There are two or three voiceover coaches who post so much on Facebook, Voiceover Universe and Twitter et al about their latest seminars in Tupelo, Mississippi or where ever that I’ve simply unfriended them. Social media for them is an endless informercial, I guess.

Oy.

Evidently so many voice talents have sooo much new business – based on all the Facebinkedinwitter posts I read from them – that there may be no voice over jobs left for me (or you for that matter) so we all should just quit. It’s like an accountant in April posting “I just completed another tax return!” Um, pal, that what you’re supposed to do.

The debate over the best microphone has become so intense that two voiceover talents will duel to the death tomorrow morning– their weapons of choice will be a Neumann TLM 103 and a Sennheiser 416. It begs the question if two voice over talents die in the forest, who will announce it?

And it will surprise you to learn that voxmarketising is NOT the only blog on the topic of voiceover – at last count there were 14 billion voice over blogs, all of them debating whether breaths should or should not be edited out of narrations.

Obviously I’m being silly but the truth is: in the voiceover business, we talk a lot.

When it’s not on mic, it’s on line.

The trouble is we’re ALL talking about the same things…over and over. And I think I’m getting burnt out.

That’s a bad thing because while I thought I was contributing to the conversation, I wondering now if I’ve simply been contributing to the noise.

Paul Strikwerda, my Double Dutch voiceover friend, recently wrote about this issue, which I have been bandying about in my head for a while. He’s felt tad bored by what he’s read.

My concern is not that I’m bored (I know how to fix that – change the channel, hit the off switch) but rather that I’m the one being boring. I’ve actually cut back a bit on my social media and blogging because I didn’t feel I had anything interesting to contribute. I’m not sure “my perspective” is always enough.

Thinking about it that way made me feel a little better because at least I was thinking before typing. I think when it comes to Social Media, that’s not done a lot (and it’s not an issue exclusive to voice over talents, believe me). I’ve also been guilty as charged so don’t think I’m casting aspersions (so please, no emails from aspersions looking for voice work).

It seems we’re now all (and that “all” was a lot smaller when I started in Social Media) talking about the same voice over topics and from where I sit (just one man’s opinion here) the individual perspectives don’t always seem unique enough or even thought-provoking…and again, myself included.

I know we all just want to be heard and we all enjoy freedom of expression and that’s great. I don’t want it stifled but shouldn’t we all consider a little self-editing? Just a little?

I don’t know about you but I do NOT want to be the “oh not THAT guy again” brand. The line between frequency and obnoxious gets thin fast in social media; brands are now suffering (and not reaping).

SEO and marketing opportunities available through Social Media are so enticing (based on cost) that I think we all forget sometimes that for Social Media to be effective, we have to be maybe less frequent but certainly more interesting. And that’s not always easy.

Nor should it be.

What do you think? Or are you even paying attention anymore? 🙂

Tags: advertising, blogs, branding, commentary, commercials, facebook, linkedin, networking, public relations, social media, social networks and links, technology, twitter, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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For voiceover aficionados, there are a ton sites offering information about voice over (I’ll address that informational abundance in a future post).

But a newer service called Scoop.it basically allows people to pick a topic and then cull their favorite blog posts into a daily email that people sign up to receive. It’s kinda like RSS wrapped up in a prettier bow.

FM Voiceovers & Dave Courvoisier put together one on voiceover that features posts from a variety of sources (today all three stories in their daily email were from this very blog which is a synonym for “slow news day”) and it’s a great read.

There’s probably a billion pages on VO out there within Scoop.it but the ones I quickly found were:

George Washington III has a collection of his voice over posts here.

David Houston has corralled his posts on this page .

Sirenetta Leoni has a nice selection of blog posts here.

You should check them all out and sign up for the ones you like.

Tags: community, social media, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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This is a picture of my agent, Erik Shepard from Voice Talent Productions.

If he offers to give you dance lessons, you should politely decline and run like hell in the opposite direction for the obvious visual reason shown above. If his feet were shown in this picture, I think they would both be lefts.

However, he is one of the most engaged and attentive voice over agents I’ve ever met and I’m very glad to have him as a part of my voice over team.

Erik has also been, for many years, a voiceover teacher and trainer. His consultation services for voice talents has evolved into a unique part of Voice Talent Productions that I think you’ll want to check out.

Consider taking advantage of what he knows, who he knows and how all that can help your VO career.

Tags: voice over training, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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One of the people I had never met before going to Faffcon 2 was Mercedes Rose.

Smart, personable and fun-nah, I enjoyed getting to know about her professional acting skills in front of the camera and behind the mic.

It was, mind you, during Oscar weekend that I met her – the Oscars being her High Holy Day of the entire year. Like Glee on speed is how I would describe Mercedes’ excitement level for that show and all it represents to her personally and most especially professionally.

So this whirling dervish of voiceover excitement is teaming with Marc Cashman to present a weekend voiceover seminar in Portland on August 6 & 7, 2011. For more details or to reserve your spot, call 661-222-9300.

Tags: commentary, faffcon, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’m not even going to tell you what Faffcon is because if you are a professional voice over talent, you know.

>>> Registration is now open.

I hope you’ll attend.

Tags: commentary, faffcon, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I get about a dozen notices of voice over classes and workshops and seminars each hour. So get a bit jaded when I see the latest notice.

Last week one came across my screen that stopped me for a second. And I remembered all week that I wanted to write about it and so now I’m going to write about.

My friend (and friend to all voice talent) John Florian and his Voice Over Xtra! advised me that Nancy Wolfson is holding a teleseminar on June 21st at 9PM eastern called “Voiceover Audition Consultations” in which it is promised: “There’s never been anything like this — a world-class seminar on how to make a good audition better and an excellent audition great.”

Without remuneration or compensation I offer this link because I think this might be a good use of your time.

Tags: commentary, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on do your auditions suck? wanna fix that?