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Tag: how to use social media

Ep. #11 Is a Small Social Media Following Keeping you from BIG Work? (with Sam Hersch)

Words That Move Me with Dana Wilson
Ep. #11 Is a Small Social Media Following Keeping you from BIG Work? (with Sam Hersch)
00:00 / 00:43:08
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Special Guest Sam Hersch doesn’t call himself a dancer, but he supports the dance community in many ways.  Has he found a way that the dance community can better support itself? When he started www.questionsfordancerstoday.com that is what he was aiming to do.  Listen in as Dana answers some of Sam’s 35 “Questions Worth The Asking”, and answer along for yourself as we try to get to the bottom of the the big question: how is social media influencing the dance industry and individual dancers’ lives?

Dana: Before we get into the good stuff!  We’d like to announce our Instagram Contest winners! The following 5 “demi” prize winners will be receiving a Words That Move Me Shoe Bag, to keep the shoes funky and keep the rest of your gear  funk free!

Our 5 demi-prize winners are: @renatogames_ @sydneycheri @megansarbaugh @fridadawson @chlo_withtheflow

Our Grand Prize winners each receive one hour of rental space in “The Kitchen” at The Hub NoHo, Thanks to our contest sponsor , The Hub NoHo Our 4 grand prize winners are: @cardincn @rileyroberts  @laurencarterhaines  @alexarhs 

And our Suber Duper “Booked and Blessed” Award– A 5 class card to The Movement Lifestyle, thanks to our contest sponsor @goesmovement.lifestyle — goes to: @sandami.sinley

Thanks everyone and congrats! Now, Let’s got to it!

Dana: Today I’m going to share little bits of a conversation that I had with a very special guest, a special guy named Sam Hirsch. Now I have known Sam since I think 2012 but this conversation was sparked because I ran into him recently. Uh, while I was teaching a class at movement lifestyle, I was making a mad dash for the restroom, like in the middle of class, had the moment, had to do it. And I saw Sam in the lobby and he handed me this flyer, like a full page flyer with a lot of words on it. And I was like, Sam, Oh man. Good to see you. Can’t read this right now. Send me an email. So later that night I had an email from Sam. It was a couple of attachments, um, a user guide and then a questionnaire. Now this is something that he’s been working on since June of 2019 and the purpose of the questionnaire is to get to the bottom of the question, how is social media influencing the dance industry and an individual dancers life?  

So I opened the attachment for the user’s guide, which was 12 pages long and I flashed back to the lobby area moment where I was like, Sam, I don’t have time for this in this moment. Email me. And then the email moment was another moment. So I asked Sam if he would be willing to come onto the podcast and just hash this out over a microphone, um, and see what we can uncover about that massive question. How is social media influencing dance and is your social media presence as important or more important than your actual live work? So I asked Sam to come on the podcast and he said yes, and then he did come on the podcast and then we did talk for three hours. So this is an edited version of our conversation. Um, we really covered a whole lot of stuff, how we met years and years ago when I was teaching at millennium.  Um, how I use my social media, how I consider it to be like a store front. The concept that I covered in last week’s episode, which if you haven’t yet, please go check out episode 10. Um, what else did we talk about? We talked about um, how he started creating this questionnaire and how he decided to unplug for a little while after working so hard on the subject of social media in dance. You know, that was sort of his impetus to, to get off the app for a little while. And you know what, I’ve actually thought about doing that too. Um, although with all of the exciting stuff that you daily doers are getting into out there, I don’t think my break will be happening anytime this year. I absolutely love seeing what everybody’s doing out there. Please keep up the good work and keep hashtagging doing daily. W T M M yes, there it is. #doingdailyWTMM alright. Without any further ado, let’s get into this conversation with Sam and see what we can dig up about social media and the way it is affecting the lives of creative types. 

Dana: Sam, take the floor. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your relationship to dance and the project that you’re working on.  

Sam: All right, thanks Dana. So the short version of my history with dance is that when I was 18 or 19 and I graduated, I had been in out of high school for about a year. Uh, my very good friend from high school ended up joining culture shock San Diego. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that at all. Um, she was on the troop for about two years this is before the days of following anybody on, on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or anything. I would literally follow her to San Diego, um, to see her perform. Um, my first experience watching professional dancers in Los Angeles was um, in 2011 culture shock made one of their rare trips up to Los Angeles where they participated in Tessandra Chavez’s traffic show. And that was the first time that I saw Unity LA long before Tessandra knew where unity LA was going to go on long before any of my friends ended up being involved in that. And after that I started taking classes at millennium on a pretty regular basis. That’s where I met Marty and that’s where I met you. And, um, that is also where I began to notice, although I didn’t think much of it at the time, the influence, Mmm. For lack of a better word of social media on the dance industry. I remember being in the room when Willdabeast taught upgrade you at millennium now that was the night before he went to Ida and recorded it. And, and the rest is, they say, is history,  

Dana: Right? Viral internet history.  

