This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Mason Bray: So we have Bailey Ford, who is an amazing social media manager. She has worked on the social platforms for Be More Chill and grown their fan base so that it could come to Broadway. She now works with Joe Iconis on his TikTok where they have gotten over 28,000 followers in an amazing amount of time. Um, before that she was a programming intern at Feinstein's 54 Below. I'm so excited to talk with her about all things Broadway and social media. Hi, Bailey.

[0:24] Bailey Ford: Hi, thanks for having me.

[0:26] Mason Bray: Thank you so much for being here. How are you?

[0:29] Bailey Ford: I'm good. It's a beautiful day in New York City.

[0:32] Mason Bray: How are you?

[0:33] Bailey Ford: I'm doing all right. Um, would you mind starting out by taking us through how you got to where you are in your career?

[0:40] Bailey Ford: Yeah, so when I was in high school, I was super into theater. Um, I had a lot of friends who did theater at our local community theater called the Kalamazoo Civic Theater. My God, I just said theater 25 times. Um, and it was this fairly competitive community theater. It was really high quality and a lot of kids auditioned, so it was always a big deal to be in a show there. And I did my first show when I was 14. Um, and after that was pretty much hooked and wanted to be an actor. I was so set on that um throughout high school. Um, and for my junior and senior year of high school, uh we had this program where you could take a class at another school, and so I took a musical theater class. It was called Advanced Musical Theater Workshop, and it was like a pre-college program, uh musical theater intensive basically for the final two and a half hours of my school day.

So in the morning I would go do, you know, English, math, science classes, and then I would drive to another school and do this musical theater class in the afternoon, and it was really great. Um, we had like private voice lessons, we had dance classes, and then um pretty rigorous acting technique classes, and there were like six different teachers for it. It was amazing, and it completely taught me that I did not want to be an actor. Um, it was just like so much work, and I admire what actors do. It's just like not for me. Um, and so I started looking at colleges and found Baldwin Wallace University, which is in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and they have um an amazing musical theater program, but they also have an amazing arts management program.

Um, so I decided to go into that program. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to work in theater in um an aspect behind the scenes, um, probably not technical theater. I knew I wanted it to be on like the administrative side essentially. I thought I wanted to be a producer for a while. Um, I learned what that was and was like, I don't really want to be asking people for money all the time, which is essentially what producers do. Um, I thought I wanted to do casting for a while, uh, sort of realized I wasn't into that. Throughout the whole time, I was sort of like doing social media stuff, but I never believed that it was a real job. It just seemed like such an easy thing to me before I knew what it was.

Um, and it came so naturally to me that I was like, there's no way people like pay people to do this. Um, but then I was interning at Feinstein's 54 Below uh when I turned 18, 19. I turned 19 that summer, um, after my freshman year of college, and that was amazing. We were working with all these artists all the time. I got to meet a bunch of people, and I met Joe Iconis through that, um, and through Jen Tepper, who I had interned for in high school on her book series. She's been like a longtime mentor of mine. But I met Joe that summer, um, and that was when the Be More Chill album had started charting the Two River Theater album. So I guess for those who don't know, Be More Chill is a musical that started in um 2015 at Two River Theater.

Um, and it sort of got panned by a bunch of reviewers, and nothing was ever gonna happen with it again. They decided to record an album. Nothing really happened with the album uh between 2015 and 2018, and then or 20 yeah, 17. And then randomly in 2017, the album started charting, and all of the cast members started getting tagged in like fan art, and it was sort of this like weird, like viral sensation bubbling under the surface. But even then it was like, what do we do with all of this excitement about this show that we thought was dead? And so I said to Joe, you should really start um an Instagram for Be More Chill, and he was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you want to, you can, but like I don't have time for that.

And I was like, Okay, I don't know, that's intimidating. Um, so I finished my internship at 54 Below, went back to college uh for my sophomore year, and had a bunch of classes that were sort of um just teaching us about you know how to do things on the administrative side and how to um sort of follow uh your intuition. I had a class that one of my professors was really into TED Talks, and we watched a lot of TED talks about like how ideas come to fruition, and it got me thinking I had an ideas journal for one of my classes and started writing a lot about like Be More Chill and like the social media, and so that October I was like, Joe, I'm ready, I'm gonna start uh an Instagram for Be More Chill.

I had no idea what I was doing. I was like creating all the content myself, and like it was uh it's funny if you scroll all the way back down, you can see it. Um I kind of came up with a voice for the show, I was coming up with graphics, but they were sort of like not very well done. Um, but just trying everything I could to engage the fans. Um, and then that winter, I was actually really stressed because I could not for the life of me find an internship for the upcoming summer. Um, and I remember super distinctly being like crying, talking to Lauren Marcus, like Joe's wife, um, being like, I'm never gonna get an internship, like I don't know like what's happening. And she knew that the show was going off Broadway, but she couldn't tell me at that point in time.

