Beyond the stage: building your comedy online presence

Building a successful comedy online presence requires a blend of creativity, consistency, and strategic self–promotion. The digital landscape offers unprecedented opportunities for comedians to reach global audiences, but navigating it effectively is crucial. In Spotlight on success: How a professional website can enhance a comedian’s career (with case studies) we covered the reasons a website is crucial to a successful comedian’s career. Here we tie that in to provide a comprehensive guide to building your comedy career through online channels.

Define your niche

What makes your comedy unique? Are you good at observational humour, satire, storytelling, or is it something completely different? There are many different ways to make someone laugh and every comedian has their own niche. What’s yours? Identifying your comedic strengths and developing your distinct style is bread and butter for a comedian. Being clear on what they are is also essential for your online presence. This is what we mean by “finding your voice”.

Equally, you need to understand who you are trying to reach. While this is true for anyone building a website or other online presence, it is especially true for a comedian. Although, you should find it easier to understand who your target audience is because you have to read the room every time you get on a stage. But it remains true that understanding your target audience allows you to tailor your content and messaging for maximum impact.

Then you can start to build a consistent brand across all platforms. It might seem odd or anathema to you as a comedian to be told to “build your brand”. But you are your brand and you need to be consistent and identifiable everywhere you are, with a consistent name, logo, visual style, and tone of voice. A cohesive brand makes you recognisable and memorable.

Choose your social media platforms wisely

No social media platform will remain effective forever—they will fall out of favour and go into the ring of hell specially saved for social media platforms and their CEOs…. Who remembers MySpace, Friendster, Google+, FriendFeed, Windows Live Spaces, or Yahoo! GeoCities? You can spend endless time creating content on social media and find it disappear, or become irrelevant as soon as that platform goes out of favour.

While that does not mean you should shun all social media (or just stick to the current trendy socials), you need to understand its limitations. There are so many social media platforms available these days, it is often difficult to know which platforms are best for what. We have created a quick overview of how the main platforms (today) can help you curate your comedy content.

Create engaging content for your online presence

You’ll often hear web professionals imploring you to “create engaging content”, but what does that really mean?

If you’re a comedian, you probably already have an idea about how to engage with your audience… it’s no different with your online audience. Avoid replicating existing trends and develop your own unique perspective. Originality is key and original content always stands out.

Equipment

If you’re going down the videos or podcasts route, invest in good equipment: lighting, sound, and video editing. Even the simplest of content can benefit from a polished professional presentation. And if you balk at the idea of professionality, thinking that there are plenty of comedians who get by with a handheld camera doing funny stuff: sure there are, but I bet you that they are using the best camera they can afford, with a proper microphone and decent lighting; they’re just making it look like it’s a “spur of the moment” addition to their online portfolio. How many times have you seen stand–up clips on a website or YouTube channel that have poor quality visuals (because of the stage lighting), and barely audible sound because it is taken from the camera microphone and picks up the ambient sound from the audience?

Schedule additions to your online presence

It’s always useful to establish a regular posting schedule to keep your audience engaged. When your audience knows you usually post your blog articles at midday every Wednesday, they’ll come looking for it (the die–hards will be there at 12:01). If you don’t post they’ll be disappointed but will come back the following week to see what you’ve posted. If you don’t post again, they will probably forget to return a third time and you will have lost them. Consistency is crucial: consistency builds anticipation and keeps you and your content in mind.

Variety

Don’t be afraid to try different formats and styles. This will create content that is varied, interesting, and engaging. Check your analytics data and see what resonates with your audience. Adjust your strategy accordingly: read the room and adjust your set according to your audience, only you’re not on a stage, you’re checking your analytics data from your website.

Engage and respond

Engage with your audience. Nothing smacks of engagement more than a personality that engages with their audience! In this case, you’re going to be responding to comments, messages, and mentions. Check out people who regularly like and share your content on social media and follow them. Building a community around your comedy is essential for long–term success.

Build your audience around your online presence

Your career is about building your audience. So now you’re not only going to do that on stage, but you’re also going treat your online persona in the same way.

Cross–platform social media

Make extensive use of cross–platform promotion. Share your content across all your platforms to maximise its visibility, and reduce the risk of one platform going under or falling out of favour (X, here’s looking at you, kid).

Although it’s not suitable every time, when possible your content should be created on your own website and shared across social media. When it’s not suitable (e.g., when it’s a podcast, stream, or video) you should put it on the appropriate platform then share it to your website, and from your website post the content on your socials. (Why would you want to go through that rigmarole when you can just share it direct from YouTube to Facebook? Simple: you are:

driving traffic to your website;
creating links to your website;
increasing its authority for search engines;
bringing more people to consume your other material; and,
creating analytics data that you can use to identify trends and opportunities).

Cross–stitching your network

Get your face on other comedians’ websites and with other types of creators. You can reach new audiences by appearing on someone else’s podcast, being interviewed, or doing something with another creator. Let them host it, link to it, and promote it. And then you do the same on your website.