Yup. And ever since then I’ve, I’ve kind of started to notice, um, the influence of social media on the dance world. And I remember speaking to the person who was designing my website and telling her that of of all the artists in the world, singers, actors, dancers, a dancer’s life has been the most impacted by social media. And these questions are my attempt at getting really to the heart of, Oh, what that relationship is like.  not being a professional dancer, I don’t consider it my right to judge how people use social media. But there’s a part of me as a person with a disability that doesn’t want people to be excluded in any sense. The, the, the dance community remains as welcoming as it has ever been. To and not only to people like me, but to everyone without having the burden of get your following up over your head. Right. You understand what I mean?  

Dana: Cool. Well, I would like to dig into that with you, um, if that’s okay. I sort of will treat this, I guess as like a, a cross interview perhaps. And then, um, we’ll close up with, uh, I’ll just have you ask me all of the questions on that questionnaire and we’ll see if I pass wink, wink. 

Um, so I guess if we’re going to talk about that big question, what is the relationship between a dancer’s social media presence and their live performance? I, I really think it’s a beautiful thing and one of the most unique things about dance as a fine art is that unlike a painting or a sculpture, which stays there while you get to behold and think about and reflect on, it dances moving and then it’s gone and it’s over. And I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about it.  But I also think that there’s great power in, in the capture of it so that it can exist long after the moment that it was created in where it gets ugly is when we start determining our value based on views based on follows. And I think that that is really up to the person. As you mentioned, you’ve taken actions towards protecting yourself from falling into the cycle of seeking external validation. You know, you got rid of the social media or maybe you regulate it. Maybe you only look at comments once week, maybe you don’t look at them ever. You know, I think our techniques in terms of coping with that or whatever works and that’s going to be different from person to person. But um, is that helpful? Does that answer the question?  

It does and it is helpful. And, and, and, and the reason why I wrote it as a questionnaire or not a blog is because, because I, I wanted to get answers from people rather than being an armchair critic or in my very literal case, a wheelchair critic and write what I thought.  

Right. Well, I think in any situation, a, a discussion is better than a seminar. I think we learned so much more from these things and are able to go so much deeper with  feedback with conversation opposed to just, you know, standing on a box and shouting through cone. What is that whats a, megaphone. There it is a mega cone. 

Dana: Yeah. Okay. Seminars are good. Discussions are better, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on what a dancer’s relationship is, can be or should be with social media. As I mentioned last week, I think the majority of us use Facebook, YouTube, Instagram of some sort, but if you don’t use any of those things, I would especially love to hear from you. The way that you would do that is to slide into the comments on my website, the Dana wilson.com/podcast under episode 10 wait a second. This is episode 11 episode 11 wait, I gotta double check that, confirmed. 

This is episode 11 all right, next, Sam and I scribbled ourselves into talking about the what ifs. What if social media went away tomorrow? Would you still be okay? I’ll tell you what dance would be. Okay. Dancers would be okay. We would still make dance. We’d just put it somewhere else. Okay, here’s another one. If what if you had to be popular to get work? Well then we wouldn’t have Monet. We wouldn’t have Edgar Allen Poe and other weirdos. Like actually Vincent Vango. I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard that he only sold a single painting during his lifetime, but today you cannot hear that name without immediately thinking art or artist. It’s wild, right? So popularity and value not connected. I mean, I’d say they’re not mutually exclusive. You have quality and you have quantity like you know, number of followers. I guess you can’t have a Venn diagram where there’s a center circle there where you have a really, really awesome thing that gets a lot of attention.  

Beyonce, for example, man, I really, I held out for a long time. You guys. I was not a fan for awhile, but I think it was her. Um, Oh no. It was the year of Rhianna’s MTV Vanguard award that Beyonce performed and absolutely roasted. It was insane. I, I subscribed at that moment, I was onboard, she was flawless and that was a big bite of a performance. Holy smokes. Okay. Maybe sidebar Beyonce episode down the road. We’ll jump to it. What if, what else did Sam and I talk about in the what ifs front. Oh, what if things keep going like they’re going right now and that’s where we’ll jump in. Check it out.  

Dana: You know, I do, I imagine a world where social media keeps going like it is like, I’ll, I’ll say it right now. I have, I actually don’t know that I have 32,000 and some change followers. And that used to be, I remember when I broke 30,000 and I was like, Oh my God, that’s a big deal. I’m a mega star. And now I’m on the other side of casting tables, listening to people say things like, I don’t know, she only has 300,000 followers. We really need somebody with more pull. And I’m like, my mind is blown because I’m like, that’s larger than countries. Like that’s bananas. Um, so I, I have seen that working in ways that are distasteful to me, but I also do try to remember that if not for social media, the cost of entry into the industry used to be a, you had to have paid for a dance education, right?  You had to have paid for good headshots, you have to be in the room in LA at the one audition that that one choreographer has in six months or whatever. And then additionally under that, you have to be having a good day. You have to be remembered as being great. Versus on Instagram you get to curate. I get to decide what I put up there and it is there 24 hours a day working for me for free. So I really, you know, it’s got, it’s got its ups and downs for me. But that’s in a nutshell, that’s kind of my, that’s my love. Hate with “soceh meeds” Oh my God. I said social media. Sorry. Julian Meyers, if you’re listening, she hates. Mmm. Uh, abbreviations. So it is, sorry, Julie. Um, okay. So I don’t know. Do you have anything else you’d like to ask me before we get into the questionnaire?  

