Ep. #11 Is a Small Social Media Following Keeping you from BIG Work? (with Sam Hersch)

Special Guest Sam Hersch doesn’t call himself a dancer, but he supports the dance community in many ways.  Has he found a way that the dance community can better support itself? When he started www.questionsfordancerstoday.com that is what he was aiming to do.  Listen in as Dana answers some of Sam’s 35 “Questions Worth The Asking”, and answer along for yourself as we try to get to the bottom of the the big question: how is social media influencing the dance industry and individual dancers’ lives? Dana: Before we get into the good stuff!  We’d like to announce our Instagram Contest winners! The following 5 “demi” prize winners will be receiving a Words That Move Me Shoe Bag, to keep the shoes funky and keep the rest of your gear  funk free! Our 5 demi-prize winners are: @renatogames_ @sydneycheri @megansarbaugh @fridadawson @chlo_withtheflow Our Grand Prize winners each receive one hour of rental space in “The Kitchen” at The Hub NoHo, Thanks to our contest sponsor , The Hub NoHo Our 4 grand prize winners are: @cardincn @rileyroberts  @laurencarterhaines  @alexarhs  And our Suber Duper “Booked and Blessed” Award– A 5 class card to The Movement Lifestyle, thanks to our contest sponsor @goesmovement.lifestyle — goes to: @sandami.sinley Thanks everyone and congrats! Now, Let’s got to it! Dana: Today I’m going to share little bits of a conversation that I had with a very special guest, a special guy named Sam Hirsch. Now I have known Sam since I think 2012 but this conversation was sparked because I ran into him recently. Uh, while I was teaching a class at movement lifestyle, I was making a mad dash for the restroom, like in the middle of class, had the moment, had to do it. And I saw Sam in the lobby and he handed me this flyer, like a full page flyer with a lot of words on it. And I was like, Sam, Oh man. Good to see you. Can’t read this right now. Send me an email. So later that night I had an email from Sam. It was a couple of attachments, um, a user guide and then a questionnaire. Now this is something that he’s been working on since June of 2019 and the purpose of the questionnaire is to get to the bottom of the question, how is social media influencing the dance industry and an individual dancers life?   So I opened the attachment for the user’s guide, which was 12 pages long and I flashed back to the lobby area moment where I was like, Sam, I don’t have time for this in this moment. Email me. And then the email moment was another moment. So I asked Sam if he would be willing to come onto the podcast and just hash this out over a microphone, um, and see what we can uncover about that massive question. How is social media influencing dance and is your social media presence as important or more important than your actual live work? So I asked Sam to come on the podcast and he said yes, and then he did come on the podcast and then we did talk for three hours. So this is an edited version of our conversation. Um, we really covered a whole lot of stuff, how we met years and years ago when I was teaching at millennium.  Um, how I use my social media, how I consider it to be like a store front. The concept that I covered in last week’s episode, which if you haven’t yet, please go check out episode 10. Um, what else did we talk about? We talked about um, how he started creating this questionnaire and how he decided to unplug for a little while after working so hard on the subject of social media in dance. You know, that was sort of his impetus to, to get off the app for a little while. And you know what, I’ve actually thought about doing that too. Um, although with all of the exciting stuff that you daily doers are getting into out there, I don’t think my break will be happening anytime this year. I absolutely love seeing what everybody’s doing out there. Please keep up the good work and keep hashtagging doing

Om Podcasten

The dance podcast where movers and shakers get the information and inspiration they need to navigate their creative careers with clarity and confidence. Master mover, Dana Wilson taps into 19 years of industry experience and talks to the best in the entertainment biz, who have been there and done that so that you don’t have to… do it alone.