Um, and she was like, You're gonna get something, you're gonna get something. And I was like, How do you know? And she was like, I just know. And then um a few weeks later, um, Jen Tepper called me and was like, Hey, Be More Chill is going off Broadway at the Signature Theater this summer, and we're bringing on Marathon Digital as our uh social media marketing agency, and we'd love to uh sort of split you as an intern between Marathon and the producers. And I was like, oh my god, so exciting. Um, and so that summer, that's what I did. I interned with Marathon and the producers at that time. Um, and from there, as we all know, the show went to Broadway, which was super crazy and exciting. I was back at college at that point, um, because my internship had essentially ended and went back to school for my junior year.

Uh, and we sort of thought that the show was gonna go to Broadway, but like we didn't know for sure until the producers told everyone. And I remember there was a meeting um that was called, and my friend Danielle who worked on the show, she was the music copyist and music assistant on the show, and she got called into this meeting, and she was like, We have to be going to Broadway because why am I being called into a meeting? Because that job is fully, fully done by the time that you know the run was almost over. They didn't need the copyist or music assistant at that point in time. So I was like, why are we here? Um, and so she was sort of like texting me, being like, I don't know, I just like there's like nervous energy, everyone like no one knows what's happening, and then Jen called after she told everyone and was like calling people and was like, hey, we're going to Broadway at the Lyceum Theater in March of next year, it was 2019, and we're starting rehearsals in January, and like we'd love to have you be an intern on the show.

And so it worked out super well on my school schedule because it started in January, which is the start of the semester, um, and my school was awesome. They basically had me take like a study abroad, um, but in New York City, and so all of my classes were remote at that point in time before remote classes were a thing. I had like a class with one of my advisors and then um just some online classes and then got internship credit for the rest of you know the internship um that I was doing and that was like the most amazing experience and then from there um I've sort of come along to help Joe with social media on a lot of his shows so I worked on Broadway Bounty Hunter um I ran their influencer campaign and was like a social media producing intern on that show and then was the social media manager on Love and Hate Nation at Two River Theater and that was in like November December of 2019 and then um I graduated from college in May of 2020 which was the worst time to graduate um and then last year started doing a bunch of freelance social media and that's how I started working for Joe so now I just do his um TikTok, Instagram, Facebook social media essentially and I have like a handful of other random clients some theater related some not but yeah.

[9:54] Mason Bray: That's awesome. For those listening that don't know what do you do as a social media manager? What is your full job listing?

[10:02] Bailey Ford: Totally I mean it really varies depending on the client so when you're working on like a Broadway show for example um I do what we call organic social media um so there's organic and there's paid and organic social media is something that's not like promoted.

[10:17] Bailey Ford: So paid social media is like sponsored posts or promoted posts; you're putting money behind them to get it to come up on people's feeds, whereas organic social media is just like content creation and putting it out there, not putting money behind it through those platforms.

[10:36] Bailey Ford: And so for a Broadway show, for example, you're coming up with all of the content, all of the captions, all of the Instagram stories, the tweets, the TikToks, and you're either creating that with the graphic designer, or sometimes you're the one creating those graphics yourself. You're coordinating like takeovers between, you know, the actors or the writers or whoever's doing a takeover. And typically when you have takeovers, there's like certain equity rules. So you're checking in with the stage manager, making sure that you have all the paperwork in to allow someone to do a takeover. Um, and you're just sort of project managing, so a lot of approvals processes typically you're creating the content and then sending it to producers for approval and coordinating with the marketing team, who's usually different, but obviously you want everything to be cohesive.

Uh, so that's sort of what it would be like for a show. And then if you're doing it for an individual person, like for Joe, um, I am coming up with ideas for uh his TikToks, for example, um, and then sort of directing him on how to film them, um, what to do, teaching him the lip syncs, telling him the idea behind it, like explaining what the trend is, um, and then filming them and posting them, and then for content, just sort of like bugging him all the time, being like, uh, I need pictures, you need to like fill this drop box with pictures that we can post, um, and then getting captions from him. He loves writing his own captions, so that's something that he does. Um, other clients, you're writing captions for them and having them approve it, stuff like that.

Um, and just like making sure that social media looks good, is cohesive. Sometimes you're creating a brand from scratch, which is really fun. I worked on the musical Little Black Book earlier during um a couple months ago and that's an amazing album you should listen to it but it had like no branding it was brand new and um so me and the other social media manager Carly Heitner had to come up with like the colors, the fonts, what the graphics would look like, what the vibe of the social media was gonna be uh fully from scratch. So that's always really fun. That's like it's a lot more work but it's really fun to do. I did that on Love and Hate Nation too. There was not really a set brand at that point um in time and so I came up with like the visual aesthetic and the language that we use in social media for that show.

