Josh Spector

The Best Audience For An Unknown Comedian To Connect With

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I’ve been doing a series of Q&A posts over in the Connected Comedians Facebook group recently where I offer advice to anybody that’s got questions about the marketing or business side of comedy. There’s lots of great stuff in those conversations, but I wanted to share one in particular that I think many of you will find relevant.

Atlanta comedian Jamie Ward asked an interesting question about how to figure out what type of audience had the most potential for him to connect with as a relatively unknown comic.

Here was his specific question followed by my thoughts:

“I’m going to break comedy audiences down in to 3 primary groups:

Comedy nerds: Who know current comedians follow favorites and such.

General comedy audiences: Who somewhat regularly attend clubs but really only remember big names or those from TV or movies.

Casual entertainment audience: Who might attend a club once because there is a deal or they one tickets, they’re open to have a good time, but didn’t necessarily seek out comedy.

So given these three (and if there are things I haven’t thought of I’d be interested) which type of audience is the most potential for an unknown club comic to connect with? I’m not famous, not particularly unique but I do well.

And is there any advice how best to go about maximizing my connection with audiences based on their level of interest in comedy?”

It’s a good question, but I’d probably look at differently.

An audience member’s interest/connection to comedy isn’t as important as their interest/connection to the ideas/topics you discuss in your act. For example, a huge comedy fan who doesn’t have kids is less likely to connect with a comedian whose act revolves around parenting than a casual comedy fan who does have kids.

A person’s connection to comedy is a broad concept, whereas the real opportunities lie in the niches and more narrow topics. You want to figure out ways to identify who in the crowd relates to to subject matter of your comedy and/or find ways to get yourself in front of crowds that have a lot of those people in them.

Another thing I’d say is that if you approach it as how do you get people to be interested in YOU as opposed to just interested in your comedy, that can also help you build a stronger connection to people.

It’s one thing to be funny, it’s another to be interesting.

Funny is the minimum, but the way to really connect with people on a more long-term level is for them to become interested in you. There’s no one way to do that, but if you think about it, most comedians that build large, passionate, fanbases have done so with more than just their ability to make people laugh.

There was a lot of interesting stuff about George Carlin beyond just his jokes – people wanted to hear his take and opinion on things. He made them curious to what he had to say – even if it wasn’t always funny.

Chris Rock is like that as well. He’s funny, and he has a great act, but if he’s being interviewed somewhere, people probably are interested to hear what he has to say because they’re interested in him and his view of the world, not just his comedy.

I’ve said this before, but I think it always helps to think about things from the flipside of your perspective as a comedy creator – take a moment to think about what you respond to as a consumer of comedy.

You see a ton of comedians perform I’m sure – what is it about the ones that resonate with you, the ones that make you want to have a connection with them beyond the first time you see them perform? What is it about the ones that make you want to tell other people about them? What do they do that makes them stand out?

I’m sure you see tons of funny comics that you don’t really feel a need to follow or engage with beyond the moment you see them. But the ones that intrigue you – think about what they have that the others don’t and think about how you can incorporate your version of that into what you do.

One more note about your comment “I’m not particularly unique.” I barely know you and I completely disagree.

First of all, everybody is unique – it’s just that most people don’t understand what’s unique about them or they’re afraid to show it. Most people are wired to try to fit in, which is essentially another way of saying that human nature is designed to hide what’s unique about you.

The trick for a comedian is to do the opposite and share/focus on what’s different about you, not what makes you fit in. I guarantee that every show you do, there’s nobody else on that stage that has similar life experiences to you. You’re completely unique, but if you don’t perceive yourself in that way, how can you expect an audience to?

It’s got to start with you…

READ THIS NEXT: 4 Ways To Get Comedy Club Audiences To Remember Your Name

How To Decide Where To Post Your Comedy Videos

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You’ve finished producing your latest comedy masterpiece, but now what?

There’s a lot of options out there for uploading your video, but it can be confusing trying to figure out which platforms to use, whether you should upload it to multiple places, and how to give yourself the best shot of capitalizing on all the work you put into it.

To help point you in the right direction, I’ve put together a breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of several video platforms to help you figure out where to post your latest creations.

The First Thing You Need To Figure Out…

Before I get into the specifics of each platform, I want to stress that there is ultimately no right or wrong place to post your videos. Each platform has different things to offer and that’s why the first thing you’re going to want to do is figure out exactly what your goal is for the videos you create.

Are you trying to grow a fanbase and build a community around a series of videos you plan to produce? Are you trying to get exposure for yourself with a certain audience? Is it a video that’s designed to be shared? Is it topical or does it more evergreen? Are you trying to reach a general audience or is it more geared toward industry? Are you trying to get somebody to sponsor future videos? Are you hoping to monetize your video?

It’s also worth thinking about what action you want people to take once they see your video, assuming they like it. Is it more important to you that they share it or subscribe to your channel? Or join your email list? Hire you as a writer? Or an actor? Or to do standup?

There will obviously be a lot of overlap and it’s likely that your goals will include several of these things, but it’s worth considering what single goal is most important to you when it comes to the videos you post and use that to guide the decision you make about where to post the video.

Once you have a sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with the videos you create it will be much easier for you to figure out the right platforms to use for it. To help you do that, here’s an overview of the pros and cons of different platforms…

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Strengths:

YouTube is by far the biggest video platform in the world and it’s also the second largest search engine of any kind, only behind Google (which owns YouTube and therefore also prominently features YouTube videos in its search results).

This means that without a doubt YouTube allows you to reach the largest possible audience. To be honest, I think it would be pretty foolish not to have your videos on YouTube even if you decide to use other platforms as well. Opting not to have your videos on YouTube is the equivalent of telling Google to pretend that you don’t exist – and that’s obviously not a good idea.

YouTube’s enormous audience also means that you have the opportunity to get discovered on YouTube by new people through search results relating to the things you are doing in your videos. In order to maximize this opportunity you’ll want to pay close attention to titles, descriptions, and tags on your videos – that’s a much bigger conversation, but check out the YouTube creators playbook for a crash course in how to get the most out of YouTube.

