Show notes
Discover indispensable strategies for maintaining an engaging online presence, even when social media fatigue sets in. From MySpace and Facebook's early days to today's multifaceted platforms, Anne and Tom explore how social media has transformed into a cornerstone for business promotion. Learn to create content that captivates both human audiences and social media algorithms, and understand how mastering these algorithms can elevate your marketing game. Gain insights on how social media plays a crucial role in purchasing decisions and the etiquette voice actors must follow. The BOSSes share essential tips on how potential clients vet companies and individuals through their social media presence. Experience the power of video content and the importance of authenticity in connecting with your audience. Learn why the algorithm favors video and how being genuine can build trust and likability among your followers. Anne. andTom address the continuous challenges in voice acting, emphasizing the need for consistency, strategic planning, and adapting to industry trends. 00:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, how's it going? Bosses Anne Genguza here. Elevate your voiceover game with our VIPeeps membership. With VIP membership, you can access our extensive library of over 350 hours of pre-recorded workshops. Whether you're interested in commercials, promos, character animation, audiobooks, video games, corporate narration, audio description or dubbing, our workshops cover it all. Plus, as a VIPeeps member, you'll enjoy a 15% discount on current workshops and complimentary free monthly workshops to further develop your skills. Join VIPeeps today at vopeepscom and take your voiceover career to new heights. 00:44 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 01:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm delighted to bring back Real Boss Tom Dheere to the show. 01:15 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Hello, hey, , hello, hello, hello. 01:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) How are you? 01:19 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I'm good, how are? 01:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) you, I'm good, tom. I have to apologize for being late because I was creating content for my social media. And it's still a thing you would think, after all these years, tom, both you and I have been active on social media, it would get easier, like maybe quicker, but it just doesn't. I mean, it is time consuming. I think we should talk about it, because real bosses need to get out there on social media and present themselves as real bosses. 01:47 - Tom Dheere (Guest) This is also one of the questions that's most asked of me, as the video strategist is talking about how to come up with an effective social media presence. So, yeah, I think this is one that a lot of people are going to want to tune in for. 01:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure, social media has just well, it's just blown up, obviously I mean, but back in the day, back in the day when I first got into voiceover, there wasn't much social media out there. Facebook was just now. I'm dating myself, right, facebook was just evolving. 02:14 I think I've been part of Facebook since its evolution which was in gosh the early 2000s right, and so Facebook was the first social media and then other ones popped up after that and they've just exploded and then I think they kind of went beyond where people are now like, possibly social media tired. Oh God, yes, I have social media fatigue, social media fatigue, but yet there's still very much a necessity for running our businesses and advertising our businesses. 02:47 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yes, I think I joined Facebook in 2007. And before that I had a MySpace account which I was active on. If you remember MySpace. 02:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I do. 02:56 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And there was a little bit of voiceover stuff going on on MySpace. And then Facebook came and the interface was just, you know, superior, so everybody migrated. Myspace still exists, but it doesn't even look remotely what it used to look like or function Now. It's only for musicians or something like that. 03:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Facebook was great in the beginning. Remember. 03:11 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah, back in. It was just like what are you doing? You know, you just post what you're doing. This is what I had for lunch. 03:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yep exactly. Nobody still cares what I had for lunch. 03:23 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I don't care what I had for lunch. 03:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I do, because now I'm into health and so sometimes people want to know what I mean. There you go. 03:31 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, okay, I think that's the first thing to talk about is like why should you post anything on social media as a voice actor? Right, and it's evolved. When I post on social media and also here's, the thing with you and I, anne, is that we're both full-time voice actors who are always marketing, looking for clients, voiceover clients, but we're also coaches, thought leaders, presenters, guests on podcasts, you know, and doing things like this. So we are also on social media looking for students as well Students, listeners, followers. 04:09 Students, listeners, fans. You know connections of fellow voice actors, of aspiring voice actors, voice actors in all parts of their journey because we can help them with all of our products and services. So you and I have like a dual agenda when we are on social media. 04:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We have a broad audience. We have a broad audience that we want to reach. 04:24 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right. So if you're one of the VO bosses who's watching, who is most likely not a coach, not a demo producer, not a thought leader, not a podcast host, you're just like what do I do? 04:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, if you're a boss, you're always a thought leader. 04:35 - Tom Dheere (Guest) That's what I like to think, Ooh, I gleefully stand corrected. Yes, I like to think that. 04:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I mean that's fantastic Because to be a thought leader, let's create content around that. 04:45 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yes, okay, so that's what I wanted to get to is like why are you on social media, who are you talking to and what do you have to say? So, in its broadest terms, I've learned that to be effective on social media as a voice actor is to feed the humans and the robots. 05:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I like that. Feed the humans and the robots Absolutely yeah, just similar strategy for anything digital these days, right. 05:12 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, it's always been true, but now, just as my understanding of marketing in general and social media marketing in particular, and all the platforms, I tell all of my students your job is to feed the algorithms. 05:23 Feed the algorithms of search engine optimization Google, bing, yahoo to increase your page ranking. Feed the algorithms of online casting sites like Voicescom, voice123, badalgo, so on and so forth, but also feed the algorithms of social media. Figure out what those robots like to eat and feed it to them, and also understand that different social media platform algorithms, because this is what we're really talking about. Different algorithms reward you for different behavior. Yes, absolutely. Instagram is primarily photos. 05:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, and video now, and video now. 05:57 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Well, that's the next thing is that, like Facebook used to be for typing, twitter used to be just for words. Back then, it was 140 characters. 06:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh my gosh, remember that when we were restricted. 06:08 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah you for typing. Twitter used to be just for words. Back then it was 140 characters. Oh my gosh, remember that when we were restricted. Yeah, you're restricted to 140. Then it went to 280 and it may be unlimited. Instagram is just for pictures, youtube is just for videos, but now all of them are competing with each other so much that all the platforms are super watered down because they're trying to take users away from other social media platforms. So, on all the social media platforms, you can write stuff down, except for YouTube, but you can post photos, you can post videos, you know, and you're encouraged to do all of those things. So that's why it can get really confusing. But when the coders first made all of those platforms, they had one thrust in mind. 06:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You're right, they had specific. Yeah, all of those platforms, they had one thrust in mind. You're right, they had specific. Yeah, twitter was the short post. Yeah, absolutely, youtube was always the video, instagram was the photo, and they all had, like, their purpose. 06:52 But, you're right, now that they're competing with one another, they're starting to kind of have all these different capabilities, and now the amount of content out there is insane. And so, as bosses, you need to be able to stand out right and kind of cut through the chaos, and I think there's two things to be really aware of. Number one is your purpose, right, your purpose on social media, and especially if you want to get work right on social media versus use it as a social platform, remember that there was a personal and a business page for Facebook, and you could do the same thing for a personal and a business page for Facebook, and you could do the same thing for, like, instagram and all of the other platforms. You can have a business page and a personal page. But I think, with the whole authenticity, be real, real bosses, with that kind of evolving over the progression of social media, now you want to make sure that you are authentic and being who you are and not being selly because now people are like, no, don't sell to me Right right. 07:50 - Tom Dheere (Guest) A video that we did not too long ago was about branding, and I think I talked about in that video that voice actors can be grouped into two categories public voice actors and private voice actors. The public voice actors are the audio book narrators, the video game narrators, the cartoon narrators, because those are the ones that when someone listens to your audio book, plays your video game, watches your cartoon, you know who the voice actor is in that. 08:15 Everybody else is a private voice actor and people want to search you and everybody else is private, voice actor, e-learning explainer, corporate. When you narrate that content, the only people that are going corporate when you narrate that content, the only people that are going to know who is voicing that content is the producers of the content. The consumer of the content, the employee or the student, have no idea that Anne or Tom or anybody else narrated that content. So why do I bring this up? Think about that as it applies to social media. If you are an audiobook narrator, if you're a video game narrator, if you're a cartoon narrator, you've got a lot more tools in your tool belt to effectively use social media, because you're not just trying to connect with voice seekers, like all voice actors are in all genres You're also, if you're an audiobook narrator, you're trying to connect with authors. 09:01 You're trying to connect with rights holders. You're trying to connect with listeners. If you're trying to connect with authors, you're trying to connect with rights holders. You're trying to connect with listeners. If you're a video game narrator on social media, you're trying to connect with the people who play the video games and can become a fan of the characters that you portray, same with the cartoon voice actors. 09:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And with that it's dual purpose. Right, because you, as the voice actor, are not only voicing, but you're also marketing for the company. Right, marketing for the. 09:28 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And there's a little more responsibility with that, because when you are marketing on social media and saying, hey, I was the voice of this character in Halo or Fallout or Arkham Asylum or in this Cartoon Network show, you are representing that company. So you need to be very, very careful how you comport yourself, because you don't want to do anything to damage the reputation of the product, service company, stockholder, shareholder or whatever. 09:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, that's actually really good advice, no matter what you do, because, again, you think about even if you're voicing e-learning or corporate, but yet you might be on social media bashing the script or something and saying how poorly written it was or how you're annoyed at your client, and so it's always a good idea to just serve it up with a little bit of professionalism, because you don't know how many eyeballs are on Right. 10:18 A lot of times it's really hard to tell who's watching, who's looking, and a lot of times people aren't commenting either. There's so many things that I scroll through on a day to day basis on social media that I read and I just don't comment on. I don't even comment, I don't like it, I don't react. But yet I've formulated opinions about certain people depending on the post, and if I thought, oh, that is a little bit harsh or oh, I'm not so sure, I'd want to work with that person, and so I've made my judgments based on the post. And gosh, this has just been preaching to the choir, but we've been saying that for years. Is you have to be aware of what you post? I mean, it has an effect. 10:58 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I'm sure that you have a list in your head of fellow voice actors who you've observed on social media that you're like oh, I love what they have to say. They're so thoughtful and so smart and so funny and so insightful. I would just love to come up with an excuse to work with that person based on their social media presence. And then the other side of the coin. 11:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) In reality, I remember those a whole lot more sometimes. 11:15 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Do you know what I mean Because? 11:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) the ones who are not presenting well on social media are the ones that are like, oh, watch out, watch out for that one. 11:23 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah, and that's the thing is like we all have a little list in our head of the people voice actors that we see on social media and, based on how they're comporting themselves, it's like I will never work with that person, either as a coach or as a fellow voice actor maybe as a coach to maybe try to help them see the error of their ways with how they are presenting themselves on social media. 11:42 But it's just like it's very easy to behave yourself out of the voiceover industry based on your social media content. You and I have seen it happen multiple times where people implode on social media, and it could be for any of a number of reasons, and that's just a peer-to-peer thing. I mean. What our bosses want to know is about voice seekers who are navigating social media. I will say this is that the vast majority of voice seekers are not paying any attention to anything that any of us are doing on social media. Why? Because they're too busy making their own social media content in hopes that th…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
