The Importance of Your Online Presence!

What do you need to have a successful online presence – one that works for you – wherever you are?

A website (your name.com)  – which is absolutely necessary, but only the starting point.  You must have online media.

Because of many factors – a shaky economy, low budget productions and time crunches, many producers and  casting directors are no longer holding in-person auditions for first reads. Instead they pre-screen actors by going online without you even knowing it – often in this order:

A breakdown service utilized by talent agents and casting

Google—which should lead to your website

YouTube or Vimeo

Every actor absolutely must have digital media of their acting work available online as audition opportunities can arise for roles they haven’t submitted for!

How is this possible?  On occasion, audition slots remain open after a casting director has chosen all the actors they personally know who would be right for the role – those empty slots have to filled somehow – and this is where the online detective work comes in.

The casting director will go through headshots of actors they have received but don’t know and then go looking online to look at their digital media to see if it matches what they were looking for.

What if you don’t have easily accessible online media?  You are automatically out of consideration.    Having a profile on a breakdown site (actors access, la casting, etc)  a headshot and resume – and a website – are not enough!  You must have a reel, or at least some footage of you acting on-screen, that can be easily located through a google search of your name.

 

Having this media presence works for you not only in getting a first audition but can be helpful in the callback process as well as  the audition team goes online to find other footage to compare against the in-person audition.

But be certain that the media is high quality!  In my upcoming blog, I will give you guidelines for putting together an excellent online-reel.

To summarize:

Make sure you have a current profile with one of the breakdown services (I recommend Actors Access) which includes headshot, resume and media or go with IMDb pro

Have a website which is your name (even if you have to use your middle name or initial because that domain is taken)  Your website should of course include headshot, resume and media (reel)

Post your reel to You Tube

Then let your online presence get to work for you!