THE BUSINESS OF BEING CREATIVE

These days if you are a media artist, actor, writer, director, musician or any other type of talent, you really need to market yourself and get out there to make things happen. Artists unfortunately are not wired that way, actually quite the opposite; often we can be a little demure about our talents. But if you look at some of the most successful careers, there is often nothing demure about it, you have to get out and get noticed. Its work, but this is show business. Now I am probably stating nothing you don’t already know, but what you may not know is the ways to go about doing this are changing. There are new paths and ways to market that you may not have explored.

Let’s look at the old way, let’s say you are an actor. You get your headshots done by a good photographer, make some duplicates, send them out and then hope for auditions. Some call back, some don’t. You might have an agent, who is working to find you gigs. But up until this point you are not actually doing it full time, but would love to. So you may think you’ve done all you can. And in a sense, with the old style of marketing, you are right about on track. But these methods, well, are a little 90’s. People these days are looking for one main thing: information. As our society advances, information is the key. Even if someone is going to hire you as an actor, they want the 411, what is the story with you? Info is what is most helpful. Headshots are great, resume…nice touch. But there is much more you can provide.

I gotta get a website! Ok, you are probably thinking about doing a website, your talented friends have theirs, and it will help your career. Well…maybe. The problem with websites is often they are static; they are informative but usually are cast in cement. They don’t change. You’ve got some pictures up, your resume maybe, your services. Ok…now it’s done. Little reason to update it. But there are a couple of problems here. First, good websites are organic, meaning they are constantly changing, being updated, new stuff…new info! The reason for this is to prompt repeat visiting. I did this on my website, I did a section called Friday at Franklin, where I would put new pictures up I had shot weekly. The catch was they were only up for a week, so you had to visit weekly or you would miss something. You need to give people a reason to keep coming back; you want to be on their mind. Often.

Another thing to consider is search engines. If you know websites, you know that you insert into the code keywords like “New England actor” or “NYC director” and such so search engines will pick up on this. Once again, a little 90’s. Don’t get me wrong, search engines still look at keywords, but their criteria has changed as to what is important. Search engines now look at the content of the page, if there are lots of keywords in the body of the text (not the HTML keywords, or metatags) then that will come up higher in the search engine. Also the search engines look for sites that seem important, they decide this by looking at how many other sites are linking to your site. So if you have traded links and there are lots of site linking to yours, then you will come up higher in the search. Most importantly, search engines give preference to sites that are updated often. So if your site has not been changed in a year, well, it’s not that good. However if you have news and updates and items updated weekly or daily, well your chances of being found go up much higher.

Which brings us to blogs. Which is sort of an online journal. Having a website is good and adding a blog, or just doing a blog, is great. Why? Because blogs cover everything we’ve been discussing. First of all they are organic, you post on them often, so search engines see it often. As your blog progresses, it gets peppered with lots of keywords as you discuss. Once your blog becomes longer, you suddenly have very significant relevance to search engines. Because you have lots of content that engines pick up on. Other benefits are low cost, in fact Blogger.com is free, and is a good choice to start your first blog. Also they have very nice custom templates, so you can create a look and feel by just choosing the correct template. If you know HTML, you can easily adjust the template to add in other elements. There are also services such as hello.com, audioblogger.com and videoaddon.com to add images, audio and video very easily to your blog. And most of these services are free. Pick up a copy of “Who Let the Blogs Out” by Biz Stone for a back history and forward look at the business of blogs and the services, options and potential available.

So you go to Blogger.com and start it rolling, but what next? What is your blog about and what do you put on it? Well again, information is the key. People want information. Helping others with advice and becoming an expert, or at least someone well versed in your field, will develop a following. Let’s continue to use acting as an example. Your blog could be advice on breaking into the business. A blog on auditioning tips. A resource for new actors just starting out. Say you are a director, your blog could chart the behind the scene stories of your current production with lots of advice mixed in. Maybe what you have learned. You could focus on independent film and offer technical articles and advice on  the latest DV equipment.

Basically take your passion, and then provide others with what you know. Again, look at what you are most interested in, and write about it to inspire and guide others. Soon you have a blog that is not a motionless look-at-me resume that gets a single glance over, but an evolving progression that builds up more and more repeat visitors. You know those DVD special features, don’t you love the behind the scenes making-of industry stuff? Yes…but what is even better is when the director stops and produces a feature that walks through how he did it. Or offers a commentary with tips and insights. Now that is cool. You love to learn and soon you look to this person as a source of inspiration, and yes you will definitely check out his next movie (check out the DVD of Robert Rodriguez’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXIC0, or any of his SPY KIDS flicks, for amazing tutorials on how he does what he does, he’s a true media artist).

So get your knowledge out there and inspire others, you’ll get good karma back but most importantly you will simultaneously be marketing yourself and forging your career. A funny thing will happen on the way, you’ll also find yourself learning more as you teach (ask any teacher) so you will be advancing your skills at the same time.

I started a blog called “Media Artist Secrets” (mediaartist.com) and I cover the business of being creative, with stops along the way in photography, filmmaking, digital effects, music and lots more. It’s a blast to do and it’s developing as a resource for aspiring talent to learn and also expand their careers in different directions. I invite you to do something similar, take your talents and share them with the world. Don’t try to find work locally, try to inspire and grow globally. Let me know how you make out, send me your blog! And best of luck on your journey to moving your career to the next level.

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Franklin McMahon is a media artist specializing in photography, graphic design, filmmaking, digital effects and web video/animation. His home page is www.fmstudio.com and his blog “Media Artist Secrets” is at www.mediaartist.com