In addition to YouTube’s reach, another major advantage of the platform is the sense of community that can develop around channels on the site. YouTube’s subscription tools, comments, and interactivity really lends itself to building (and growing) a fan community on the site.

That’s not easy to do, but it can happen and is crucial to success on the platform. There’s a reason just about every “YouTube star” built their fanbase on the back of serious community interaction – it’s a big part of success on the platform.

It’s also easier to monetize your work on YouTube than any other platform. Ultimately, you will need to generate views to make money, but you can easily do so thanks to YouTube’s ad partner program without ever having to go chase down your own sponsors.

Weaknesses:

In some ways YouTube’s biggest strength can also be its biggest weakness. With so many videos being uploaded to the site constantly, it can be difficult to get attention and easy for your stuff to get lost in the shuffle. There’s a lot of competition for eyeballs on the site and you’ve really got to work to stand out.

You also have to be willing to post content regularly and be patient – it takes time to build a following and it’s unlikely that you’re ever going to get featured by YouTube’s editors until after you’ve gained some traction. That means that often times what you’re doing to promote your YouTube video outside of YouTube can be just as important to driving views as what you’re doing on the site.

Funny_or_Die_logo

Strengths:

Funny or Die is probably the king of the comedy sites at the moment and it’s also deeply connected to the comedy industry. The site may live on the Internet, but it’s become a talent factory for TV shows and films.

Arguably the quickest path from Internet comedy to offline comedy is to get on the radar of the Funny or Die team.

This means that exposure on Funny or Die can create opportunities for you without needing a million views of your video first. The site regularly hires comedy writers and actors for its productions – including a ton on a freelance basis – and is constantly trolling for new talent. So having your videos on their site can increase your chances of getting discovered by them. By contrast, it’s unlikely YouTube is ever going to hire you for anything.

Another strength of Funny or Die is that you know every view you get from the site is coming from somebody who is interested in comedy as opposed to YouTube where the majority of people who may come across your video are probably not even looking for comedy – remember, not all views are created equal.

The niche nature of Funny or Die’s audience should (theoretically) increase your chances of converting each viewer into a fan.

Weaknesses:

The huge majority of Funny or Die’s traffic comes from its celebrity videos and whatever they feature on their home page or share on social media. Unlike YouTube, where people tend to get lost surfing around the site, Funny or Die’s audience is much smaller and doesn’t function in that way.

That means that uploading your videos to the site isn’t really about reaching the public as much as it’s about catching the eyes of the site’s editors and producers. In some ways, it’s like uploading an audition tape more so than uploading a video for an audience.

This is a long way of saying that you’re probably not going to get much traction from what you post there, unless somebody who works at Funny or Die sees it and loves it.

Facebook-Vector-Icon

Strengths:

No matter how frustrated people may get with Facebook, they certainly don’t stop using it. Facebook has tons of users and its social nature makes it incredibly easy for good videos to spread quickly.

It’s also an easier place for people to connect and follow you if they like your video – as great as YouTube’s subscription functionality is, it’s still only a relatively small group of users who actually subscribe to channels. On Facebook, everybody that sees your video is used to the concept of “Liking” pages and connecting with people.

But perhaps the biggest strength of Facebook as a video platform is that it’s the best way to reach people on Facebook. If you share a YouTube video on Facebook, it will not get pushed into many people’s feeds because Facebook doesn’t really want you using the YouTube player – they’d rather have you use their video player. As a result, they “favor” videos uploaded into their own player and show them in more people’s news feeds.

Based on what I’ve seen, the exact same video uploaded into the Facebook player will reach at least five times as many people as that same videos shared in a YouTube player on Facebook. That’s a huge difference in exposure.

And not only do Facebook videos appear in more people’s feeds, but they appear as auto-play videos which really captures people’s attention in their feeds. If you’re a Facebook user, I’m sure you’ve noticed how many more videos are appearing in your feed and I’m sure most of them catch your eye because of the auto-play. That’s something you’ll want to take advantage of and you can only do that if you upload your video to the Facebook player.

Weaknesses:

The Facebook video platform is amazing for Facebook and it’s really powerful, but…it doesn’t really have any reach outside of Facebook. That means that choosing to only use the Facebook video player is the equivalent of ignoring every other platform, website, and social network, which isn’t a great idea.

I’m a big proponent of using the Facebook player for sharing on Facebook, but it really shouldn’t be the only player you use.

vine-logoStrengths:

Vine stars are the new YouTube stars. Ok, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration, but there actually are some similarities.

Vine has blossomed into its own little universe and has created a bunch of its own stars who are now starting to make big bucks as brands chase their huge followings. Also, comedy plays really well on the platform and since it’s basically built on a social platform (and owned by Twitter) it can be relatively easy for your creations to spread and to grow your following.

It’s also still pretty early in the Vine game – at least as compared to sites like YouTube and Facebook – so there’s slightly less competition for attention than there may be on some other platforms.

Vine’s 6-second format favors comedians whose material and approach works well in short bursts, and it can be easy to capitalize on hashtags and trending memes that surface on the platform constantly. Plus, let’s be honest – it’s a lot easier to get somebody to give you 6 seconds of their time to watch your new creation than it is to get them to give you 6 minutes.

Weaknesses:

You can only do so much in 6-second increments. Also, even though Vine has a large and growing audience, it’s still much smaller than a lot of other platforms. It’s more of a niche play – a great tool for a particular type of content, but it definitely has its limits.

Instagram-logo-4Strengths:

The strengths of Instagram are very similar to those of Vine, but Instagram gives you a little more time to work with as its video time limit is 15 seconds. But, a big advantage of Instagram is that it’s also baked into the regular Instagram app so you can benefit from the booming popularity of Instagram in general.

