There is more to Facebook than meets the eye. When I first started using Facebook I was afraid that it would take up to much time to maintain and not be worth the extra time. Boy was I wrong! I think Facebook is one of the best tools to build a network and stay in touch with people and in some cases maybe even reach out to people you don’t know. My good friend Ed Reggi told me he had a goal of a certain number of Facebook friends everyday. I laughed because I thought it was so ridiculous. What good could come of having that many friends on Facebook? People you didn’t even know.
Well, it was only a couple of weeks later I started to set goals for myself. Granted I know most of the people but I do add people I don’t know, people that have similar interests. Why? Well Reggi, who is now close to 4,000 friends, has access to all those people. That is more than a lot of local theatres mailing lists.
When you have a large network like that you can do lots of things fast. Promote a show. Raise money. And the more active you are the better to keep your “audiences” attention. I use a couple of different methods of keeping my network. The first one I used was Facebook. Then I started to use Twitter. And now I use this blog to maybe reach more people. What are ways you could build your network and what would you use it for?
Are we friends on Facebook yet?
We are in a collaborative business. We work with lots of various people on one project. There are actors, directors, designers, stage managers, marketers, and many other people.
By surrounding yourself with the best you share knowledge and become even smarter. At a previous job I got the opportunity to hire someone that could, in part, assist me with budgeting. It was an obvious choice for me. I had an intern two years earlier who was a wiz with budgets and excel. By having her in my office things got done faster and there was more time to do other projects that I had been putting off.
Another example is Pride and Prejudice, a show I am helping produce. The lead producer wanted to know more about social media and how it could help spread the word and raise money for her show. Right away I knew two people that she should talk to. In a couple of emails a conference call was set and she got to listen to valuable information about what was going on in social media and how it could be used to help her. One of those people has a small empire of followers on Twitter and Facebook. The other has yet to make a website to reference, but he is a very smart grad student that is looking at how producers can fund a show with a lot of small investors as appose to a few large investors.
A friend once told me I was the most important person in his network. That was one of the best complements I could have gotten. We are good friends and I and I know we would be friends no matter what, but we both love to get together and brainstorm. Some exciting ideas come from those sessions that we both use.
So surround yourself with the smartest people and bring as many ideas to the table as you can get. Who knows what may come?
There is more to Facebook than meets the eye. When I first started using Facebook I was afraid that it would take up to much time to maintain and not be worth the extra time. Boy was I wrong! I think Facebook is one of the best tools to build a network and stay in touch with people and in some cases maybe even reach out to people you don’t know. My good friend Ed Reggi told me he had a goal of a certain number of Facebook friends everyday. I laughed because I thought it was so ridiculous. What good could come of having that many friends on Facebook? People you didn’t even know.
