Josh Spector

6 Questions To Consider Before Doing Anything Online

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When I work with comedians, I always ask them the same question to start things off: “Why do you want to be online?”

The surprising thing is, most of them don’t really have an answer.

Too many comedians go online because they think they have to for their career. Here’s a newsflash – you don’t have to be online. In fact, if you’re not really committed to putting in the effort it takes to succeed online, then I would say you’re better off not being online at all.

Being online with a static website or MySpace page is meaningless. These tools don’t matter unless you use them, and in my opinion, using them means updating them regularly, frequently, and with content that people are actually going to care about. Email blasts and Facebook invites to your next show are fine, but they don’t count as content.

In order to succeed online, I strongly believe you have to figure out why you want to be online in the first place and – equally important – be honest with yourself about the commitment you’re willing to make to being online.

Toward that end, here’s six questions I recommend you consider as you map out your online strategy:

1. What kind of content are you capable of producing? Written? Video? Audio? Pictures? Something else?

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people never consider it . For example, if you don’t have access to a camera more than once a year, do you really need a YouTube channel?

2. How often will you be able to produce content?

If your schedule only allows you to produce content once a month, then do you really need a Twitter account that you never update? If you don’t have time to update a Facebook page and a website, then why do you have both?

3. What are you really trying to accomplish?

If you’re looking to build your fan base, you may go about that very differently than if you’re looking to showcase your talent for the industry. Are you trying to maintain and build strong relationships with your existing fans, or are you trying to grow a new fanbase? Obviously, you can do all of these things, but it’s important to guide your actions by understanding what your top priority is.

4. Are you willing to work to promote your content?

When it comes to the Internet, producing content is only half the battle. In order to truly succeed, you have to be willing to promote that content as well. But if that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you’re better off contributing your content to an existing website or blog so that they can promote it for you and you can piggyback on their audience, as opposed to having to develop your own.

5. What can you do that’s unique?

In the comedy world, people are always looking to find the next unique voice and it’s the exact same thing online. Give some thought to what your voice is and how you can bring that voice online. Don’t be just another comic ranting about the same old stuff in the same old way. Just like you’d avoid doing hack material in a comedy club, you should avoid hack material online as well.

6. What service can you provide to your audience?

Give people a reason to engage with your content by providing them with a service. The obvious way to do this is by being entertaining, but think about if there’s more you can provide on top of that. Maybe it’s giving them advice? Maybe it’s teaching them something? Maybe it’s finding funny or interesting stuff for them and sharing it with them? It’s fine to just entertain people online, but thinking in terms of providing your readers with a service is a great way to attract an extremely loyal audience.

READ THIS NEXT: 10 Things You Can Do To Get 10 New Fans Today

Get Your “Mr. Belvedere” Themed Standup Album Ready

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There’s a lot of similarities between the music business and the comedy business which is why I’ve always believed that it’s worth keeping an eye on what creative things musicians are doing to promote their work. Most of those things can be adapted and work in the comedy world as well.

One promotion that caught my eye recently was for an album recorded by indie rapper Dr. Tweenus Gonzo, who decided to record an album featuring 24 songs inspired by the first 24 episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Clever, right?

His Fresh Prince Project may seem a little ridiculous, but it plays right into the web’s love of nostalgic pop culture and sure enough, it captured a lot of attention across the web (for example, check out the writeups he got on the popular blogs Urlesque and Geekosystem).

Also worth noting is the album’s monetization strategy. The entire album is available as a free download, but Tweenus is also offering to let people buy the album as a CD with his own custom episode-inspired album cover art for $15. Here’s his friendly explanation of the album’s economics:

This is a song for every episode of the first season of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I recorded this over the last year and a half.

The cd comes in a jewel case with the tracklist on the back and the painting of your choice. The cd itself will just have “Dr. Tweenus Gonzo” and “The Fresh Prince Project” and a silly, terrible drawing in sharpie on it. I have uploaded pictures of this, so this paragraph should be entirely unnecessary.

It is free to download if you want, but if you do pay for it, most of the money goes straight to me. Bandcamp gets a small percent, and there’s a small paypal fee. I get the rest, and it is very much appreciated. I will spend it wisely on superfluous things.