Even though Vine videos often surface on other platforms, it still has its own app and functions in its own separate universe. Instagram videos are much more integrated into the Instagram photos app which means a larger audience for your content and the opportunity to capitalize on your photos as well as your videos in the same place.

Also, since Instagram is owned by Facebook there is some nice synergy and cross-promotional opportunities there as well.

Weaknesses:

In addition to the 15-second time limit, Instagram videos won’t show up in-line if people share them on Twitter (because Facebook and Twitter aren’t the best of friends and don’t always play nice).

It’s not a huge deal, but if you’re somebody who focuses on Twitter a lot as a platform, it’s worth knowing that Vine videos will show up in-stream more prominently than Instagram videos which will just show up as a link on Twitter.

So…Where Should You Post?

While there is no one-size-fits-all answer and it completely depends on your goals and the type of videos you’re producing, here’s what I would recommend you do with your videos in general.

I think you should upload your videos to YouTube no matter what, so that you have a presence there. Even if most of your videos are short Vines, I’d still compile them and upload them there as compilations (or as standalone short videos) to give you a presence on the site.

Then, if you have a Facebook presence, I’d recommend uploading to the Facebook player when you share your videos there because it will be worth the little extra effort it takes to do so.

Beyond that, I think it depends on your own interests, goals, and the time you have available to spend uploading and sharing videos.

But I’d love to hear how you’re  approaching it, so please let me know in the comments on this post. And if there’s another video platform you’d like me to write an overview for and add to this post, let me know that too. Thanks!

5 Things You Can Learn From Jim Norton

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Jim Norton recently appeared on an episode of The James Altucher Show podcast where he discussed his early days in comedy, how he deals with crowds (and nerves), and what he’s working on to improve his act.

You can listen to the full episode here, or read up on some of the highlights below.

1. Sometimes It Helps To Have No Other Options

At around the 7-minute mark, Norton reflects back on how he got his start in comedy and points out that he had essentially abandoned his education and put himself in a position where he had no choice but to succeed at comedy.

“I purposely left myself no safety net,” he says. “It’s got to be standup or it’s going to be nothing.”

He admits that like all comics, he struggled initially and he wonders whether he would have abandoned comedy if he had any other realistic career options at the time.

“I can’t believe I made myself continue to perform, because you bomb a lot (in the beginning),” he says. “If I had a good education, maybe I wouldn’t have stuck with it.”

He goes on to point out that there wasn’t necessarily anything special about him in the early days – noting that, “there’s a million funny people out there,” but that the only difference with him was that he put in the time and effort to learn how to do comedy the right way.

“I worked at it,” he says.

2. Be Honest, Except About How Nervous You Are

At around the 12-minute mark he talks about how he believes comedians should deal with crowds and how you should present yourself on stage.

“The audience likes to think you’re confident, and they don’t know if you’re not unless you show them,” he says. “Act as if.”

But while Norton believes it’s important to convey a certain confidence on stage (even if you’re not), he also explains that honest helps when it comes to other situations on stage.

“I’ll acknowledge if something doesn’t work,” he says. Ultimately, he suggests that you, “Be honest about your surroundings and project confidence.”

3. Don’t Do The Emotional Work For The Audience

At around the 26-minute mark, Norton is asked what part of his act he’s trying to improve at the moment and he explains that he’s trying to do less of the “emotional work” for his audience. He says he admires Colin Quinn because, “What makes Colin great is that he doesn’t do the audience’s emotional work for them.”

What he means by that is that you can do a joke about being angry, without actually being angry in your delivery of that joke on stage.

“You don’t want anger to block your creativity,” he explains.

He also says he’s trying to display a more complete side of himself and make sure he never loses sight of his mission.

“I want to make a point, but that’s not my job – anybody can make a point,” he says. “My job is to be funny.”

4. You Probably Can’t Do What Louis CK Can Do

At around the 33-minute mark, Norton discusses his various experiences working in television and shares his observations about the success and impact of Louis CK’s FX series. While he admires Louis and thinks the control he’s managed to get over his show is great for comedians, he points out that most people don’t realize that the major reason Louis can have that control is because of his diverse skill set as a filmmaker and editor in addition to being a talented comedian, actor and writer.

“There are things Louis does in that show that nobody else can do because of all his skills,” says Norton. “His skills enable him to do that.” He then points out that most comedians are never going to be able to do what Louis does.

5. Lead With Logic…Just Like Carlin Did

At around the 42-minute mark, Norton circles back to further explain his thoughts about not doing the emotional work for the audience. This time he uses George Carlin’s work as an example and points out that, “People respond better if they’re not being preached to.”

He adds, “George Carlin had anger, but look how silly a lot of his delivery was. He let his words talk for him and let the audience come with him…or not. He led them with logic instead of doing the emotional work for them.”

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7 Things You Should Know About The New York Comedy Scene

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This is a guest post from Connected Comedian Tom Cowell, who has lived in New York City for the past 8 years and performed stand-up comedy there for the past five.

If you’d like to write a guest post with an overview of your local comedy scene for Connected Comedy, please email me.

1. You Can Drink In A Lot Of Open Mics…But Also Drown In Them

There are over 160 open mics in New York City, and that’s just counting the ones listed on Bad Slava. There are dozens more that aren’t advertized – you just learn about them if you live here. Getting up multiple times every night is easy if you’re willing to pay $3-$5 for five minutes of stage time (common in Manhattan). And you can get up multiple times a night for free with just a little planning.

When you first move to (or start doing comedy in) New York, you won’t get booked much. So by all means: go nuts with mics. It’s a point of pride for most New York comics that they went through that “three or four mics a night” phase for a while. You should do it too. In a month or two, you’ll be like part of the furniture. Perceptions of time are skewed here. People will think you’ve lived in New York for longer than you have.

But doing three or four mics a night for years and years? I think that’s a mistake, simply because of all the OTHER opportunities available in NYC that you cannot seize if you’re mic-ing that much. Three open mics translates to 15 minutes of stage time, and about three hours of waiting around/traveling to and from venues.

What else could you have done with those three hours? That’s what the rest of this list is all about.

