And it’s over 50% full after just two weeks. (The question to ask is how the heck is Amy Snively the TWENTIETH registrant to her own conference?)
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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? 🙂
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.
I caught online in “The Atlantic” a report from The American Customer Satisfaction Index (no, I didn’t know there was such a thing either) rating the least liked companies in America. You can find the report here. I could add my two cents on the report (as I am a customer of more than a few of the hated) but a more intriguing question came into my mind.
What if my company had appeared on the list? Or for that matter, your company?
One would assume, probably rightly so, that we as large companies might have some inkling of trouble long before a report like the Atlantic’s came out. But you and I don’t own multi-billion dollar companies with teams of marketing and PR geniuses to tell us these things, do we?
It’s just us. All alone. Not sure if we’re beloved, hated or even worse – ignored.
The best advice I can offer is simply this: communicate. And, no I don’t do this nearly enough either.
Communicate doesn’t mean sell. Eblasts about your latest voiceover project don’t count.
At the end of the day, people do business with friends. And while you can’t make friends with every client you have based on geography or chemistry, you can at least show interest. Make a call on the phone or best in person.
Say hi, ask about a project you worked on…is it going well etc. You can mention that if they have any future work etc., but don’t make it a selling call. You need to look up some breaking client news or some salient topic that can begin your conversation.
Which means you’ve got some work to do before you pick up the phone, don’t you?
Yup, but I’m guessing it will be time very well spent.
I got pinged the other on LinkedIn by Dan Hanssel who used to work at Time Warner Cable in Buffalo.
He has left there (on friendly terms) to open his own Integrated Marketing Company named Dan Hanssel.com
Having done that once or a dozen times ourselves, we always support those who are equally as stupid by blogging about their insanity and welcoming them to the pool.
If you know someone – or maybe even you – who could use Dan’s services, please give him call.
You ever just cruise YouTube and go from one video to another based on the choices that show up in the right hand side of your screen?
I do that all the time which may explain why my brain has shrunken to the size of a pea.
None the less, I was watch a CBS Sunday Morning interview with Craig Ferguson when I can across a video evidently made by the CBS Orchestra from Late Show with David Letterman.
I had never heard the full composition of the show theme. Maybe you hadn’t either, so here it is.
