Forget coffee....I've got a new addiction,
and it's got a strange name:  TWITTER.

Most of  us have heard that being a successful voice actor is 20% talent and tech-savvy, and 80% marketing and promoting yourself and your product.

If that's true, and the lion's share of the advertising, marketing and media attention is moving online, then what have you to lose by being on FaceBook, a blog, online VO subscription sites, FriendFeed, MySpace, and more?

My personal favorite is Twitter...something that's increasingly proving it's value to me as a social marketing and product marketing tool.

This newsletter is meant to edge you into this online community if you aren't already.

GETTING STARTED

Go to http://www.twitter.com and click on "Get Started -- Join".  You choose a username and a password to start your account.  It could be anything, but I'd suggest you use something consistent with your branding.  I use CourVO.  Doug Turkel uses "UNnouncer".  Liz de Nesnera uses Lizden, and so forth.

OK, great...now what?

Well, it really behooves you to quickly fill out a profile.  Where you're from, a brief bio, maybe a pic of you, or your brand logo (AudiO'Connell uses that cool "a" with an "O" around it).  People are naturally curious about you, and it doesn't take much to satisfy that.

Twitter offers several basic backgrounds you can use.  They're boring.  Go to http://www.twitterbacks.com to find better (free) ones.  There are also services on the internet that will actually design a Twitter background with personal information -- if that's important for your busiiness.

FIND FOLLOWERS...BE A FOLLOWER

Twitter is built around communities you create -- your followers.  You may join someone else's community by following them.  The more people you follow, the more "tweets" will pop-up on your screen. 

Click on other people's followers...go fishing...visit websites that offer suggestions of who to follow (suggestions below)...search for your friends (there's a link at the bottom of the Twitter screen for that).  When you find a name, Twitter will take you to their site, and you can just click on the "follow" button under their pic.

(more about messages below)

The basic Twitter interface is very very simple.  The founders keep it that way.  You can continue to use it just like it is, but most people are taking advantage of any one of thousands of other "helper" interfaces that have sprung up like a cottage industry around the information Twitter puts out.

See below for some interesting information and links.

 

I've arranged for voice-actors to have their own Twitter group.  Sign up to Twitter first (free and easy), then click HERE to go to the TwitGroup/voicetwitter.

There's also a new "Twibe" of Voiceover artists.  Click HERE.

You can see how you rank against other VO's on Twitter HERE, then enter the term "voiceover" in the box in the upper right corner. THIS is a similar site.

On whatever Twitter browser you use, just enter the search term "voiceover" or "#voiceover" (no quotation marks) to search for any tweets coming down the pike with that word or hashtag in it.

In some Twitter interfaces -- like Tweetdeck -- you can organize your followers into groups and give them their own column.  I have one called "Voiceover" and it's populated with my followers that I know are into VO.

OK, I"m done now...this was a long newsletter, and if you read this far, you're a patient person.

Have fun with TWITTER... it's a non-stop stream-of-consciousness subculture that many find very engaging.
                                                                   .........Dave Courvoisier