Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson, your host of Being On Stage. Have you checked me out on social media yet? I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Are you? Are you on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter? You can find me at Being On Stage. But are you on there? Today we're talking about self-promotion, social media, and the web, and the internets, and all that. Think about that. Are you active on social media? Not as a person, but as an artist. Are you actively promoting yourself as an artist? I just started getting into Twitter and Instagram. I've been on Facebook for, you know, going on nine years now. But I never really got into Instagram or Twitter when they first started coming out. And I never really got into websites and everything like that when I was an artist and when I was a performer. So what I wanted to kind of push at you guys today is the importance of doing that. So you look at Facebook. Have a fan page on Facebook. Have a group. Fans of. Who cares if no one's in it? The fact is, someone can find you that way. If you're on Instagram and Twitter, use hashtags. I actually looked at an article. And on Twitter, one, on Twitter, it's all about what's trending. It's all about what's going on right now. So you've got to kind of be in touch with what's going on in your art. Instagram, all about hashtags. All about, like, you can use 45 to 50 or more hashtags to get people to find you. The point is, more. More than 11 hashtags on Instagram, two hashtags on Twitter. Gets you the most traffic. I'm still working on mine. But one of the things I realized is when I was a performer, I really, really should have been more in touch with social media. I really should have been putting myself out there more on these websites that are designed for artists. Did you know that there are websites out there that you can just go type in a bio and people will come find you when they're looking to hire acts? I mean, you can get hired for. You can get hired for clubs and stuff, but you can also get hired for corporate events and for retreats and for team building and for parties and weddings and all sorts of. People like obscure entertainment when they're planning an event. People are not always looking for musicians and bands and singers. People want something new and different. Every single person that performs on a stage should be online. You should have a website. You should have a fan page on Facebook. You should have a Twitter. You should have Instagram. And you need to be online. On sites like Gig Salad, the importance of being out there is, one, people got to be able to find you. Two, when you're on stage or when you're talking with your audience before or after your shows, you got to have a place to send them. It is easier now than ever to build your fan army. And I see so many performers that are lacking the basics needed in order to do that. When I go see you live, if I take the time to navigate. through the crowd, find you, and then I'm going to have the courage to tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, excuse me, I just wanted to let you know I thought you were really great. I'd love to see more. If you're going to sit there and be like, well, you know, I'm on Facebook, but my stage name is, you know, Pop Rocket, and my real name is like John Tataliano, and you spell it T. I don't want. No, no, no. I don't want all that. Too much information. One, I talked about a couple episodes ago the importance of. One of the things I want to point out in this episode, a stage name is crucial. You have to have an easy-to-spell-and-find stage name. Something easy, something fun, something that represents you. It could be something as simple as changing your last name. We got a local girl here, last name of Eve, E-V-E. You really can't mess that up. You've got to have some place to send people that is easy to find. It is easy to find me. It's easy to find me at beingonstage.com, because my podcast is being on stage. My Instagram is being on stage. My Twitter is being on stage. I have a group on Facebook called Being On Stage. Everything is being on stage. If you have a Facebook that is John Smith, a Twitter that is YoBoyJohnS, an Instagram that's at JS, no one is going to know how to find you when they're looking for you as an artist. When someone's looking for you as an artist, they should know how to find you. They should be able to go into Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, GigSalad, anywhere. They should be able to go, type in the name that you perform as, and boop, there you are. You've got to have all this. And it's all free. None of this costs you anything. This is free promotions. If you want to throw some money at it to promote yourself on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, do a promotion or an ad, that's fine. You can do that. But just to have these things, to have these profiles, and to have these. These places you can send people, completely free. You can even. I don't know if you know this, and I'm going to share. This is some stuff that I'm using. You could even build an email list for free using MailChimp. You can build a page. Your website can cost you like $10. You can get hosting with it. And you can slap a page together that captures an email. And now you have people that are putting in their email addresses, so you can let them know where you're performing next. This is how you build a digital fan army. It's not all about face-to-face anymore, guys. You've got to have something digital. Furthermore, like, let's take social media back a little bit, YouTube. You have to, have to, have to have a YouTube. If you're a performer, you've got to have an outlet to put content, videos. YouTube is great. I like Instagram for videos, but you can only do like up to a minute. Twitter is like 45 seconds. So, not the best when you're trying to put out whole performances. But YouTube, you can go up to like an hour. You can have like an hour-long video on YouTube promoting yourself and things like that. Plus, you can send a digital kit to someplace that you're trying to, you know, proposition to have you. How easy would it be to say, "Hey, here's the link to my promotional package. Here's the link to my promotional package." How easy is that to send that email? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My name is this. This is what I do. I really enjoy it. I'm from here. I've performed at this list of bars. Here's a link to my promotional package. Please take a look at your leisure. Let me know when we can talk further about the opportunity, you know, any opportunity that you may have. Well, and there's another thing you need, an email. You need to have an email. Performing live is great. It is not, it is an art form and it doesn't matter what you do on stage. Performing live is not going anywhere. But it is. It is becoming more difficult to keep performing live because these smaller venues, they're closing up shop. They're being purchased by bigger ones. You may get one or two shows every six months, but if you're alive and popping on the digital side of your career, you may see your bookings increase. Every single person that steps one toe on a stage at any point, this pertains to you. You need to have all your stuff. You need your social media. You need a website. You need an email address. This is not optional anymore, people. You need to have all of this stuff. And it's all free. That's what I don't understand. There are so many performers out there that they have 20 different names on social media. They don't have a website. They don't have a YouTube. They're inactive on everything. And guys, it is easy to put out content. It is easy to put out a video. It is easy. It is easy to post something. It is easy to make a flyer. It is easy and it's free. Most of it's, I can't say all of it's free. Most of it is free. Most of it is free. You can send people someplace when you see them. What if you were only booked one time a year? One time a year. You only have one booking the whole year. The rest of the year you're rehearsing, you know, you're videotaping yourself. You're watching yourself. You're getting better. You're growing. But you only perform in front of an audience once a year. 20 people come up to you and want to know where they can find more. Where do you send them? Chances are some of you are scratching your heads right now. Reggie, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a word. What do you mean? I can send them to my personal Facebook. That's not good enough. You are an artist. You are on stage. People need a way to find you easily. Put it together. If you need help, if you need guidance, if you need links and where to go to get all this information, send me an email. Reggie, R-E-G-G-I-E, @BeingOnStage.com, Facebook, Reggie Dawson, D-A-U-G-H-S-O-N, Facebook.com/BeingOnTheStage, Instagram @BeingOnStage, Twitter @BeingOnStage. Do you see a pattern here? I am easy to find and you need to be easy to find too. If you need help, you need guidance, you need to know anything you need to know about putting together a digital package, send me an email, please. That's what I'm here for. I want to help you get unstuck and move forward and turn your audience into your fans. Keep on shining, rock stars. You got this.
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