The reality of being an aspiring performer in the year of our Lord 2023 is that social media, especially having a sizable following, is essential to your success.
The hard truth is that, especially as a performer who is just starting out, you will be passed over for roles in favor of someone with a larger following - even if you are the superior performer. Producers want eyes on their projects, and if an actor has a built in following, it makes them an easy choice. I’ve realized that if I ever want to make a career out of what I love, I need to find a way to make my way onto the black rectangles that live in everyone's back pocket. I am by no means an expert, but these are some of the things I’m learning on my way to growing a following.
The very first thing you must decide is: what is your niche? Are you a juggling clown? Then all your content should be juggling clown related. The algorithm doesn’t particularly care that you are a complex clown who also likes baking and long walks on the beach, they much prefer a reliable stream of content similar to what you’ve made before.
Tandem to that is your persona. What’s the version of you you want the world to know? This is especially important for actors, as casting decisions can be based on what public perception of you is. Think about what roles you’d like to play and go from there. Are you bubbly? Mysterious? Funny? Combination thereof?
Then is the most straightforward and mechanical aspect: your actual account. Keep it simple. Your profile photo should be the best photo you have of yourself. Your bio should be short and sweet, letting people know what you’re all about. You should be posting at least a story daily, and making quality content at least once a week. Preferably more.
And to make that quality content, you will have to subject yourself to the whirling vortex of social media. Spending time on the explore page will show you what is trending at the moment. If you take nothing else from this post, it is that you must know and be able to work with the trends. In the ideal scenario, your sleuthing will lead you to find trends before they reach their zenith of popularity - that way you can hop on it and ride the tide of incoming views. If you can jump on a trend and relate it back to your niche, you are golden.
Of course, creativity is also necessary. You can make excellent content that is completely non-trend-related and will hopefully gain traction of its own merit and endear people to your unique brand of you. Authenticity is something that people value and admire, which is why everyone rolls their eyes when Bella Hadid says she loves eating pizza - it's obviously not true. Yes, your social media account is a persona, but you're still a person and people like to see that too.
Tags are fairly straight forward; use a combination of ones that are trending at the moment in addition to ones directly related to your content. This will help you reach a much wider audience.
If you have a video “go viral,” congratulations! - that is your life now. Your other posts should be trying to replicate whatever that successful video was (or whatever was successful in that video), because the algorithm will pick it up as similar content and show it to more people. It is also likely you gained a great deal of followers from that “viral” post specifically, so not only is it in your best interest to show your current followers what they signed up for, but it's also likely to attract even more followers.
There are many more layers of strategy to social media that I’m sure I’ve missed, but these are what I’ve found to be most crucial. Hopefully this helps, good luck!