Um and that's always sort of a really fun part of it but it really varies day to day and depending at on who the client is and what point in the process you're in obviously if you're leading up to like something like an opening night or you're trying to sell tickets it's gonna be the content's gonna be focused on different things than if it's just like what we sort of call evergreen content. So like what I do for Joe is evergreen it's just you know to maintain his social media um and you know entertain fans and gain followers and stuff like that.

[13:47] Bailey Ford: So for those who might want to be starting social media campaigns for their theater or anything online where they need to gain an audience what tips would you have to starting that organic process of social media management? Because I know that some people don't want to spend money on it.

[14:02] Bailey Ford: Totally. Yeah, I mean, I honestly I think like just doing it is the best way to learn how to do it. Um, like I said, if I go back and look at like the original Be More Chill stuff, I'm like, what was I doing? But it worked because um you see what people like the great thing about social media is once you post it, you see if it gets likes, if it gets comments. If it doesn't, then you know you have to adjust. If it does, then you're gonna tailor more content um to that theme or idea or visual or whatever. Um I think that's a great way to get started following and like looking at accounts that you really like and respond to, I think is awesome. Uh, so if you like love what Hamilton does with their social media, like look at it from a more strategic angle and be like, what are they doing that I like so much that makes me like want to see the musical and makes me want to like and comment on all of their stuff. Um, and that's a really great way to uh sort of get started is emulating the social media channels that you really like.

[15:03] Bailey Ford: Um, and then on a more technical side, like just like having your own social media is great to learn stuff. I feel like um I don't have very many followers on my TikTok. I don't like use it in that way, but I do use it to sort of like you know, try new things and see what the trends are, and you know, if you're a social media manager, you have to know what's going on in social media. You have to be like a huge consumer of it, which I know some people find exhausting and it's like you know, they find it to be sort of toxic for them, and I think like that's someone who shouldn't be going into social media, you know. Like we get paid to do social because there's so many people that hate doing it themselves, but it's like a necessary evil in their lives, and that's so that's another great way, and then also like learning Photoshop, I think is really smart.

Um, learning Canva, taking like design classes, uh learning what like video editing apps work for you. I don't necessarily think there's a specific one that you have to be using for you know, short form content. Um, but just like messing around with all of that stuff is really important and a great way to learn. And like I always I'm also a proponent of always like interviewing people that you like look up to. I think that's great. Um, and that has definitely like led me to some of my mentors and just like helps open your eyes sort of to behind the scenes. I think most people are willing to talk.

[16:31] Mason Bray: Absolutely. Um I know that I've relied on Google and YouTube and some of the past people I've talked to about marketing to learn about social and digital marketing. Um, and they all collectively have told me to find a niche, find that perfect audience, but I haven't really found answers of how to reach that perfect audience. So do you have any tips to pass on?

[16:51] Bailey Ford: Yeah, I guess like as far as finding a niche, like I don't know, this is definitely like a tricky thing that I think a lot of social media managers and influencers and people who work in social media struggle with because like you wanna find a niche, but you also want to appeal to a lot of people. And I think like your niche can change over the years. So if you're just putting out content that like is important to you, I think that's um kind of the best way to do it, and then going from there if you're able to um like tag on to something else, if that makes sense. So like when I was working on Be More Chill, that was like such an intense part of my like digital identity. Um and that helped sort of grow my following a little bit, which is not something I care about that much, but it did help.

And so if you're able to tag on to something that even if it's just like Broadway in a general sense and like talk about it a lot and tweet about it a lot and put out content often, I think you're gonna find the audience that you want to find. Especially if you're doing a lot of quality I think like you you have to do quality and quantity to be honest. Like I know that's not what anyone wants to hear because it's so much work to make a TikTok but like you have to be putting content out all the time and it has to be like high quality content that people want to follow and like having a unique voice and a unique um you know point of view and angle and I think being excited about stuff um is so great.

Especially I think there's a lot of like bitterness in social media. So to me like if you can be positive and be enthusiastic um in the way that you talk about what you love like I think that's really great and really appealing to so many people because it helps you stand out in this sort of you know bitter echo chamber that social media can become sometimes.

[18:53] Mason Bray: That's amazing. Is there anything that you wish you would have known going into this career that's not talked about enough?

[18:59] Bailey Ford: Oh gosh I don't know I mean I I think like just I I guess I wish I had like more formal training on it honestly um I wish like there were colleges that had social media degrees. I know there's some but like not very many, and a lot of it you just like learn on the fly. Um, and I think that's part of it is just like having training would be amazing, but also beyond that, like knowing that nobody knows what they're doing when they start out social media, and that like everybody's just kind of like trying and seeing what hits, like there's no magic formula. I think that's the thing that like a lot of people look at TikToks, and there's a lot of like TikTokers or Instagram people who literally make a living on like trying to sell you that there's like this formula, or like hop on this particular trend because that's gonna make you go viral.

