It’s Opening Night!
It’s call time at Betsy Bash. We’ve rehearsed, we’ve learned the steps, and we have just enough time to put our costumes on and step out onto our stage, the big, bold world of social media. You are probably wondering why we are making so many silly theater puns in a social media marketing blog. Well, dear friends, we recently discovered that every, not joking here, every member of the Betsy Bash team has a background in theater and performance! Maybe this is why all our meetings go off the rails and have us rolling in laughter? OR perhaps this is why we make a fantastic team able to create unique, tailored, and topical content and social media strategies for our clients week after week.
As we near Thanksgiving, we all took some time to be thankful for our theater backgrounds. We’d like to share how theater has helped each of us become a stronger professional.
Tasha’s Theatrical Tasks
As the Account Manager for Betsy Bash, Tasha wears all of the hats. She keeps the team on track, creates content, generates unique graphic designs, and builds strategies for success. How did she learn to be a master at multitasking and time management? Theater. A degree in Theater. In her own words, “Getting a theatre degree was earning a degree in creative thinking. If I can learn an entire part overnight to step in for a sick cast member, I can transform my voice to match any brand overnight. If I could juggle classwork, two degrees, rehearsal, and production every semester, you could say I do well with multitasking. Next time you meet a theatre kid, you should see the unmatched potential.”
One other key ingredient to Tasha’s success is her ability to cope with sudden changes and laugh along with it. When working with a wide variety of clients, you never know what will come up. Flexibility, patience, and sense of humor are essential. The theater had a role in honing these skills for Tasha. In an anecdote from her performance days, she describes one day as she was performing for a large audience of children. The actors were painting pictures to be revealed to the audience as the scene progressed, but right before the big reveal, “One child, in the front row, right on the aisle, exclaims, ‘What if it’s a butt hole?’ ...We all lost our s***. Why would any kid think that in a children’s theatre performance, we would draw a BUTT HOLE as a MAJOR PLOT POINT? I wanted to shake that boy’s hand. We all broke character immediately as we tried to muscle through the last 25 minutes of the play. All imagining. What if it was a butt hole?.” That little audience member taught her a valuable lesson that day, always be ready for a plot twist.
Lauren’s Directorial Debut
As our CEO, Lauren is indeed the director of this play, and we are all privileged to have a part. She has a vision of how each scene will be but always leaves room for the cast’s creative process. Lauren not only challenges herself to think creatively but also her team by leading the way as we use our voices to capture the audience’s attention.
She began her on-stage experience with the magical world of Disney. Hosting a radio show, engaging crowds, running a promotions team, and impressing Fortune 500 companies for a whirlwind of 5 years honed all of her natural talents to razor’s edge. From all of this hands-on experience, she gained the confidence to go after a dream, starting her own company, Betsy Bash. So many aspects of her time with Disney translated to running a social media marketing company, but the promotion of events stands out, “To alert people about our event, what we would be doing, and what types of prizes we would be giving away, we would make little announcements over our portable speaker system. What you said was crucial. It either worked, or it didn’t. People either showed up in crowds, or they didn’t. And it had to work. Through this process, I developed skills for writing quippy, quick tweets that later helped me write funny, sassy Instagram captions, and now, relevant TikTok captions.”
The thrill of performance hasn’t left Lauren’s life; years after starting Betsy Bash, she found her way to the stage again. This time it was improv; the fast-paced, quick-witted art of comedic delivery has a direct correlation to creating a strategy that can pivot as needed. Not only did she brave the stage of comedy by joining an improv class, but she also gained a community. “The group of individuals I learned and performed with has become close friends, colleagues, and teammates. I faced a tremendous fear, and each of them has helped me through it in their own beautiful way.” If you’ve ever been a part of a performance, you know exactly what she is talking about.
