The blessing and curse of social media is that it has taken marketing and condensed it down into something you can now control. That means you have the power to fully craft and build your online persona long before you start regularly landing gigs. If you’re an actor or a model, here’s what you need to know.

The Platforms

Realistically, you can successfully manage and grow two social media profiles. Twitter is a must-have as it allows you to spread your content to the general populace. As for the other, that depends on where your audience is. If acting is your thing, Instagram can do videos but it’s mainly a static image platform. Instead, look to TikTok. The same advice works for models. You’re selling still images of yourself so a video platform is not the best choice.

The SEO

Next, you’ll want to research a bit into hashtags and keywords. Each platform is a little different. Twitter has a character limit so hashtags need to be refined. Instagram, however, allows you to throw on as many as you want so you should take advantage of using as many as possible to increase visibility.

The Schedule

Come up with how often you’ll realistically be able to post curated content. Once per week is a solid starting place, but if your schedule is busy, once per month can work. When you post, make sure it is a strong piece that matches everything else you’ve been posting. Add your hashtags and descriptions and send it out into the world.

The Connections

Finally, you’ll need to cultivate a community and nothing works better toward that goal than commenting and liking the work of others. While most may not connect with you immediately, there will be a few influencers with more followers than you who are happy to engage and spread your work.