SLAVE TO SOCIALS

It's amazing how much time and energy social media takes for creatives these days. Instead of shooting the breeze backstage at shows and making jokes, comedians are trying to master the algorithm to maximize their reach and sell tickets to their shows. "I post at 9AM for maximum reach." or "Use hashtags like ..." No matter how much experience you have or how many laughs you can get, without ticket sales, we are worth little to most comedy clubs.

For better or worse, comedy bookers now look at your social media to see how many followers you have before even watching a clip you may send. Its a business and as a former music promoter I get it. I would receive some amazing artists submitting their music to get on a music showcase I booked at the various venues in Chicago as part of Shoeshine Boy Productions. If they were good but did not have many facebook followers (this was before Instagram), we had to try them out as a smaller room. But at least we would give them a shot. Ironically, we also sometimes gave bad acts stage time because we knew they would fill a room. Its a business after all and the days of great music or comedy reaching the masses are greatly affected by how much music and comedy there is out there. Its interesting to think about if George Carlin or the Beatles would make it today.

I have hired experts to help me figure out why, all of a sudden, certain sites are burying my content, sometimes the same content that a year ago would be seen by half a million people. #standup #socialmedia #laughs #comedy