2. You Can ALWAYS Make $50 For A Blog Post

New York is the media capital of the world. Alongside the giant brands (the Viacoms, Hearsts, and News Corps of the world), there are literally HUNDREDS of media outlets – many purely web-based – that constantly crave content and are willing to pay for it. Here’s how to do it…

Take any website you read regularly. Have an idea for a story/article/post? Study the tone and typical format of posts on the site, write it, and submit it. Say they can use it for free. If you can write decently and in the style of the outlet you’re pitching, eight times out of ten they’ll run it (or at least an edited version of it).

Congratulations! You’re now in their stable of contributors. You have demonstrated your value, and they will WANT you to pitch them ideas for stories all the time. And if you’re funny, you have a huge advantage over other freelance writers.

I’ve personally done this twice: pitching an advice column to women’s website The Frisky, and a weekly comedy events run-down to The Village Voice’s “Sound of the City” blog.

The going rate for content in this town is about $50 per post. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. It’s not much, but you’ll be amazed what writing regularly online will do, in terms of boosting your Twitter followers, and getting your name out there as a person of ideas who can create cool stuff. Plus, you’re getting paid to write. Isn’t that better than waiting tables?

3. Breaking Into The Comedy Clubs Is Hard

There are just a handful of “A” room comedy clubs (clubs that work hard to curate high quality shows AND regularly pay for spots) in New York City itself. There are so many comics here, and relatively few opportunities to make spot pay doing mainstream club comedy (urban and Latino rooms are an exception, but they are not worlds I know).

So you’re probably not going to get passed at a New York club for many, many years. In fact, it’s probably easier to get on TV than to get passed as a regular at a New York comedy club. Don’t take it personally – it’s just how it is. You have to make your own opportunities to get them to notice you.

4. You Can Get A Show Business Day Job

If you live in New York, you’re fortunate to reside in one of the two American cities where they actually make professional entertainment. TV, film, radio, theater, publishing…every tentacle of the entertainment “squid” has a huge presence here.

We all want the industry to pay attention to us anyway, so why not work for it? You can learn a lot about how the business actually works just by sorting mail for a production company. You probably won’t be paid much less than you would for just a regular entry-level day job. Even interning for one day a week could be invaluable. With all the opportunities flowing through a city like New York, working within the industry puts you in the best position to know about them first, and to seize them in the savviest way.

5. You Can Build An Acting Tool Kit For Your Big Break

If you’re a comedian, you want to be on TV. But chances are, the first few times you appear on camera, it won’t be doing stand up. It’s much more likely you’ll wind up getting small parts in sketches, web series, sitcoms, or commercials. Considering that, comic improvisation and dramatic acting are invaluable skills. They could be the difference in turning a small opportunity into a potentially much bigger break.

This is another great thing about the New York scene – it’s home to the best improv and acting teachers in the world. Use them. You should try to study at UCB purely for the cache, but if all their classes are full, learn with the PIT, Magnet, or the Annoyance.

They’re each subtly different, but all teach broadly the same thing. You can also study acting with JoAnna Beckson, who specializes in training comics (her former students include Colin Quinn, Bill Burr, Dave Attell, and countless others).

After you get that pilot deal, you’ll be very glad you can actually act and improvise collaboratively when the lights turn on.

6. New York Loves Weird Stuff – And The Weirder The Better

New York is a very safe place to fail. You can do all manner of crazy stuff here. If it works, everyone thinks you’re wonderful. If it doesn’t, no one cares and it’ll be forgotten about next week. So swing for the fences.

Here are three of the most popular comedy shows in New York right now:

See You In Hell! – Comedians Doug Smith and Matt Wayne dress up in devil outfits and make comics perform their regular material while enduring a “hellish” challenge: like being blindfolded and tied to chair, or wearing a bear suit and downing whiskey shots. They have showcased the show for Comedy Central executives, and as we speak are shopping the idea around Los Angeles.

First Comes Love – Comedian Kyle Ayers asks Craigslist users to submit homemade porn scripts. They do, and he produces live staged readings of them with comedians learning the parts. It’s a huge hit, and now he asks Craigslist for themed material: Mad Men, There Will Be Blood, Game of Thrones, etc.

Jesus the Barbarian – Alt-comics Nick Naney and Gonzalo Cordova wrote this comic play, cast their weirdo friends in all the parts, and bought a few gallons of stage blood to really make a spectacle. It was a giant hit at alt-comedy mecca The Creek and the Cave. They’re now making a follow-up production, and off-Broadway producers are sniffing around them.

7. There Are So Many “Scenes” And Nothing To Stop You From Trying Them All

In a city the size of New York, there are subcultures within subcultures. There is the alternative stand-up scene, unofficially headquartered at Queens venue The Creek and the Cave. There’s the UCB scene, arguably the most important hub for improv and sketch writing/production in town.

There’s the Village stand up scene, centered on hustling for spots at the B-rooms (basically everywhere BUT the Comedy Cellar – the famous club in the opening credits of Louie) in and around MacDougal Street. There’s the scene at The Stand, an impressive newer club in the Gramercy area.

Then there is the storytelling scene centered on The Moth, which is a huge gateway to prestige media outlets and the worlds of public radio and publishing.  And those are just the communities I know about. You are free to dip your toe into all of them. There is no downside to doing so. You’ll quickly find out what you’re best at, where your sensibilities lie, and the kind of people you like to collaborate with.

That’s my list. What did I miss? What do you think are the most important things to know about the New York comedy scene? Please let me know in the comments, by email, or on Twitter. I love meeting Connected Comedians from around the country, and introducing my city to new performers. If you’re ever in New York, don’t be a stranger. Get in touch.

READ THIS NEXT: 7 Things You Should Know About The Houston Comedy Scene

 

5 Things You Can Learn From Canada’s Biggest Comedy Club Owner

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Mark Breslin is the CEO and Founder of Yuk Yuk’s, a chain of 15 comedy clubs across Canada, and a comedy entrepreneur who has spent decades building an empire. On a recent episode of the Industry Standard with Barry Katz podcast, Breslin discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from how he got into comedy in the first place, what he’s learned, and what advice he has for up and coming comics today.