Sam: Well, when, well we’ll just to clarify what you said on my end. I am, I’m not trying to, to bring the dance industry back to the pre social media kind of era, but all I would want to come out of this, of this questionnaire is when you go to auditions, you guys should fight for the opportunity to be seen live and not let um, your social media presence or lack there of exclude you from actually participating in the audition. Like you were meant to.  

Sam mentions the idea that social media could be excluding people from taking part in auditions. This brings up a lot of big and pretty important questions. Does having a small following or anything other than a huge following keep you from being seen at auditions? Really? does it keep you from getting management or an agent’s representation? What is small and what is huge following? Anyways, all of these questions are really, really important. So I put my feelers out to some of top agents here in LA to get some answers. And here is what I learned. 

I learned that there are now full blown departments and agencies dedicated exclusively to representing talent in the digital space, um, representing “influencers” In other words, and I am sure that those places look for specific things in terms of an individual’s following, but none of the dance agencies that I know of and certainly none that I spoke to, require a minimum number of social media followers to get signed.  In other words, you can have three Instagram followers or no Instagram at all and still get a top agent here in LA. That is great news. It’s great news both for the talent and for the agents. Think about it this way. If agents only signed people with a specific range of followers that would really limit their talent pool, it is absolutely in their best interest to represent the best. And one of the best things about having an agent is that you get notified of auditions and projects that you would be a good fit for. 

Which leads me to my next question. How many audition breakdowns are asking exclusively to see talent with large followings? Well, the responses I got to this question were kind of all over the board, but I got the gist that there are certain types of projects that are more likely to make that ask. Music videos, specifically music videos for up and coming.  Artists that don’t have a really big pull yet, they want a big builtin audience. They want to hire talent that’s going to attract a lot of eyeballs. One agent that I spoke to said that roughly 20% of music video auditions care about a social media following. That’s not to say that they absolutely won’t consider someone without a big following, but it’s a common ask. It’s something that it looked for 20% okay. 

Even more striking than that, almost everyone I spoke to said that almost all projects seeking a lead, male or lead female, imagine like a Co-Star scenario, a love interest, if you will, for a music video. Almost all of these castings are looking for somebody with a quote, large social following. So I asked what is large social following and again I got some mixed responses, but the low end there was about a hundred thousand that’s a pretty big number.  Let’s back up a little bit here. Sam also mentioned that he hopes that a dancer’s social media or lack thereof wouldn’t keep them from being seen in auditions. Now to that, I really have to say from my experience auditioning, which is hefty, that once you’re in the room you could have 100,000 followers. You have negative 100,000 followers. If you roast, which is code for crush it, which is code code for really, really do well, you will be seen. period. In the room. There is no substitute for talent and until that black mirror day where our number of followers is glowing over our head, all you see in the room is your talent. So two thumbs up for auditions and simultaneously two thumbs down for auditions because they’re tough no matter who you are. It’s just kind of an unnatural experience. Speaking of auditions, however, I’ve got big plans.  

August is going to be Audition August. Every single episode happening in the month of August is going to point to crushing it at auditions. Get ready for that. Okay. Whew. So now let’s see what else we can uncover about the effects of social media on a modern dancer. Not a modern dancer. Well maybe modern dancers also, but modern day dancers and our way of working 

Sam’s questionnaire is 35 questions long, but because I talk a lot, we jumped around a lot. Give a listen and answer for yourself as we go. And if you’d like to go deeper, you can visit Sam’s website. Questions for dancers.com. Okay, here we go.  

Sam: Before an artist’s begins to cultivate their social media presence, what’s the first thing they should know about that world?  

Um, the, the dance world or the social media worldr  

The social media world.  

Ah, ooo. Um, I would say that the most important thing to know about the social media world is that it will be whatever you make it, it will mean exactly whatever you make it mean to you. If you treat it like it is the most important thing in the world, it will be the governing force of your life. If you treat it like a fun opportunity to share your work and your breakfast, then it’ll be exactly that.  

Right. Well, Question 2 what is more important. Bear in mind, I use the word artists here, but I really mean dancer in some sense. What is more important that an artist should work on their craft first or begin to cultivate a social media presence?  

Ooh. Um, to that I would say is it possible to do both at once? Is it possible to genuinely work on your training and nurture, um, a public presence? Yeah, I think it is.  

Is it entirely possible for an artist to operate outside of the social media sphere these days?  

Ooh, I love this question and I think about it all of the time. Um, although it is rare, I would say yes. Uh, actually I just saw an interview with the star of the film 1917 George McKay. Um, and by the way, the film is nominated for 10 Oscars, including best film. And he is the, he’s the star of the film. I don’t even know if there’s a shot that doesn’t have him in it. He’s on, on screen the entire time and he does not have social media. So yes, definitely possible.  

