Social Networking Works for You - Yes, YOU

Broad Julia Camara wrote to share some thoughts on how the internet and social networking are changing how we do business. A lot of our participants are internet shy, can list all the reasons why the connections made there are not 'real' and why they do not believe it will help them. Julia, clearly, is not one of those.

I just had a fun dinner with a friend who’s an actress and as we talked about the amount of progress we were making with our careers, she mentioned how she’s constantly meeting producers and agents at her day job, and how they started saying they’re going to look her up online and see what kind of clips of projects they could find.

It occurred to me how even casting is changing these days. When I went to film school casting our projects was done by placing an ad in backstage west, getting a million head shots, sorting through them, and then calling the people you thought had the right look.

Nowadays you can put an ad on craigslist, or myspace, or facebook and not spend a dime in ad costs. Actors can submit electronically, which takes a whole five seconds; you don’t have to wait for the submissions to be delivered via snail mail. (Sometimes I’m surprised the US Post Office is still in business.)

When I first started submitting screenplays to whoever would accept them, competitions, production companies, agents and managers, you had to mail them. There was no other option. Email was around, I’m not that old, but it just wasn’t heard of to email a script. I know writers who refuse to send anything but a hard copy, but I’m not one of them. Having read hundreds of scripts on my computer screen, I’m glad to save space in my tiny overpriced condo, and some trees.

So, this little trip down nostalgia lane made me think about how important for all of us artists it is to have an online profile that is accurate and portrays us in the best possible light. Myspace and facebook aren’t just for kids or people looking to hook up, we should never post drunk photos of ourselves or anything we wouldn’t want our work community to see. I can’t tell you how many potential collaborators I’ve met through social networking.

I realize some of this might be common knowledge since these days employers are looking at job applicants myspace profiles so you should always have your best side out there. You never know who’s looking.

Check out Julia's website here.