made a meaningful connection, you need to maintain the relationship and stay top of mind.
Casting director Paul Russell said, “Networking is the strongest tool for an actor. Actors get most of their jobs not through formal auditions before strangers and passing acquaintances, but through friends and past work associates. An actor must always be building sincere relationships with those with whom they work and train.”
Whenever you comment on a tweet, like someone’s post, or mention them in your stories, you’re adding value to their conversation, reminding them of you and building that relationship.
On Twitter and Instagram, it’s easy to stay top of mind and authentically like and comment on people’s posts. When they ask questions, respond (if you know the answer). Say “Congrats” when they’re nominated, win something, or are celebrating something in their personal lives. If you find out you have a common interest outside of the biz and see an article they might enjoy, share it!
By interacting this way, you’re not asking for anything, you’re just deepening the relationship and adding value to the conversation. That’s really important because, in the future, when there’s an opportunity to reach out to them about a project you’re interested in, you won’t feel weird about it and it won’t seem “out of the blue” because you already have an ongoing dialogue.
The way to stay connected on social media without feeling gross is by building real human relationships. When you stop just trying to book a job (“Look at my reel!”), you’ll start seeing results using social media!
Now that you know how to connect on social media, let’s make sure your first impression totally rocks. THIS (totally free) Ultimate Social Media Checklist for Actors will get you started.
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The views expressed in this article are solely that of the individual(s) providing them,
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Backstage or its staff.
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