Regarding any promotional content for a class or a convention or, or any other performance, what’s your perspective on collaborating with other social media personalities for promotional content? I.e. YouTube videos. 

Okay. Um, I, I think strategically using, uh, collaborating with other personalities for lack of a, I’ll call them humans. Um, collaborative, collaborating with other humans is, I think the most practical way of expanding your audience. Right? If I have 12 people watching my videos and only those 12 people watch my videos, Mmm. Then we’ve, you know, we’ve hit the ceiling. It’s not until I texting my friend Sam and I’m like, “Hey Sam, what are your 12 people doing right now? Do you think your 12 people would be interested in joining my 12 people to listen to his talk? And you’re like, Oh my gosh, yes.” And that’s how 12 becomes 24 and so on and so forth. So, um, I, I don’t use YouTube as often when it comes to promotion. Instagram is my platform of choice for like class promotion, stuff like that.  

All right. How do you make sure any person that might have a consequential will impact on your career, an agent, et cetera. Mmm. Is drawn to your own unique personality and attitude as opposed to your social media presence. And if an opportunity for performance comes your way, that’s life changing. How do you make sure that the person responsible for that opportunity looks beyond your social media presence, gets to know you and is it necessary to remind that person to look beyond your social media presence and know the real you?  

Oh man, this is loaded. All right. So the short answer to that, that long and pretty nuanced question I think would be if the social media person and the actual person are the same thing, then there’s not a lot to worry about. On the subject of how do you get people to look like how do you get someone to be interested? How do you get someone to care? To that, I am afraid, I would say that is out of your control. All I can control is the way I respond to the circumstances in my world and how I put myself forward. Mmm. You know, in what I call the storefront. I consider my Instagram account to basically be, it’s, it’s my storefront. If I were a retail business, it would be the, the place that people go to find all things me. So everything I put in that store is something that I’m proud of and something that is uniquely me. And I, um, I, I wish I could say I really don’t care if it’s right for the job. I can’t say that I’m not heartbroken when I don’t get the job, but I, I am training myself to believe that it wasn’t meant to be. If it, if it doesn’t become mine, it was not meant to be mine. I’ve done it again. I’ve made it a monologue. I’m sorry, but I, I think we’ve got to stop trying to change social media, stop trying to change the world and just change the way that we think about it changed the way that we operate in it 

Sure. Absolutely. And, and, and that brings us to, to our last, um, set of questions. Mmm. There, there are only two more cause I just had to skip a few. What are the rules for master classes in your, in the social media age? And I consider myself very grateful and very lucky to have been in the room. Um, on a number of occasions. I’m a number of classes long before the camera or the camera rig ever comes out. 

Right. And in some cases it is literally a jib, like a full blown rig with lighting and Oh, it’s wild. What is come of dance class is wild

if you were to wave a magic wand, what would be the ideal rules for, um, social media, his relationship to, um, master classes. And what would you say to kids in those master classes?  

Hmm. Mmm. This is another loaded question because again, one of the beautiful things about dance and the way it’s taught is that there is no one syllabus, there is no school, single school of dance that says this is how it is taught and this is the best way to teach it and this is the only way to teach it. And once you graduate from this school, then you go and get a certificate and then you can go teach to other people. That just isn’t the way our world works. And I’m thankful for that because everybody has a different style of learning and everybody has a different style of teaching. Um, that said, if, if I go to wave a magic wand, it would simply be open discourse around the subject. I will be transparent with my class when I say I am going to film this next group. I have a theory about in the classroom that cameras actually don’t change anything about the energy or the environment in the room. It is our thoughts about the cameras that change the energy and the environment in the room. Cameras are just pieces of glass and plastic. They don’t mean anything except for little bits of light are received by a sensor. And this moment will ask outside of this room in a digital sense but not in a actual sense like scientifically, this moment will end and it will be over and I will be fine whether or not I mess up, whether or not I am in the last group, whatever. So I, I would just like there to be more conversation around the topic. Um, I would like for a little bit more transparency. I definitely as a teacher I would definitely like for students to consider asking permission from the teacher before filming themselves in class. Um, I get really distracted when I see dancers off to the side. Again, I’ve been teaching for a convention for a really long time and I see first of all blowing my mind that some like seven year olds have iphones it just takes some getting used to, but off to the sides I see little seven year olds filming each other, dancing during my class and um, that has raised little flags for me. Um, and I’m kind of working with my cell phone. What I’m making that mean? I think it means they want to share that moment and to them sharing means filming and then posting. I know that there are different ways to share that moment but they don’t. So I might in my class talk about the different ways you can share the different ways that you can measure your progress. But again, I believe that video is one of the best ways to measure your progress and a visual art like dance. So, um, I, I would just love for there to be more discourse around it. I would love for us to have some more transparency, talk about it and um, yeah, period. Good. I seriously, I could talk forever.  

