Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms can be a boon for your voice over business – or they can contribute to its ruin. To make sure your social media efforts end up benefiting instead of hurting your business, it’s crucial to steer clear of six different social media habits that can damage your voice over career.

Being Overly Pushy with Your Voice Over Services

While marketers have long discovered the benefits of using social media to promote products and services, that’s not it’s one and only function. The overall goal of social media is to engage with your audience, to interact and entertain them as a way of keeping your voice over business at the top of their minds.

Audience members are not likely to be very entertained if everything they find on an account is the message to buy now, buy now and buy now. Try to keep your promotions at a minimum, with intriguing content making up the bulk of what you post. Social media best practices say to make 20 percent of the content about your voice over business, and the other 80 percent about topics that tickle your audience.

Being Overly Pushy with Your Opinion

Social media is ideal for sharing ideas, thoughts and opinions. Yet it’s not the place to create a one-sided monologue that’s focused solely on pushing your opinions onto others. Just as your audience is not likely to enjoy a constant barrage of promotions for your business, they’re apt to get turned off with a constant reinforcement of your opinion, especially when it’s presented as the one and only way to think.

And in today’s political climate, sharing your views on all things politics is probably not a good idea at all. While you may think most people share your point of view, you will likely be very surprised by how many of your contacts, and most importantly, your clients, have differing points of view. The old adage about never talking about religion or politics at the dinner table can be easily applied to social media if you run your own business. Avoid controversial topics or you losing some of your clients.

Picking the Wrong Accounts

With so many social media platform out there, it can feel overwhelming to even known where to begin. This counts double if you think you need to post on them all. You don’t. You instead want to make thoughtful decisions on which may be best for your voice over business.

Think about the audience you’re trying to reach, and then choose platforms – and messages – that speak directly to them. Stick with items that grab their attention, prompting them to not only read your messages but to also share them with their friends and fans.

Sharing Voice Over Audition or Assignment Details

No matter how excited you may be about your latest big-name voice over audition or contract, it’s essential to keep the details to yourself. Most voice over assignments will contain a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prohibits you from sharing such information, and doing so would violate the agreement.

Even without a non-disclosure agreement, it is common courtesy and practice to treat information you receive during a voice over audition or contract as confidential.

Sharing Too Many Other Details

Even if your family and friends on your personal social media accounts may be interested in hearing about your latest personal problems or triumphs, your voice over clients and prospects may not be. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, our personal and business lives may often blend together in many areas – but social media is one place you want to make a concerted effort to keep them separate.

That doesn’t mean your voice over fans may not want to hear about you completing a marathon or getting a new puppy – but they may not want to hear about the details on your foot blisters from running or the potty-training involved with the new puppy.

Not Thinking, at Least Twice, before Posting

So many companies have horror stories about social media mistakes, such as trying to be funny but coming off flippant, or making a joke that offends the masses. Since social media moves at the speed of light and lasts forever, it’s impossible to take back anything posted or to even stop it from instantly traveling around the world.

It can be even tougher to clean up your reputation after an avalanche of angry responses. If a witty thought or idea comes to you, type it up and let it sit for a moment. Review your audience, review the mindset of the day, review current events – and make sure what you’re posting isn’t likely to be construed as unthinking, uncaring or painfully offensive.

If you’re not sure if something may be overly offensive, you’re probably safer leaving it out of your business postings. Even though you’re aiming to engage your audience and have fun, you still want to do so with the professional undertones that prove you’re a true professional voice over actor they can hire with confidence.

Looking to hire a VO pro? Contact Debbie for a custom audition or quote today.

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