It’s a great conversation and you can listen to the full episode here or read up on some of the highlights below.

1. It Helps To Start Outside Of New York Or LA

At around the 19-minute mark, Breslin shares some interesting thoughts on the role of the town in which a comic first starts their comedy career.

“It’s very advantageous to be outside the center of action to develop,” he says, referencing the upside of honing your craft some place other than comedy business hubs like New York or Los Angeles. “Most comedians in New York and LA got great somewhere else first.”

But Breslin also acknowledges that it’s become much more difficult to develop outside the spotlight because of the Internet. “It’s harder now…there’s no such thing as an outsider artist any more,” he says. “Everybody has 7 fans.”

2. A Good Comedy Venue Is About What’s NOT There

Even though it’s unlikely many of you will be buying or building comedy clubs, Breslin’s thoughts about what he tries to do in his clubs are still relevant to anybody trying to produce a good show – or analyze potential venues for shows. At around the 43-minute mark, he says that when you buy a comedy club, “You’re buying what’s NOT there, not what’s there.”

He goes on to explain that you want a venue that has no distractions and as much focus as possible on the stage. He said his early clubs were similar to simple small theaters with all black walls and nothing to distract people from the stage – he even tried to minimize the noise from people making drinks.

3. Most Headliners Sell As Many Tickets As A Dead Person

At around the 60-minute mark, Breslin shares an interesting perspective on the Canadian comedy scene and the inability of most comedy club “headliners” there to actually draw a crowd. He says there is no “star system” in Canada due to the lack of local TV exposure available to comedians and that as a result only 4 or 5 comics can sell out clubs on their own.

He goes on to explain that’s why his clubs rarely give Canadian comedians percentage door deals (they typically receive just a flat fee regardless of ticket sales) and it’s also why most Canadian comedians wind up leaving the country to seek bigger exposure.

While that scenario may be unique to Canada, his thoughts on the struggles of “headliners” to actually draw their own crowd are more universal. “Nobody really draws,” he says. “The club draws. The concept draws.”

He then explains that he previously ran experiments where he would run his comedy club ads with the names of random dead people (non-comedians) as if they were performing at his club to see if it had any impact on the ticket sales for that weekend’s show. He found that it had no impact on ticket sales and that essentially most headliners were selling as many tickets as a dead non-comedian would.

4. You Have To Take People Some Place New

Early on in the podcast Breslin says that he believes a comedian’s role is to tell the truth, but at around the 89-minute mark he elaborates on what he believes young comics should focus on. “Originality, finding and having your own voice,” he says.

He explains that there’s no shortage of funny comics out there, but when he’s analyzing acts he comes back to the same question: “Who has 10 minutes that takes me to a place I’ve never been before? Do you have anything to say?”

5. Don’t Just Hang Out With Other Comics In Comedy Clubs

I’ve written before about why it’s a good idea to hang out in comedy clubs, but Breslin warns that you shouldn’t spend all your time there. At around the 91-minute mark, he stresses the importance of exposing yourself to other forms of art and a set of influences that have nothing to do with comedy.

“Don’t hang out with other comics,” he says. “Go to the theater, art galleries, music. [An original voice] doesn’t come from watching comics and imitating them.”

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Embrace That Niche (Connected Comedy Podcast Episode 57)

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On the “nichiest” episode of the podcast, Jordan Cooper and Josh Spector talk about narrowing the focus of your career towards a target audience, concentrating on that one thing that’s unique and different about you, how consumers have become fragmented and are gravitating to niches over broad media, how advertisers are putting more effort in reaching engaged audiences rather than large ones, and why ‘artisanal’ e-mail newsletters may be the next big wave of building and cultivating a fan base.

In addition, Jordan discusses the strategic plans of his podcast over the past two years, how it shows the power of placing yourself in the position to get opportunities, the importance of putting as much effort into community engagement as you do creating the content, and why setting goals with timeframes can help determine how you’re defining “success” in your comedic endeavors.

[powerpress]

Links from this episode:

Blenderhead Podcast #39: Never Go Full Cougar
5by5 Broadcasting
1,000 True Fans – Kevin Kelly
Academy Originals – YouTube
Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days
5 Reasons Comedian Newsletters May Become Bigger Than Comedy Podcasts
Media ReDEFined
NextDraft: The Day’s Most Fascinating News
Tab Dump
Just Another Crowd
The Listserve
Tech Douchebags #14: The Overthinker

Participate with the community in our Connected Comedy Facebook group or post your questions, suggestions or topics to cover in the future on our Facebook page. We always welcome your comments!

How 5 Successful Comedians Used Their Websites Before They Were Famous

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It’s easy to admire the comedy empires that people like Chris Hardwick and Aziz Ansari have built with the help of the Internet, but what often gets overlooked is the years worth of work they put into it before hitting it big.

That work doesn’t just involve what happens on stage, but their commitment to building an online presence and using it to put creative content out into the world has also contributed to their success.

With a little help from the Internet Archive, I thought I’d go back in time and show you some of the things that today’s biggest comics were doing years ago – when both their fanbases and the Internet audience as a whole was a fraction of what it is today. It’s a good reminder that success online doesn’t happen overnight and that most comics who have made it were putting in work years before you may have realized it.

Now let’s hop in a comedy time machine and see who was doing what when…

In 2008, Chris Hardwick was posting home theater reviews and joining Twitter.

Shortly after launching his Nerdist blog – and years before he would launch the Nerdist podcast – Chris Hardwick was blogging regularly on his site about all sorts of stuff that had nothing specifically to do with his standup act. He was regularly posting reviews of technology gadgets such as this home theater system review.

He also joined Twitter (as explained in this blog post) because he thought it was “just too damned adorable to ignore any more” and promised to give people “blog updates and who knows what kind of other tweets.” Little did he know the TV series and hashtag wars that it would lead to.