Okay. Okay. Okay. Last two questions. And these are very loaded set of questions. Are you pressured? Did take jobs or work with people because of their or yours? Social media presence  

Pressured is an interesting word to use there. I did mention a little earlier. Um, yes, I have been on the other side of the casting table or I’ve been uh, a choreographer on projects where we’re casting talent and are taking followings into consideration. But I think when it comes to um, commercial dance and I say commercial dance meaning dance that is used to sell a product, whether that product is an album or Amazon prime or whatever. I consider commercial dance to  anything that exists to sell a product including class. Is that you are engaging in somewhat of a business transaction and you have to make transactional decisions based on certain values and having built in audience, having eyeballs knowing that your product will be seen is a consideration that I understand. Yes, I have felt pressured to work with certain people because of their followings. I have also experienced situations where if I present the right person following or not, if they have the right talent, I have seen productions change their mind and say yes, that is undeniably who we need regardless of a following.  

Right.  

You know, what I took away from your user guide to the questionnaire is that you are a person who undeniably, relentlessly supports dance in the dance community. You’re there paying for classes, you’re there going to the shows, you are there both in person and you know when you’re sitting doing this work, I’m sure countless hours at your computer or over a journal hashing out these ideas, trying to help the community improve. And I see you as being frustrated that at times the dance industry or the dance community doesn’t support itself. And from the outside looking in, that’s what, um, it looks like this project could achieve. And I hope that people were, as we’re answering these questions along with us because it was very informative for me. 

I cannot thank you enough for taking this time, Sam, and doing this work. Asking these questions I think is very, very important, uh, that we be having these conversations. So cheers to you and thank you so much  

Dana It’s my pleasure and thank you. Thank you so much.  

You are so welcome. I will talk to you soon. Sam  

Have a good night, Dana.  

Dana: All right everybody. I hope that got your social wheels turning. One of my biggest takeaways from that conversation is that there are really a lot of misconceptions around what a social media following means in terms of your work. I would really argue that it is the work itself, the content, the actual stuff and not the number of followers that factors most into getting you more stuff, more work. I also believe there’s a difference between doing it for the gram as they say and doing it for the doing and simply sharing it on the gram. The latter is the insta world that I want to live in and thanks to getting to choose who I follow. It actually is the world that I live in and I love it. I really love it. I see great value to it. So I want to take a quick moment to shout out my favorite social media accounts of late that have less than a hundred thousand followers and of course I have to start that list off with my fellow seaweed sisters, Jilly Meyers.  That’s J. I. L. L. Y. M. E. Y. E. R. S. the one and only

Megan Lawson, M. E. G. A. N. G. U. W. R. E. and the story behind Guwre is a story that I will let Megan tell for herself when we have our seaweed sessions on the podcast. Oh, speaking of seaweed, obviously the seaweed sisters @theseaweedsisters spell it just like it sounds, um, without any spaces or interesting characters because we’re all the interesting character you need. See how I did that. Um, okay. Also, please, Holy smokes, get your phone right now. This is important. Go follow @jamsv, which is Jermaine Spivey at JA M S V Y as well as Spenser Theberge, which I’m hoping I’m saying that last name right. It gets me every time. His handle is @spensermyles and that is a Spenser with an S, ladies and gentlemen. S.P.E.N.S.E.R.M.Y.L.E.S. and one of my favorite lady birds. The one and only Cindy Salgado. She is at C.I.N.D.Y.B.E.T.H.S.A.L.G.A.D.O which leads me to my next favorite lady type Michelle Dorrance and Dorrance dance. You guys get with it. I was lucky enough to get to see them perform at USC last week and my mind was blown. My eardrums were tickled, my heart was warmed, all of the good things so, so impressed and inspired. Um, check her out at M. A. S. H. D. E. E. Z. as in zebra. And the company is at D. O. R. R. A. N. C E D. A. N. C. E. that’s DorranceDance. So good. Speaking of, so good. One of my favorite movers is also a director and she is wildly talented. Her name is Mimi Cave. Please go check her out on the internet, but also on the gram, she’s @M I M I C A V E and one final super special human. This was a, a person that I got to meet when I was working on In the Heights and I’m so glad that I did. His name is Haseem and his handle is Gorilla Sage. So follow him at G. O. R I. L. L. A. underscore S. A. G. E. beautiful soul, beautiful human, beautiful mover, and some really special stuff on his page. 

So, um, yeah, that’s it for my share for the day. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope that this keeps the conversation around healthy social media relationships going, um, you know the deal. Well, you know the deal. You know where to find me at words that move me podcast on Instagram. I’m @danadaners of course, and you are keeping it funky. I hope that was kind of a stretch. That wasn’t a really good sign off moment. Where should we do? What should we do? What should we do? Sign off. Sign off. Side off. Vocal. Warm up. Sign off. Keep it funky everybody. I’ll see you next week. I won’t see you. I will talk to you. I will talk to you next week. Have a great rest of your day night. Awesome. Bye. 

