Dear Famous Comedians,
The Internet is a great place to interact with fans, share your work, and to promote your performances. Twitter and Facebook are both powerful tools for promotion, but it is important to know when to use each. For this lesson, I will simply discuss status updates. They're short, sweet, and to the point.
As Dana Boyd points out on her blog, a major difference between Twitter and Facebook is audience. Facebook is a two-way street primarily, relying on a relationship between users. Twitter, on the other hand, allows you to speak out to all of your followers, but does not require you to listen back. For this reason, Twitter is probably the best choice for promotion. If you have a gig coming up, tell people. Some comedians are great at this. Mike Birbiglia and Bo Burnham both tweet about each of their shows, while comedians like Dave Attel post once every few months, and therefore has less of a Twitter presence. If comedians have fan pages, they should promote their events there too.
new york show sold out except for single seats. but they're very good single seats. could be a great singles event? - Mike Birbiglia
When it comes to random thoughts, either platform will do, though again, it is important to remember audience. I follow a lot of comedians on Twitter, just for their funny tweets. Michael Ian Black recently tweeted
"Worst decision I ever made: Getting that cosmetic C section scar."
Comedians don't often have the same sort of coverage that musicians do, so you won't see music videos or hear their songs a lot. Instead, tweets can be a great way of keeping large amounts of fans entertained between events, which are pretty infrequent. If I didn't follow Michael Ian Black, I probably would not have any new material from him until the next season of his show, but instead, I get stuff a few times a day. Facebook can also be good for these to keep closer friends entertained, or for fan pages.
It is also important to see that these comedians are real people. It is always fun to see comedians I follow tweet back and forth with other comedians or with fans. Suddenly these comedians are not these unreal celebrities, but actual people, sitting at a computer or on their phone, living real lives. Interacting with friends and fans is always helpful for making people care about you, and in general, they make people seem really nice. This is where both Facebook and Twitter have strong purposes. Either one allows for personal conversations, but on twitter, it seems to allow for more public conversations, which shows off how friendly a comedian can be.
RT @RealJeffreyRoss: Break a firm tan leg. RT @thomaslennon: Have landed at Largo for @sarahksilverman and friends! - Thomas Lennon
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