When Voice Actors Become Social Media Braggarts
“If I don’t announce that I got a residual check from that online streaming release, who else will?” This is a question that is often answered by a click on that post button of a voice actor’s Facebook status.
Because everyone else seems to breathe on social media, we all fall prey to the temptations of sharing our good news, and voice actors are one of the entrepreneurs who enjoy the free powerful tool for self-promotion. After all, what’s the point of social media if we can’t post about the great things going on in our voice acting career?
Sharing positive events and voiceover achievements on social media supports our happiness, boosts our self-esteem and even enhances our online profile, landing us more opportunities be it in job or other pursuits. It also comes off as a breath of fresh air in an all-too-negative news cycle. So in its simplest form, it’s a win-win.
However, what feels great for us might not be all the time mutual to our fellow voice actors. Some voice actors tend to overestimate the extent to which others will feel happy for them when they share the good news, and underestimate the extent to which they’ll feel annoyed.
Why do voice actors brag?
No one’s saying you can’t share that residual check on Facebook or even across different channels, but it won’t hurt to examine your intentions before doing so. Your intention defines whether your post is worth a hearty support from your peers or worth an avalanche of unfollows. Is it because you feel so overwhelmed by your accomplishment and couldn’t help but shout it out? Or because you are maximizing the use of Facebook as a whole new job market to promote yourself? Is it because you are in the advocacy of inspiring your fellow actor? Or you want to rub in their faces how great you are and that they should be jealous? The purpose is completely diverse and can be ambiguous.
Let’s say, out of overwhelming gratitude for receiving an Annie award in that animated feature film you took part of, it’s normal to share your joy with your online followers, we all deserved to be celebrated for our achievements. Posting it once in your facebook is enough to induce positive emotion to your followers. What makes it annoying and sound like a boast? If you tend to begin your sentence with phrases like “I am so proud..”, “I deserve such..” or “I am lucky..”, it can be read as bragging. If your post doesn’t say something other than yourself being able to have this and that and posting the same aimless content across many channels and facebook groups, you totally come off like a walking billboard. Sure your followers are happy for you but they won’t like to be reminded of how you are living your life in Shangri-la multiple times. Not only you annoy other voice actors and related peers when you post the same bragging content on your facebook timeline, story, voiceover groups, twitter, and Instagram, but you potentially lose followers than gain more.
There’s no problem about posting your residual check or your new voice acting promotion, after all, it’s your facebook account, but you don’t have to do a full-on Oscars speech without any other valuable message every time you get one. Oversharing aimlessly also puts you in the risk of actually looking like an automated ad people tend to hide from their newsfeed. And that is no different to as talking to a wall. If you are a voice actor who practices this, it’s about time to rework your strategy in self-promoting online because little do you realize that you are already blowing your own trumpet and nobody gives a damn.
What happens if you are a bad braggart?
If you are a bad braggart, your prizes are any or a combination of the following: your fellow voice actors get jealous, your followers get annoyed, or they simply don’t care. And what happens next? They unfollow you. And so here comes the other side of the coin in defense of voice actors bragging their achievements, “There’s an unfollow button.” You are not an ordinary individual who’s joined facebook because it’s free and is a worldwide bandwagon. Remember that you have a business as a voice actor and that you are using social media as your online self-promotion. So you don’t just say “Feel free to unfollow me”, you cannot resort to such a defense mechanism as someone who’s trying to build his presence online. What’s the purpose of your social media presence? To aimlessly post a list of your accomplishments and just stiff-arm people who get annoyed by your self-promotion? You are using social media for free, so the only cost you have to pay is putting effort on using it properly to yield desirable outcomes.
There are many strategies as to how you can artfully brag your achievements and promote your voice acting career without coming off as arrogant. In this article “How Voice Actors Can Toot Their Trumpet Without Blowing It”, you will come across the secret recipe of promoting your voice acting career online without annoying your audience.