Ep. #10 Your Social Media Store Front

Words That Move Me with Dana Wilson
Ep. #10 Your Social Media Store Front
00:00 / 00:23:31
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There are certainly dark corners and terrible evils at work behind the curtains of the social media-sphere, but places like Instagram, and Youtube are also a great (and free) place to share your work and connect with a global audience.  This episode digs into ONE approach to a happy and healthy relationship with social media. After all, you get to choose who you follow, you get to choose what you share, shouldn’t you also get to choose that it’s kinda FUN to build the place where the world can go to find you?

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Transcript:

Intro: This is words that move me, the podcast where movers and shakers like you get the information and inspiration you need to navigate your creative career with clarity and confidence. I am your host, master mover, Dana Wilson, and if you’re someone that loves to learn, laugh and is looking to rewrite the starving artist story than sit tight, but don’t stop moving because you’re in the right place.

Dana: Hello. Hello. Hello. I am Dana. Welcome to the podcast. I am so glad that you are here right now. I am excited to talk to you today. Whoa, this is a big one. All right, so with the Words that Move Me Instagram contest going on right now, Oh, right now, by the way, is the last couple of days of February and heading into March. Oh my gosh. It’s almost March. I can’t really handle it. Time is flying so super fast. Anyways, it’s the last couple of days of February heading into March and until March 9th Words that Move Me has an Instagram contest happening, so make sure you go check out our Instagram page to get all of the details on how you can be involved, how you can win and what you can win.  

It’s all very exciting stuff, but because of the contest, social media has been on the brain and actually to be honest, contest aside, social media has been on the brain. There’s a lot of talk around this right now. It seems kind of an unavoidable subject. It’s like this part of our lives now. It seems to be. Anyways, I’m sure that there is a small contingent, possibly very, very small. Maybe just a few of my listeners that still exist completely handle free and hats off to you. I actually would love to know what that is like. Um, I haven’t checked, but I’m very curious about how many hours a day. I know on average I spend a little over three hours a day on my phone, but out of that, I wonder how much of that is inside of Instagram, which is my preferred social media platform. I digress.  I’d say that the sweeping majority of humans, probably age 16 to maybe 40, uh, have social media of some sort, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, YouTube or all of them. Oh, tik tok. Oh my goodness. Which I don’t have, but I hear that I quote need people tell me this like, Oh my God, you need to tik tok. And that’s very funny because I feel totally fine without one. But then again, I have never had one. It is very possible that I haven’t even lived yet because I don’t have tik tok, tik tok. Am I, am I sounding ridiculous? The tik tok? Do you use the tik tok? I’m cracking myself up anyways. 

I think that social media for the most part gets a bad reputation for a lot of really good reasons. For example, it is literally designed to devour your attention.  There are engineers who are paid to think of ways to keep your eyeballs on the screen longer so that they can show you more ads so that you can click more clicks so that they can make more money. And that is understandable. It is not virtuous, but I understand it. I get it. Here’s another example. Places like Instagram, especially our cesspools for comparison and competition that can really wreak havoc on you and your internal self-worth. I say that because the feed that you scroll through is full of very carefully curated and usually very heavily edited moments from lives of people that you care about, people that you chose to follow, they matter to you for some reason and you spend time looking at these carefully picked pixels from their lives and if you weren’t already comparing their life to your life, look down a little further and you see that handy dandy value system that Instagram has created to keep you clicking.  

So all right. To be clear, I believe comparison and competition exist in abundance out there in the real physical world. But in my experience comparing our bodies, our work, our wins, our losses, all of that good stuff in person is like comparing apples and oranges or like apples and high heeled shoes or Panda bears. Like when you’re face to face, you see humans, you see three dimensional people that are infinitely different than you are in number of ways, but in the two dimensional world on the page, a like is a like. A heart is a heart. A follow is a follow and when she has 50,000 and I have five, it can be very hard to ignore. It can be very hard to not compare and it can be really hard to believe that I am not less. Well, here’s my angle. I believe that we are all worth exactly the same and I don’t believe that our likes and follows quantify our worth period, the end, but I’m not done.  

In addition to being a time vampire in a place that can make us wildly insecure about ourselves, the social media jungle is also a place where bullying and false information run rampant. This is probably because somebody figured out that negativity and really polarized opinions, spike engagement that gets people clicking, it gets people talking. Well, engagement equals ad dollars, so you’re going to see a lot of the things that spike engagement. Also, it’s way easier to say awful things from the comfort of your own home and the other side of the screen, so that pretty much explains that. Sounds pretty grim, right?  

Wrong. I actually love Instagram. It is my favorite social media platform. I mean I don’t love it like I love my husband, but I think it’s kind of great. Let me explain. Instagram and YouTube are both free and they’re a perfect place for me to put my work and get almost immediate feedback. I do it all the time. I mean not all the time, certainly not as much as I used to, but still pretty often. People argue that social media is making us reclusive and that because of it, people don’t know how to like interface with each other IRL, which is internet talk for in real life, but no matter how you slice it, social media is connective. I have met some of my heroes in person shaken their hands, actually collaborated with them because of Instagram, because that’s where we made our first contact.  I also have a direct link to an audience. Well, I guess technically it’s not direct if it has to go through Instagram. In other words, if Instagram disappeared tomorrow, I would lose contact with a lot of people, which is really unfortunate. I might be putting an ask out there for some phone numbers and email addresses, surely, just be able to look out for that. Um, anyways, I have a link to people all over the world, right? I’m in the United States, I’m in California, I’m in Los Angeles. I’m talking to people in Paris, France, in, in Italy, in China, in India, in Australia. I mean, it’s actually wild to me that I can reach someone on the other side of the planet almost instantly. I’m impressed. I’m onboard to say the very least. So I call this my middle child syndrome. And by the way, I have a really bad case of it.  