In a similar vein, engage as much as possible with other creators. Comment on other comedians’ posts and participate in comedy communities on your social channels. By engaging with other comedians you can identify novel ideas to work together, creating authentic, unique content.

Hashtags

Make judicious use of hashtags, particularly on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Identify all the different words related to comedy, and your particular type of comedy, and use them (not all in one post, but over several posts over time!) to increase your relevance for the keywords and to improve your discoverability in searches on those platforms.

Incentives to drive traffic to your online presence

Another way to improve your audience is to give them a reason to engage with you. Give them an incentive to subscribe to your newsletter, like and share your posts, or follow you on another platform. For example, you could offer the chance to win free tickets to one of your gigs, or prize draw entry. Just make sure that your competition is above board and independently verifiable in case someone asks for proof that it was a fair competition.

Advertising

Finally, you might consider paid promotions. Advertising on social media has reached a whole new level of sophistication since it first started and it can be a useful, effective way of reaching new target audiences.

Monetise your online presence and content

One of the benefits of having an online presence with a strong fanbase is that you can monetise your content. And there are only as many ways to monetise your skills and content as your imagination will allow. Here are a few ideas to start you off.

Whether you have content behind a paywall on your website, or exclusive content and perks to your most dedicated fans on subscription platforms like Patreon and Ko–fi. Also, when you meet the eligibility requirements, you can put ads on your videos in YouTube.

Perhaps you could host a virtual stand–up show threw Zoom, Google Meet, or similar, where you charge a fee for tickets (the link to the show). A few years ago, this sort of thing would never get off the ground, but since COVID it’s become more acceptable to host such events online.

When you build a bigger fanbase of loyal followers, you can start selling branded merchandise through your website and benefit from affiliate marketing (partnering with brands and promoting their products to your audience with a discount link). Or, you can find sponsors to partner with for content and endorsements, or to sponsor a show.

Maybe you have a skill or find a discrete comedy angle that you can teach? If you do, you can offer online courses, or corporate workshops, which can be a lucrative form of additional income. For instance, a few years ago, storytelling became a massive trend in corporate workshops and training. If you can find an angle to bring your stand–up skills to corporate presentations or public speaking, you might have a great new option.

Network and build relationships for your online presence

Your ability to network and build relationships is just as important to a comedian as in every other business. The importance of these skills speaks for itself and is just as important online as it is offline. In fact, it can be more difficult to build successful relationships online because your interactions with others are always on the other side of a keyboard and screen and you have to be careful that a well–meaning joke doesn’t fall short or backfire.

Being online does give you the ability to broaden your network beyond your normal area: you can connect with comedians, other creators, and other industry professionals across the globe pretty easily. Connect, follow, and interact with comedy writers, producers, agents, and promoters.

If you carefully curate your portfolio of work on your website and keep it current and relevant, you can reference it easily when you interact with other professionals and journalists to showcase your best work and encourage them to investigate your career to date.

Finally, you should look for opportunities to feature your content on established comedy websites and platforms. We have developed a list of comedy platforms in the UK.

Stay persistent and adaptable

When you’re battling on your own to build your online reputation, it can be as rough a space as the comedy stage. Not every piece of content will be a hit. You just have to chalk it up to experience, dust your virtual self off and carry on creating.

Watch trends and technologies

Keep up–to–date on current trends and technologies because the online landscape is constantly changing and evolving. The trends and social media platforms that were fashionable yesterday are tomorrow’s pariahs. If you can be ahead of the trend and get yourself on a platform before the trend, you will have an advantage.

The importance of intellectual property

Be sure to protect your work. Just because it is online doesn’t mean that it’s free for anyone to pinch and use. Make sure you understand your rights and copyright laws so that you can step in when you need to. Of course, it helps if you have a clear and consistent brand identity to support your intellectual property.

Be patient and consistent

And always remember, building a successful online comedy career takes time and effort. You have to be patient and don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results immediately: remain consistent and keep offering great content that is on–message and on–brand. Keep promoting your own website. Do it whenever you push your content or promote yourself; for instance, make sure that your business cards—which I’m sure you have, and which obviously are consistent with your online brand identity—promote your website. When you are contacted by a promoter or journalist for your bio, or pictures, point them to your website. Tell them your press kit is available for download. Use your website as your primary online tool.

If you take on some of these suggestions you will add new strings to your comedy bow and keep your career fresh. Stay true to your comedic voice and style, and consistently create engaging content and then engage and respond to your audience.

Conclusion

But most importantly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your content around all your social media channels. Use your own website (you have one, don’t you?) as a central hub for everything you create. That way, when X is out of favour you will already have it backed up on your own website to put somewhere else. And content you have already created can be reused and republished elsewhere.

If you need someone to help you create your own website (or to manage it for you), Redcentaur has experience of helping comedians with their online presences.