Simple, friendly, and smart.

It’s smart because he’s reaping the main benefits of this kind of promotion by getting the most possible people to discover and hopefully spread his music by providing it as a free download. It’s probably more important at this stage for him to get more exposure than it is to sell a few extra albums.

But it’s also smart because he’s come up with a way for people to pay him money if they like his stuff enough to want to encourage him to make more by giving them something else they can buy to support him.

Could something be similar be done in the comedy world? I think it could, but what do you think?

10 Reasons To Read Connected Comedy

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Welcome to Connected Comedy! Since this is my first post on the site, I thought it might be a good idea to outline some of the reasons I think this site will be worth your time. I can’t promise the site will ultimately deliver any of these things of course, but at least this should give you an idea of the value I hope you’re able to get from it. Here’s 10 Reasons To Read Connected Comedy:

10. You make funny stuff and you’d like more people to see it.

I’ve talked to a lot of funny people over the past few years, and most of them were busy creating funny stuff that wasn’t being seen by nearly as many people as it deserved. If nothing else, I can guarantee that this site will provide you with simple and effective tips to help you get your creations seen by a lot more people than are currently seeing them – whether you’re starting out with 1 fan or 1 million.

9. You’d like to make a little money from all that funny stuff you make.

No matter how much of an “artist” you may be, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind making a couple extra dollars from the funny stuff you work so hard to create. I’ll show you some creative ways to do just that – without just slapping obnoxious (and useless) ads on every little thing you do.

8. You have no idea why you need to use social media.

You’re already using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and whatever other social media tools somebody told you that you “had to be on,” so you might as well get some tips on how to actually get something out of them, don’t you think?

7. You’re tired of waiting around to be “discovered” by Hollywood.

Once upon a time (way back in the 1990s) it was a lot more clear how you developed a career in comedy. Somebody in Hollywood would come snatch you off the Improv stage and hand you your own sitcom development deal. But those days are long gone, and now the best way to be discovered is to discover your own audience. Connected Comedy can help you learn how to do that.

6. You’re looking for a better way to promote your products or brand.

Connected Comedy isn’t just for comedians. It’s also for marketers and brands that are interested in connecting with their customers through funny content. If you’re an agency, brand, marketing, or studio executive, the information I’ll share on this site will be just as applicable to your goals as it will be to the people creating the content. Unless you’re one of the “bad marketers” who don’t really care about what they create and just want to ram terrible advertisements down people’s throats. If that’s the case, then this site isn’t for you.

5. I know a lot of things.

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve learned a thing or two about how to produce, promote and profit from funny content online. I’ve been working in the space for an eternity in Internet years (read: since 1998), and I’ve done everything from running (and eventually selling) my own comedy blog, to producing comedy web series and nationally touring standup shows, to working in marketing for major film studios and television networks, to running a leading comedy website. And now, I’m sharing all that I’ve learned with you through this site.

4. I know a lot of other people who know a lot more things.

My voice will not be the only one on this site. I’m looking forward to bringing in the expertise of other leaders in the comedy business to contribute to this site and provide you with their collective advice. You can look forward to hearing from comedy club owners, Internet marketing experts, TV talk show bookers, YouTube editors, and much more.

3. You want to become part of a community.

There’s no requirement to participate in this site in any way other than as a passing spectator, but it’s my hope that the site’s readers will feel that they’re a partner in whatever this site becomes. I encourage you to leave comments, ask questions, share your own tips, and contribute in any way you’d like. Ultimately, the more this site becomes a community the better it will be.

2. There’s no place else to learn this stuff.

A long time ago I read that the best reason to start a website was because you came across a topic that you’d like to read about but wasn’t being covered already. Well, despite the tons of marketing, business, and comedy sites on the web already, I’ve never seen one that covered the way those three things intersect. This will be the kind of site I know that I would love to read, and my hope is that other people will too.

1. It’s going to be fun.

At the end of the day, this site is still about comedy so it should be fun. This might be a serious site, but it’s a serious site about funny stuff which means I’m liable to work a video of a bulldog watching Family Guy into a serious article when you least expect it.