I can see both sides of almost any issue. In next week’s episode a very special guest and I are going go deep on some of the issues and perceived challenges of being a creative type living in a social media era. But this week I’m going to talk about how I treat my social media. I really hope you dig this approach and um, that some of these strategies are helpful in making your relationship with your social media a happy and healthy one. Now I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that are going to tell you how to post and when to post and what to post. And I’m just going to let you know right now, I’m not going to do all that. So if that is what you’re hoping for it, you can go ahead and stop listening right now. But otherwise get a pen and paper ready or at very least your imagination cause I’m going to ask you to get involved in this one.  

All right. We’re talking social media very broadly, but my favorite platform is Instagram as I mentioned. And that’s where I have the most experience. It’s also very visual, heavy and very text light. And that’s why I think it speaks to most dancers. So it’s where my point of view is going to come from for now. Here we go. I like to think of my social media presence as a virtual Superstore. It is an establishment or several where people go to find all things me, my moves, my face, and occasionally my breakfast foods. I think of each platform like YouTube or Insta, Twitter as actual brick and mortar chain stores. And I imagine that I am a business, which is easy because I am a business. Um, and as such I am responsible for things like, um, deciding where I put my branches or my store locations, deciding what I put in my windows, deciding what I keep inside and what I keep in backstock and how I price things. And beyond that, what kind of experience people can expect when they come in. Okay. I teach this concept occasionally and I always start by asking what is your favorite place to go shopping, a little bit consumerist, but go with me here. Whether it’s food or clothing or school supplies or tools or anything. Just what is your favorite place to shop? I’ll get the answer and then I ask for three reasons why and after I have those I ask. Okay, so what is it like to shop there? What is the experience that you have? I’ll run through my own answers as an example. All right. My answer, embarrassingly enough, as a 33 year old woman is Urban Outfitters. I am so sorry about that. There are probably way more socially conscious, sustainable, locally sourced, organic free range, Raw, gluten free vegan places to shop. And I know urban probably has like several strikes against it that I don’t even know about and I worked there for several years so I know about it, but I still like the feeling of shopping there.  And uh, here’s the why. 

Number one, it’s bright as in lumens and as in colors. All of the colors of the rainbow. And I love color. Number two, it’s eclectic. There are many different styles and styles of styles in that place. You’ve got your black leather with studs and holey t-shirts, you’ve got your lace with ruffles and sophisticated blazer things and you’ve got sneakers, and stilettos and literally everything in between. And number three, they seem to have really mastered this seriously silly thing. Everytime I go in there, I see something that makes me laugh, whether it’s a graphic tee or a silly book or some novelty. It just always seems to get a chuckle. But the business is undoubtedly refined. So that I think speaks to my values. Right? I love bright, I love many different styles. I love being seriously silly and somehow refined. That’s kind of me. So in a way I think that asking yourself, what’s your favorite store to shop at can actually teach you a lot about your values. 

Okay, so the followup question is what is it like to shop there? Well, again, eclectic, but overall very, very casual and that’s speaks to my values as well. I like to be personable and I feel like the staff at urban is pretty personable in their own way. Sometimes it’s like the way of your best friend who’s going to really honestly tell you how those pants look on you. And sometimes it’s in the way of the kid who’s going gonna blow spit wads at the back of your head during class and it’s going to be inconvenienced by everything that you ask them. I kind of am not mad at either of those. I love the full range. Okay, so in addition to those things, it’s light, it’s fun and it’s fast. Again, that speaks to my values. Here’s another example. 

This time we’ll take the other side of the spectrum. Let’s say that Tom Ford in Beverly Hills is our absolute favorite place to shop. All right? Why? Okay. Number one, it is modern, minimal, extremely clean and uncluttered. Your eye knows exactly where to go and it goes to absolutely pristine product. Number two, it is luxury from the plush carpet to the garments themselves. And number three, it is indisputable quality made from the absolute finest and tailored to your body. Boom, Tom Ford. Okay. What is it like to shop in there? Well, there’s a doorman first of all, so there’s that, pretty exclusive. You’ve got a book by appointment and it’s expensive. That in and of itself is kind of exclusive.  