Jonathan Reads the Audience
Jonathan, our own personal social media ad wizard, attributes his ability to see the bigger picture and read his audience to his days on and around the stage. When asked what theater taught him, he responds, “My experience in theater taught me to always look at the bigger picture. I could talk ad nauseum on this point; understanding intent through verbal and non-verbal language, conveying complete messages in presentation, and searching for and establishing context.”
As an Ad Manager, Jonathan needs to embody the client’s voice and know who they intend to reach, their audience. His time in theater taught him the importance of noticing all the details, lights, set, sound, etc., and researching each aspect to tell the whole story from beginning to end. He describes it better than we can, “I work to understand our clients’ current brand presence and perception, how well their website converts to sales and their audience’s needs. Reviewing website analytics tells me how visitors are engaging with our client’s websites. Studying ad performance gives me more insights to pivot and create new messaging if needed. We’re not even talking about coordinating blended campaigns across multiple channels and flight dates. It all comes together to create a complete performance.” We are lucky to have him on our team, and clients are always impressed with his ability to further their story.
Tamara Cues the Cast
Now we’ve come to our Digita Analyst; you may think the connections to theater stop here when we get into the numbers. You’d be wrong, friends. Tamara’s love for theater, performance, and stage came at a very young age. She followed this love to obtain a Communications, Media, and Theater degree, and it has helped her every step of the way. “One of the biggest lessons I gained from acting was putting myself in others’ shoes to understand the human condition better. I believe this is an advantage in my role today as I try to analyze and understand how and why audiences engage with the social media content we create for our clients.” Tamara has a unique storytelling skill gained from the stage; she takes the raw data and weaves it into a tangible tale. This data story is essential when communicating a campaign’s successes and opportunities. She will see the details that might go unseen to the untrained eye in social media, thanks to the little touches she learned to appreciate in the stage’s art.
Another crucial role that performance experience has played is building her into a braver person in business and personal life and improving her ability to work with her team. She learned to trust the people she was on stage with, allowing her to be brave, be bold, and be successful. When asked where she learned the most, she’d say with confidence her Improv Team. “Rehearsing and performing taught me so much about teamwork, listening, and responding. My improv team had my back just like I had theirs, just like my team now. Improvising itself pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and approach challenges fearlessly. Improv also taught me to appreciate and effectively communicate with a widely diverse group of human beings.” Betsy Bash can confidently say that Tamara is a valuable asset to our team, and sometimes we’ve all got to improvise our way through the day.
Theresa Goes Off-Script
Our Community Manager and copy-writer, Theresa, is a self-described people person. This natural trait has led her to follow her heart to the stage and consistently seek jobs that have her interacting directly with people. She began her theater journey as a teenager, pursued a degree in Communications and Theater, and participated in many productions past that. A key aspect of her personality was honed in and around the stage, connecting with people. “When you make a connection with an audience, you feel it. It is a tangible sensation, and it is real. I still get that feeling when I know I’ve connected with a client’s online community.” She doesn’t just strive for pleasantries; she wants to know that a community is built.
Another vital ability that was only enhanced by a long love-affair with theatrical arts is perseverance and creative problem-solving. As a community manager, sometimes the client’s audience has issues and concerns that require out-of-the-box thinking and not giving up until they leave the experience satisfied. One analogy she referenced when discussing her schooling in the theater was this, “When I was an actor, I hated this one common note from directors: ‘Do it differently,’ they wouldn’t explain. I just had to keep trying different methods. I learned to pivot creatively and be brave in my attempts. In marketing, we often find ourselves conveying a single message repeatedly. It's essential to be bold, be creative, and keep trying! What’s the worst that can happen?” Whether it’s creating connections, solving problems, or telling the story, the client’s audience is her top priority.
Curtains Close. We Take Our Bows.
We really hope you enjoyed learning how theater has influenced our professional talents and continues to teach us valuable lessons. We certainly enjoyed bonding with our shared backgrounds. We are very thankful this season for the Theatrical Arts. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!