Social Media Workshop

I attended a workshop run by the Federation of Entertainment Union (FEU) on "LinkedIn
and meeting up. How to leave a good impression in a digital world”. (The Abbey Centre, 13 March 2011). The workshop run by the trainer David Thomas, a highly experienced broadcaster, trainer and manager, with a special interest in communication and organizational skills (David Thomas Media website, 2012), focused on the use of social medias and the networking side of a self-managed business. David explained how connections have always been made face to face, but most recently a good relevance has been taken over the internet


The business of theatre and dance has reached a high level of technological evolution. Now most of the castings start from a viral form rather than the old cover letter + CV way. Thanks to artists's websites provided by social networks and arts bodies such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Spotlight, the artist can have a better visibility and an easier access into the casting directors' offices and can create a professional reputation over the internet and can create a positive comeback on his/her career development.

It was interesting to learn how differently we can introduce ourselves face-to-face depending who we are talking to. We can tell who we are (I'm a musician), what we do (I play the piano) or what benefits we give to others (I make people happy). The benefit is not what we actually do but it makes people more interested and leave a memorable impression and it helps us distinguish ourselves from the mass. So it's also important to built a good credibility for our business (ourselves) and discover what people value about us.

This introduced the discussion towards LinkedIn, how to get recommendation on it and how to network over the internet. Networking means learning, engaging and recommending (Thomas, 2012) This last one specifically important in order to built trust among people that can leave us recommendations, helping develop our own “digital reputation” and making our profile strong, not only having what we believe about ourselves, but with the support of people we have worked with.

I found very amusing this description of the different social networks:

LinkedIn = workspace

Twitter = water cooler (gossiping)

Google + (not well known yet) = the canteen

Facebook = the bar

It is important to leave the right impression on the right social network and sometimes create two

different profiles, a personal and a professional one, so that the two things don't get mixed up in the net. I learned that on the social networks your profile description is one of the most important parts of your digital world, it's the message that should reinforce the impression you want to make, to leave a taste of who you are without having you in person.

Also things as simple as you email address gives an idea of what you do and who you are.

Yahoo, Hotmail and now even Gmail are the domains that are mostly used, it's worth considering

buying you own domain (as cheap as £3 a year for a .co.uk domain, or £10 for a .com which is

better for International work) so that you can present yourself as a professional and give a better

idea of how reliable your business may be.

To make your web image stronger, you should be constant with your photos (always the same ones for every profile), make it personal, focused and engaging. (Thomas, 2012) 

References:

• Thomas, D., LinkedIn and meeting up. How to leave a good impression in a digital world, The Abbey Centre, 13 March 2011.