In 2005, Aziz Ansari was making short videos and uploading them in Quicktime to his site.

Aziz didn’t bother waiting around for YouTube to be invented to start posting videos online. As you can see here, he was making short comedy videos about how Wal-Mart put his Dad out of business and uploading them to his site as Quicktime files way back in 2005.

Another fun bit of back-in-the-day Aziz is a look at the bio that was on his website back then. As you’ll see, it’s honest and he didn’t try to make himself seem more successful than he was at the time – something that way too many comics today try to do. He even mocks the fact that he’s writing about himself in the third person, as opposed to pretending somebody else wrote it for him.

In 2002, Gabriel Iglesias was remixing articles for the 5,000 people that visited his website.

A look back at Gabriel’s site from 12 years ago reveals a fun little bit – a public stat counter that shows 5,018 people had visited his site up to that point in total. But that small audience didn’t stop him from still taking the time to occasionally post some content on the site.

For example, he posted this article from the El Paso Times with his own commentary about it incorporated into it.

In 2001, Doug Stanhope was trolling newsgroups and posting road stories.

Stanhope has done an incredible job building a fanbase outside of the traditional comedy club system, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even 11 years ago he was already using his website to share content with fans and give them a chance to interact with him. For example, you can look back and see a collection of his road stories, or a bunch of examples of him trolling early Internet newsgroups.

In 2001, Louis CK was posting “bad jokes” on his site and trying to figure out his own name.

Louis CK may be the king of standup comedy at the moment, but 11 years ago he was quick to point out on his website that he was a “fellow who does a number of things.” In addition to details about his standup career, his site also featured uploaded videos of the short films he had made, cartoons he had made, and even a Bad Jokes page featuring bad jokes he had written.

Back then Louis wasn’t even quite sure what name he was using for his comedy. As he explained, “You may have noticed that I am refered to on this site sometimes as Louis, and other times as Louie. That is because I am stupid and have not figured out which one I am called yet.”

Why You Should Care About Any Of This…

Besides the fact that looking back at some old websites is a fun bit of nostalgia, I think it’s worth recognizing a couple things that all of these successful comics had in common. First, they had a website – in some cases years before other comics bothered to create one. But on top of that, each of these guys were putting some content on their sites – they were using them as a way to attract and engage fans.

These guys were also pretty open and honest about where they were in their career and who they were – they weren’t trying to pretend they were more successful than they were. They were transparent.

A lot has changed in the years since these guys launched their sites, but the underlying things that they embraced can benefit you just as much today as they did them years ago.

READ THIS NEXT: Why The Most Important Things You Can Learn From Louis CK Have Nothing To Do With His Act

5 Things You Can Learn From Gabriel Iglesias

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Gabriel Iglesias recently appeared on an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast where he discussed the evolution of his career and how he’s grown into one of the biggest headliners in the country.

But most importantly for up and coming comics, he explained how he approaches marketing and branding himself in a way that has helped separate him from the rest of the crowd.

You can listen to the full episode here, or read up on some of the highlights below.

1. Be Easy To Remember – And Consistent

At around the 17-minute mark, Iglesias explains that he embraced the nickname “Fluffy” early on because he realized that nobody that saw him was remembering his name. So, he decided to incorporate the nickname Fluffy into his act and into everything he did from a marketing perspective, recognizing that it was more memorable than his name. “It branded me,” he says.

Iglesias’ branding didn’t stop with his nickname. Early on he also made a conscious decision to maintain a consistent look – in his case it involved shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He explains that it’s tough enough for people to remember specific comics in general, but comics who constantly change their look only make it harder on themselves.

2. If You’re Likeable, Be Likeable

At around the 40-minute mark, Iglesias shares what he calls the best piece of advice he’s ever received. While early on some of his material included profanity, he was advised to take the profanity out of his act because it was interfering with his biggest strength – he was a very likeable guy on stage.

He embraced that likeability factor and even though he has nothing against profanity, removed it from his act and concentrated on ensuring that everything he did played off of the likeability of his persona.

3. You Can Learn A Lot From A “Day Job”

When it comes to marketing and branding, Iglesias clearly knew more than the average comic when he started out- that’s because of his day job.

Around the 46-minute mark, he talks about how early in his career he worked at a Robinsons-May department store. While it may not have been his ideal job, he saw an opportunity to learn things that could help his comedy career. He didn’t work in the marketing department, but he befriended some guys who did and says he learned a ton from them about how to market and brand products.

He then took what he was learning and applied it to his comedy career.

4. Be Willing To Step Backwards To Move Forward

At around the 51-minute mark, Iglesias reveals that a couple years into his career he came to a bit of a crossroads – he had built a strong following among Latino audiences and in certain parts of the country, but was a virtual unknown elsewhere. He could have gone on to have a successful career just focusing on the audience he had, but instead decided that he wanted to push to reach a broader audience.

In order to do that, he had to be willing to abandon the theaters he had been playing and go back to playing smaller venues in front of tiny crowds who didn’t know who he was. And even worse, he discovered that much of the material he had developed didn’t play well with more mainstream crowds so he essentially had to reconstruct his entire act for those crowds.

But ultimately, that decision and his willingness to essentially start over in a mainstream world is what allowed him to improve and reach the level of success he’s at today.

5. You Can Learn From Wrestling

At around the 59-minute mark, Iglesias mentions that some of the most important things he’s learned about showmanship, marketing, and especially merchandising, he actually learned from pro wrestling. He explains that he studies wrestling and recognized how they merchandise their acts as well as how they add rock show elements to their matches.

And just like he did with the Robinsons-May marketing guys, he has adapted what he’s learned into his own comedy career.

READ THIS NEXT: 5 Things You Can Learn From Adam Carolla

7 Things You Can Learn From Dave Foley Of Kids In The Hall

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This is a guest post from Connected Comedian David Gavri, a Chicago comic and comedy writer who also publishes interviews with comedians on his Gonzo Fame website. If you’d like to contribute a guest post to Connected Comedy, please email me.

