Love it or hate it social media for actors is part of the entertainment business in a very big way now. You know why? Attention. More importantly, free attention.
Producers, filmmakers, studios have all used billboards, posters, commercials, ads, and all sorts of other tactics to get attention on their projects. You can’t blame them, right? All the money, time, resources, and people’s lives invested in the effort to create something deserves to have its time in the sun to win you over by asking for a little of your attention.
Instagram is no different. In fact, it is one of the most profound attention-grabbing tools out there right now. Instagram has doubled it’s Daily Users year over year since 2013 and Instagram Stories hit well over 200 million by mid 2017 (Businessofapps.com). Just take a look at these 39 Mind-Blowing Instagram Stats You Should Know!
Lately the app has been gaining even more traction with many users moving away from Facebook and more exclusively towards Instagram as pointed out in this USA Today article from March 2018.
Should Actors Social Media Followers Effect Casting?
Now considering that all creators are invested in getting attention on their projects, it would then follow suit that they would be looking at how the people they attach to those projects use these free attention tools themselves. Again, you can feel however you want about casting directors and producers looking at your number of Instagram followers when they consider you for a role, but with all things being equal when you have 3 actors up for a role (same great talent, same great look, same great resume, same solid work ethic) but one clearly takes their social media presence seriously and has built a following because of it…well, you can see how it would be an easy decision.
The good news is you have the same access as everyone else. This dynamic platform is already in your hands, you no doubt use it, and you have the ability to leverage what it does well to bring the right kind of attention to your acting career. The challenge though is connecting with the right kind of audience who enjoys who you are and what you do.
How Can Actors Build Their Instagram Audience?
Here’s a piece of hard truth: “If you build it, they will come” is a myth. (Sorry Kevin!)
The fact is just creating an account and posting your headshots and a few old pictures of your past work is not gonna cut it.
You have to be creating content in a regular fashion. That’s what keeps people engaged, and honestly, that’s why you still follow your friends on social media. You like to see their status updates and hear their jokes or see their fun pictures. If they didn’t post that stuff, you would not pay them any attention. You’re not using that phone in your hand to call them, right?
Instagram is a visual platform so while you can’t get very far writing your silly jokes or status updates you can:
Post photos
Post videos
Go live
Update your Story with photos or videos
Repost other Instagram content you find compelling
This is the type of content that Instagram loves with Stories being the most active right now, then video, and then images.
Make the content about who you are and what you do. You’re an actor. Great! Post about your auditions. Post about your preparation. Give us a glimpse into your daily routine or a “day in the life.” Share as much or as little as you like about your family and friends. Share behind the scenes moments. Share how good or bad you’re feeling about anything related to what you do in this business or the industry. You are a person – a person whose job it is to embody the emotional life and human nature of another person so as to tell a compelling story. That’s a pretty great job and people want to see it in as much detail as possible.
How Do I Get More Followers on Instagram?
So now that you have a flow for creating content for Instagram, you should focus on growing your audience. Here is where it’s important to pay attention to who you want to follow you. Forget about paying for hundreds of fake ass bots that will like your posts or joining some “follow club” where everyone is just liking and commenting on each other’s content. Not only is Instagram shutting down a lot of that, it’s not what you need. You need real people who are actually interested in the type of content you put out.
This is exactly what Rick Lafond, owner of Actor Influencer, does. He joined me in episode 104 of The Actor CEO Podcast. Rick has spent the better part of 25 years as a professional actor, producer, and building resources that help actors help themselves including creating Now Casting and iSelfTape.com. Recently he has developed Actor Influencer which has been growing actors’ Instagram accounts (by the thousands!!!) with real followers and providing these actors with a whole new world of possibilities.
Just check out these results and reviews!
(You Will Get $20 off per month FOR LIFE when you sign up with the code ActorCEO)
If you have followed Actor CEO for any length of time you know I always stress that this is a time unlike any other in the history of our industry and actors have more opportunity than ever. Not only are there more businesses, entertainment companies, or celebrities creating content that needs actors, WE have the capacity to create our own work and showcase it to an audience without having to get the “yes” or “no” from a studio executive.
How Does Actor Influencer Work?
Let’s start with what Actor Influencer does not do. Actor Influencer does not buy followers. Actor Influencer does not send bots to follow your account. Actor Influencer does not create fake followers of any kind just to boost your numbers. What Rick and his team have designed Actor Influencer to do is take the persona of your “ideal audience member” or the type of follower you would like to have (i.e. I’m a woman who loves yoga and want to be followed by ONLY women who are interested in health and wellness) and showcases your account to these types of Instagram users and then directs those users back to your account to follow you, love your content, and become adoring fans.
Hear How Actor Influencer Works In This Clip.
That’s it. And it works. Whether you’re an actor looking to boost your following, a filmmaker looking to gain an audience for an upcoming release, or you’re launching a Kickstarter for a web series, you want to connect to the right audience and Actor Influencer does just that. And here’s the major secret…it’s cheap.
Actor Influencer has packages starting as low as $94/month and to grow your account by 10K for 3 months it would only cost you $327, plus you get you $20/month discount by using the ActorCEO code. WHAT! That’s an unheard of deal in this marketplace and Rick knows it, but he’s committed to keeping prices massively competitive because he knows how much good leveraging this platform does for actors.
Let’s walk this idea out a little more:
You pay $327 for 3 months ($109/month)
+ You grow your followers by 4,000!
You book a job that pays you even $500
(they noticed your followers and saw it as an advantage)
You have COMPLETELY paid for the service!
If casting directors, producers, and studios are going to continue to use social media followers as a metric in the casting process, then Rick and Actor Influencer want to give actors a far better shot at competing against “social media influencers” who only book the role because they have a following.
You trained for this sh*t. You can act circles around some gal who does makeup tutorials. You’re way funnier than that schmuck who just does prank videos. So it’s time to take the social media side of your business as seriously as they do. Once you do, you will have massively upped your game in this industry and opened a whole new world not just because you have an audience, but because you’re GOOD and you have the audience to prove it.
Actor Influencer is giving anyone who signs up $20 off every month FOR LIFE when they use the discount code ACTORCEO at sign up. Head to ActorInfluencer.com/get-started to see all the affordable packages.
Here are some more useful tips and tricks on how to use Instagram well and grow or maintain your audience.
