“The handsomest man in voice over”, Dave Courvoisier has finally answered my grown-up Christmas wish and updated the look and feel of his blog. If you’ve not yet subscribed, don’t admit that publicly but immediately rectify the situation by subscribing to his blog now.

I steal many blog ideas from Dave (and Bob Souer (“The nicest man in voice over”)) so you’ll always find rich content on voice over, social media and gadgets on Dave’s blog all on an easier to read and faster to load page.

For those of you wondering, I’ve been voted “The shortest man in voice over”. And I’ll take whatever lame kudos I can.

Tags: announcers, blogs, voice talent, voiceover // 4 Comments »

OK, so going back to the week before Memorial Day when the blog pooped out, I was planning on posting this the same night as I attended my first MCA-I meeting. Yes I am on the International Board of Directors and I had never been to an actual chapter meeting as I am the sole member in Buffalo, NY.

No, Connie Terwilliger, I will not be forming a chapter in Buffalo as I have quite enough to do already with my own businesses and two small children.

So I went to the Central Carolina MCA-I meeting and had a blast. Tom Morse and his leadership team really have their act together and it was a very fun meeting screening some short films that members had recently produced.

Even better on the voice over side of things, at the meeting were Wade Holloway and Jamee T. Perkins (pictured with me above) & Deb Stamp who lives in Raleigh, NC now but made her home and started her broadcasting career in Western New York.

Thanks everybody for a terrific evening.

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Sorry there hasn’t been a post or two for a little bit but there was this giant bug with a thousand legs and beady eyes with puss dripping from them and giant gnarly teeth attacking the blog…it was sooooo scary. 🙁

But I killed the bug with my radon gun and nuclear explosives and now there will be no more blog problems.

Unless the bug laid any eggs.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled postings, already in progress.

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So last night Todd Salansky presented “The New Big 3” with me at year end dinner of the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives. Usually they have 60-65 people attend their dinners, last night I’m told they had 100 in attendance and had to cut off reservations. Yup, it was sold out.

There were many of my friends in attendance, most of who were not terribly immersed in any of the social media channels. Obviously they came to learn and Todd and I were happy to oblige.

The one point I wanted to make very clear to them was that I was presenting on the topic as an active user, not some kind of expert. There are many more expert people than I on this topic and there are many more presenting themselves as expert. I am not that delusional.

So what are my FWIW observations and recommendations for them as a social media user?

• As a networking and marketing tool, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter should not be looked at as three behemoths that must be tamed through hours and hours of study. Rather, you should look at them strictly as three additional tools that can be including in your existing marketing mix. If you looks at anyone of the three in that way, these tools should immediately seem a bit more easier to consider.
• The two main questions people ask me about the value or worth of social media are:

> Why bother?
Because social media can help develop an on-line community of people interested in you and possibly your line of work. The global reach of the internet makes that prospecting tool limitless.

>Who cares?
Almost anybody you currently market to (or would care to market to) is now or soon will be involved in social media. In a down economy, everybody is looking for free marketing resources. Can you find them, and engage them? Can they find you?

• If you are not willing to be a part of or establish a community of people with whom you can engage in non-selling on-line communication, don’t bother with social media. It’s not one size fits all and some business and business owners just won’t mesh with the process – so don’t bother.

As I told the audience and as I said last night: I hope this helps.

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When I read this blog post from Dave Fleet up in Toronto I thought to myself, I wish we could corral all the top 5 social media tools lists that are out there so we could see if there was some consensus on which ones were best (this week…ha!). Or even better, if there were some hidden tools that I hadn’t yet heard about. My guess is that list is out there somewhere but I am not feeling that motivated to go on the hunt for it. You do it and report back 🙂

If you use the tools of Social Media in your daily routine as I do, I think you’ll like this list. Some of the tools I have used and some I am toying with (some quite frankly I don’t immediately understand which is why I will always fall under the category of Social Media “active user” as opposed to “expert”).

I have met Dave and find him to be a very straight up guy whose professional opinions I trust. If you don’t subscribe to his blog, well that’s your problem 😉

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Lest you believe The Voice Over Entrance Exam is the only free material on voice over out there (although thanks Dave Courvoisier for the very kind review today) my e-book most certainly is not.

My northern neighbor and fellow voice talent Bryan Cox has written a Voice Over White Paper entitled Money in Minutes. It focuses on how to make money doing voice overs in your local market.

You can download it for free here and I hope you’ll take a look.

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