A founding member of the comedy troupe Kids In The Hall, Dave Foley has had a long and successful career as a standup comedian, actor, and writer. He recently appeared at a Q&A held at Second City in Chicago where he was interviewed by Katie Rich and shared the following advice for comedians about the challenges of writing and creating comedy.

1. Sometimes The Best Ideas Come When You’re NOT Writing

When it came to writing sketches with Kids In The Hall, Foley explained that typically the group’s most successful ideas came when they weren’t actually trying to write at all, but rather when they were just hanging out together.

“The best ideas come when you’re NOT writing,” he said. “We spent an awful lot of time watching MTV videos and saying stupid things at the TV. And that would end up giving us a great idea for an episode.”

Unfortunately, that process can be hard to quantify as work. “You’re sitting around a computer or you’re sitting around your writing meetings, yet NOTHING comes out of it,” he said. “And all of a sudden at 2 am you fart on a guy’s face and you’re like, ‘That’s hilarious!'”

2. You Have To Develop Instincts To Understand When Something’s Good

Regardless of whether you’re writing standup or sketches, Foley stressed the importance of putting in time and effort in order to get to a point where you develop instincts to understand whether something you’ve created is good or not.

“I know when something’s good…but I’ve honed the craft of it over the years to where I’m more consistent in how I develop things,” Foley said. “Just doing it so many years, it’s like there’s an audience in your head that’s an amalgam of every audience you’ve ever played in front of – and you can just feel it.”

That’s why Foley believes improv and performing is such an important tool for writers.

“Writers who have NEVER performed are missing that tool. And they’re missing that ear, that ability to hear an audience react to things in their head. And a lot of times with sitcoms, you’re dealing with writers who have never been performers so they’ll write a line that on the page seems wonderfully funny, but when you say it out loud you realize that it not only isn’t funny, but it doesn’t even make sense.”

3. Focus On “Tight Writing”

Despite the comedy world’s current love affair with improv, Foley says Kids In The Hall never improvised anything and instead focused writing as tightly as possible.

“We would get together and basically shout out ideas to each other very quickly,” he said. “We would write and hone the sketch from a writing standpoint – we never had an idea and just improvised it. Writing for a TV show, we focused on tight writing.”

This was also motivated by the demands of  the medium.

“If you wrote something that was 3 minutes or under, it was MUCH easier to get in the show. If it was 5 minutes, you had to fight,” he said. “If it was over 5 minutes, you would almost never get it in. So the focus was always to be tight.”

4. Be Willing To Throw Jokes Away

One of the toughest things for all creators is to be willing to “kill your babies,” the process of throwing away material that you may like but may not be quite working for whatever reason. Here’s how Foley handles that:

“I’m not at all precious about anything,” he said. “You pitch a joke and if no one likes it, who cares? It’s something where I go, ‘Alright, I’ve written 1,000 jokes and I will write 1,000 more jokes.’ If you’re funny, it doesn’t matter.”

He continues, “Everything is disposable. And in a scene, you can have a joke that you absolutely LOVE, but if it’s hurting the flow of the scene you have to cut it. You just have to cut great jokes. You have to throw great jokes away if they don’t make the scene better. So you have to just…not love anything.”

5. Overcome Writer’s Block By Distracting Yourself

Despite his success, Foley admits that the act of writing can be more than a little frustrating for him.

“Writing is just the shittiest thing on Earth to spend your time doing, it’s just horrible,” he said. “I don’t understand people who ENJOY writing. I think you have to be some sort of egomaniac to enjoy writing…to just sit back and find your own thoughts interesting.”

But to combat the writing struggle, Foley suggests you find ways to distract yourself.

“Distraction is a great tool,” he said. ” Brain studies have shown that you get moments of insight when you are distracted from the problem you are trying to solve. And it’s good to give yourself that opportunity. For Kids In The Hall, when we had ideas that were going nowhere, we would often just leave and go go-karting for a few hours.

“And usually, while we were just hanging out go-karting, we would come with two or three ideas that were actually usable. It’s just that once you take your mind off it, it actually gives your subconscious a chance to come up with some decent ideas.”

6. Every Idea Is New (And Old)

When asked if he thought everything’s already been done before, Foley shared his perspective on the creation of comedy and the connection between what’s new and what’s been done before.

“The infinite variations in any art form is amazing,” he said. “You have the 12-tone scale which is the basis of all music, yet every day somebody writes a new melody with this limited tool of these same 12 tones.”

He went on to explain that everything can be varied, comparing creations to DNA.

“Nothing is entirely original and new, just as every life form has evolved from something earlier,” he said. “Every idea has evolved from something earlier and everything is seeded by things you’ve seen in the past.”

With that in mind, Foley recommends studying what you love to the point that you totally understand it, then throwing it away.

“For me, it was understanding EVERYTHING about what Monty Python does and with Kids In The Hall we just threw it out,” he said. “We literally went as far as we could structurally from Python, because we loved it so much. So just study the people you love and then just throw them away.”

7. Clarity Is Key To Comedy

As somebody who’s had success in standup, TV, and movies, Foley has a unique perspective on what makes comedy work and for him, it all comes down to a clarity of the material.

“It’s all about understanding HOW to deliver a joke,” he said. “A lot of people think that comedy doesn’t have to be sensible, but I think comedy has to be watchable. Comedy has to make sense. People have to understand the thought process behind the joke for it to be funny and they have to know where it goes off the rails and becomes a joke.

“The audience has to understand the logic of the joke and if you can’t convey that logic in a concise way, it’s not going to work. You must understand that the people hearing the joke are not in your head – they don’t know your back story to your joke. Their entire universe exists from what you write down and if you don’t have the information in the joke, no one is going to get it.”

In the end, he explains that comics have to tackle the same challenge no matter what they do. “You have to find a way to get the information out in a way that doesn’t interfere with the joke.”

