THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Your Personal Brand. Who Are You?

• Awareness. Google yourself in a private browser. What comes up? Perhaps nothing (or only your Facebook profile). Don’t get frustrated if your digital image is not exactly as clear and compelling as you want it to be right now. Blogging or vlogging is a quick and cheap way to get older, irrelevant results pushed down. Your goal is to direct people to your personal site where you can control exactly what information they gather. It’s important to know what background noise currently exists so you can better target what type of new content you need to create.

“Make yourself an adjective… You have a very, very short window of time to make an impression and make yourself stick.” –Rachel Schechtman, Founder + CEO, Story

• Specificity. What sort of message are you hoping to send? You have one click to get someone to feel as if they know you – even though we both know there’s a lot more to you than that. While you might think it is more attractive to be a multi-hyphenate, or jack-of-all-trades, it confuses strangers. Having a strong sense of self, or niche, not only suggests confidence, but it also helps to establish trust between you and said stranger.

• Consistency. Everything online needs to revolve around your personal brand. From the voice of your social media bios and the posts that you share to the colors and fonts on your website. Also, make sure your profile photo is the same across all platforms. This is essentially your logo, so it should instill a memorable image of you in someone’s mind.

• Activity. Be present. After all, you can’t have an online presence if you ghosted Instagram for the past six months. Post regularly. Being active on two platforms is better than neglecting each from time to time. Even if you can’t manage five different accounts right now, you still need to create profiles in your name. Once you’re setup, make sure to write a post that will direct people to the sites where they can find you. Additionally, this guarantees that someone else won’t snag your handle, in turn diluting your online presence.