But once you’re in the door, you are catered to and you feel like the million bucks that you’re about to drop, which happens quite fast, I heard from a friend, let’s, let’s go even further left. Let’s say for the sake of an example that your favorite place to shop is home Depot, which is ironic because I hate shopping at Home Depot. Literally the worst I can almost guarantee that they will not have what I’m looking for. They will have every item surrounding the items that I’m looking for and then there will be an empty hole where the medium sized boxes used to live or the very specific type of washers that I need for my shower head. It’s like almost a joke. How often they do not have the thing I need and how frustrated I get by that. But anyway, for the sake of these examples, let’s pretend that your favorite place to shop is Home Depot.  Why do you like it? Other than the fact that they have what you want all the time. Um, so let’s say you love it because number one, it’s no frills, nothing extra, nothing ridiculously distracting. No bright colors or flashing neon signs with sales and crazy things like that. What you see is what you get or what you don’t get for that matter. I digress. Number two, it’s expansive. They have literally everything including the kitchen sink except the one thing that you’re looking for. Sorry, I’ll stop making stabs at Home Depot now. Okay. And I’m, let’s say number three, if I really had to dig, sorry, I’m done. I’m done. Um, number three, they really are about DIY and I have had a handful of really, really helpful people there that have told me the things I need to know or taught me the things I need to know in order to get the job done and do it myself.  I really do value that. That is super cool. So what is it like to shop in home Depot? Um, sprawling, um, informative. You see things and you learn about things that you didn’t even know existed and uh, you’ll be back because undoubtedly after you leave that place, you will find out that you need something else from that place. And that’s kind of a brilliant thing I suppose. So. Okay. How does this all relate to social media? Again, uh, let’s, let’s take a look back at my urban Outfitters example and I’ll explain

When I’m looking at a video or photo and deciding whether or not to post it, I ask myself, is this one of the three things that I decided I love most about the place I like shopping most in my Urban Outfitters example? Is it bright? Is it eclectic and is it equal parts serious and silly?  If I can’t answer yes to one of those questions, then I won’t share the video or photo at all. Generally, my rule for myself is that it has to meet at least two of those three criteria. And then occasionally it meets all three and I find myself legit excited to share this thing. That’s my way of deciding what gets put in my store. My guiding principle is that I want my store to represent me and my values and what I have to offer. I want it to feel a little bit like me. Bright, eclectic and seriously silly. Now you and your values will likely be different than mine. Maybe you value sleek, clean, minimal, luxury. Maybe you value specificity. A store that specializes in one thing and doing that one thing really, really, really right. Maybe your entire feed is black and white. Maybe your entire feed is landscape. Maybe your entire feed is nail art and that’s kind of the beauty of it is it gets to be whatever you make it.  I had a student once as I was teaching this concept that really, really valued oranges. Like she told me her favorite place to shop was a grocery store because they have oranges and she loves them and I asked her to think of something else she liked about the grocery store and she couldn’t. Now part of me thinks she was being difficult just for the game of it, but I went with it. Cause this is kind of brilliant. Imagine you’ve got a 13 year old social media feed that looks like any other 13 year old social media feed except in this one there is an orange hidden somewhere but visible in every single post. I would follow that account. Absolutely. And there would be an element of creativity involved. I think it’s fabulous. I think it’s hysterical. I think it’s an opportunity to get really creative and also to start looking at yourself and taking responsibility for yourself as a professional entity, as a business, as a place that people go to find you. That said, it’s really important to me that my social media presence represents the real me and my real values and my real work. The storefront analogy is simply helpful in narrowing down the content and things that I share to the world because it is important to remember whether you delete it or not. It exists out there forever.  Ask me how I know. Don’t ask, don’t ask. So here’s what I really like about this analogy, this storefront analogy is that I, the store owner, decide the value of the things that I put on the shelves, not somebody else’s, like not somebody else’s follow just me. 

So I would love for you to take a moment, give a little brainstorm, write down to your favorite places to shop or spend time. Doesn’t even need to be a store. Technically, it could be a park, it could be Disneyland, but right, your favorite place that you like to spend time and occasionally money and get three reasons why. Then do a tiny little brain download on the experience that you have in that place and then use that as a guiding principle every time you decide what you want to share and sell to the world. Alright? This is simply my approach.  I’m not saying it’s the best, but I’m saying it’s something.  I would love, love, love to hear some of your social media approaches. How do you decide what to post? Do you care about when? Let’s talk about this. Leave some comments on the Instagram page or at theDanawilson.com/podcast under the comments for this episode, make sure you listen in next week as I talk to my super special guests about all sorts of social media mystery. This is, this is really the tip of the iceberg, or I guess this is like the technique of the iceberg. Next week we’re going to get into some of the muddy waters, so don’t miss that. Sounds like fun, huh? All right. Everybody have a good rest of your day. Night, week, month, and uh, you know the deal. Keep it funky. Oh man. So good. Oh, speaking of, keep it funky we got Merch coming. You didn’t hear from me. 

PODCAST: Words That Move Me

  • Ep. 68 FOMAD (Fear of Making a Decision)
  • Ep. #67 FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
  • Ep. #66 Money March Pt. 4 Q&A with Dancer and CPA Julia Grubbs
  • Ep. #65 Money March Pt. 3 MINDSET: MATH vs DRAMA.
  • Ep. #64 Money March Pt. 2 CHOREOGRAPHERS

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