READ THIS NEXT: 5 Things You Can Learn From BJ Novak

5 Reasons Comedian Newsletters May Become Bigger Than Comedy Podcasts

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Not so long ago, most comics had never heard of podcasts, let alone had one of their own. Oh, how things change.

Social media evolves at such a rapid pace that it’s difficult to keep up to date with the latest opportunities, let alone get ahead of them in a manner that allows you to capitalize on them.

For example, the boom in comedy podcasts over the past couple years created incredible, career-altering opportunities for comedians – but mostly for comics who were “early” on the podcast boom. Guys like Marc Maron, Adam Carolla, and others built podcast empires by combining their talents with a good sense of timing – they saw the potential in the format before the rest of the comedy world and capitalized on it.

While predicting the future is certainly a crapshoot, I also felt like I saw the podcast boom coming several years before it exploded. And now, I feel like I’m seeing a similar set of circumstances bubbling up that leads me to believe there’s a new boom coming.

This time around though, I think we’re headed for a boom in comedian email newsletters.

Here’s five reasons why I think comedian newsletters are poised to take off and why I think they have the potential to be even bigger than the podcast boom that’s led just about every comic on the planet to create one.

 1. There’s Booming Interest In Email Newsletters From The Public And Media

Before the rise of comedy podcasts, there was an initial audience developed for non-comedy podcasts. Those early adopters helped establish the medium and the overall growth of the podcast audience helped set the table for the growth of the comedy-specific podcast audience.

The same thing is currently happening with email newsletters of the non-comedy variety. More people are creating them, more people are reading them, and there’s starting to be a lot of media attention given to them. For example, there’s been several recent articles written about the rise of email newsletters including this New York Times column, this Fast Company article about the rise of Tinyletter, and this Atlantic piece about people’s frustration with the social stream.

As referenced in some of those articles, there’s some pretty eye-opening numbers about the size of the email newsletter audience already including that Mailchimp is adding 10,000 new users a day and that 9.3 million people have subscribed to Tinyletter newsletters. These are big numbers that suggest a very large (and growing) audience can be reached through email newsletters these days.

2. Comics Are Uniquely Positioned To Create Better Newsletters Than The Average Person

As with most forms of online content, comedians are better equipped to create compelling newsletters than the average person. Because comics are (theoretically) “professionally” funny, they should be able to write an email newsletter that’s way more entertaining than some “civilian.”

This mirrors what happened with podcasts – there were tons of podcasts out there featuring regular people making snarky comments or jokes about various topics, but when professional comedians and entertainers stormed the medium they wound up rising to the top and raising the overall level of the audience’s expectations.

I think the same thing is likely to happen with email newsletters – at least the ones that are designed to be funny/entertaining.

3. Email Newsletters Offer a Huge Benefit For Comics

One of the reasons comics flocked to podcasts was because it gave them the opportunity to reach a mass audience directly and showcase their talents in a way that provided value for them beyond just that podcast itself. It essentially created a virtual stage that was open to them 24/7.

The same is true for email newsletters.

Every comic (well, at least the smart ones) knows that growing your email list is a vital component to a successful career and one of the most important assets you can have at your disposal. But unfortunately most comics struggle to grow their list – in part because they only use their email list to send out show updates and only ask people to join their email list at their shows (if that).

That approach would be the equivalent of launching a podcast where all you did was talk about your upcoming shows – nobody would subscribe to that.

But creating an email newsletter that actually delivers compelling content gives people a reason to subscribe and in the process delivers comics a direct connection to a lot more people. Those connections can pay dividends in a number of ways down the road, unlike podcasts where you don’t capture an email address from listeners.

In that respect, a successful newsletter would actually be MORE VALUABLE to comics than a successful podcast already is today.

4. Email Newsletters Cost Less And Are Less Complicated Than Podcasts

Let’s be honest: launching a podcast is not the easiest thing in the world for non-technical people. You’ve got to figure out how to record it, get some equipment, figure out how to upload it and get it into iTunes, etc. None of that is impossible and it’s certainly gotten simpler over the past couple years, but it’s still a bit daunting for some people.

Still, most comics these days have put in the time, effort, and money to make it happen.

Comparatively, email newsletters are WAY simpler to produce. There’s little-to-no cost involved, practically no set up, and really no excuse for a comic not to have one.

I think this means that as comedian newsletters build momentum we’ll see a rush to the format that dwarves the rush we saw into podcasts.

5. The Audience For Newsletters Is WAY Bigger Than The Podcast Audience – Or ANY Social Media Audience

One of the things that got lost in the comedy podcast gold rush is how relatively small the potential audience for podcasts actually is. Sure, tons of people listen to podcasts and more are starting to each day, but it’s still just a tiny fraction of the number of people who use email.

The only people who will ever potentially listen to your podcast are people who listen to podcasts already – so basically you’re competing for a fraction of a fraction of an audience. But pretty much everybody uses email, so if you’re able to convert the same fraction of users to subscribers, you’re going to wind up with a lot more people.

Also, email is way more powerful than social media – that’s why social networks are constantly emailing you to tell you what’s happening on their network, because they know that you’re more likely to see something in your email than in your Twitter feed. So again, a successful email newsletter would be a much more valuable tool to a comic than a successful social media following.

Now For The Really Interesting Part…

If the five things I’ve spelled out above have at least made you start to think about the possibilities for a comedy email newsletter boom, here’s the really interesting part – barely any comics are actually producing newsletters at the moment.

You might think that runs counter to my prediction, but I actually think it shows that now is the moment when huge opportunity exists to be one of the early adopters and stake claim before the rest of the comedy world chases after the next big thing. The circumstances are right for some comedians to capitalize on the growing interest in email newsletters and somebody out there is going to become to newsletters what Marc Maron was to podcasts.

The question is, will it be you?

If you’ve got a newsletter (or decide to start one after reading this article), please post a comment below and tell me about it – I’d love to check it out.

READ THIS NEXT: How To Get More People To Join Your Mailing List