And like the truth is no one knows, like you can't you cannot guarantee results on social media unless you're buying, you know, follows, buying likes, or promoting things, but like it's just trial and error, and it it always is gonna be like with organic social, and just knowing that that that's what it is, I think is really helpful. Um, because I think it's easy to get caught up in like this step by step. This is how I'm gonna, you know, be able to get followers, and it's just not that easy, and it's not that straightforward. Um, so knowing that like not every account you run is gonna be like the most popular viral account, but it doesn't have to be it like I run social media for a restaurant, and it's like we don't need to have you know a million followers, we just need to hit the people that live in the area that that restaurant's in that are wanting to try new food and like generate business.

[20:45] Bailey Ford: The goal is not always like follows and comments and engagement necessarily.

[20:51] Mason Bray: Yeah, so something that I know that I struggle with when posting for my podcast, but also the people around me is anxiety while posting and being too scared of posting stuff. Does that ever happen to you?

[21:01] Bailey Ford: And it does that still happen.

[21:03] Bailey Ford: Oh yeah, no, for sure. It's gotten better over the years. I used to get really, really anxious whenever I was posting on like the Be More Chill account or Joe's account or someone's account with especially a bunch of followers. I think that's like the most terrifying thing because I was always afraid of posting something incorrectly or on the wrong account. But I think just like practice and doing it constantly has helped with it honestly. And as far as like posting for myself, like I definitely get nervous about that. We're all nervous of people judging us. We're all nervous of like, you know, the content not being good enough. But the alternative is that there's no content and having something I think is always better than nothing.

So I try to remember that. And like not every post is gonna be your best post but at least you're putting something out there which is gonna help the algorithm is gonna help people see you. And I think like remembering that you're your harshest critic. So like you're like, oh that picture's not good like I don't look good in this picture or like I don't know this post is sort of dumb. But like the people who follow you follow you for a reason and are interested in you and they want to see you. They want to see your face they want to hear what you have to say and they're interested in that and like they're not judging the way you look like that's just not what's happening for the most part and if it is then like that's their problem you know what I mean but truly like people are interested in you and want to hear what you have to say and you know see what you're up to.

I think that's a good thing to remember. And as far as like I don't know if this is an issue for anyone but my biggest thing is always like I'm afraid I'm gonna post on the wrong account. And so I've really gotten into the habit of like every time I'm leaving Instagram or TikTok or Twitter or anything where I have multiple accounts, I go back and make sure I like set it back to my account, even if I'm just like leaving it to look at an email to look at the copy that I'm gonna be posting, just so that like you don't forget like where you were, I guess if that makes sense, and then like, you know, I just like I'm terrified of posting my own content on like Joe's account or something like that.

And just having like those little rituals that make it a little more tedious, but are like ultimately I think that's lowered my anxiety a lot because I trust myself to know that like if I'm going into the app it's gonna be my account. Like I always do that.

[23:37] Bailey Ford: I don't know. That happens to me a lot on TikTok. I'm logged into three different TikToks. My own TikTok, podcast TikTok, and then also my high school Thespian Troop TikTok. I'm doing that.

[23:48] Mason Bray: So yeah, that does happen.

[23:51] Bailey Ford: Yeah, and it's scary. I don't know. That's the thing that like really gets me anxiety. So like making sure to always set it back, like reset it back to my own account has helped so much. So coming back to the world of Broadway and being back in New York in a living New York, what are you excited to see on the social media side, but also in theater in general?

[24:14] Bailey Ford: Yeah, I mean, I am so excited about like the rise in TikTok. I think it's such a cool platform and I think it's such a great way for shows to create content because you know it feels like a very video feels like a very natural content space and type of content for Broadway shows to do. And so I'm really excited to see shows open up again. And you know, TikTok is explosively like so much more popular than it was in March of 2020. So I think a lot of shows are gonna sort of pivot to that, and that'll be really exciting. I think it'll be a fun way to like engage actors and to come up with content that doesn't include actors because we can't always rely on them. But showing, you know, behind the scenes and like cool stuff about the theaters and cool stuff about New York in general, in the Broadway sphere is really exciting to me in terms of Broadway coming back on the social media side.

And then I mean, in general, I just like I want to see all the shows. I really want to see like Six. I'm really excited for that one. I'm excited to see some of the new plays that are out. Like, I just I wanna see everything, honestly. It's all super exciting to me.

[25:32] Mason Bray: And I'm gonna add a question in here. What are your thoughts on live streaming the opening numbers? Like I know Lion King did it a few weeks ago, Waitress did it. What are your thoughts on that?

[25:41] Bailey Ford: Yeah, I honestly I really love it. It's an interesting thing that I remember, I think one of the first times that I really realized how social media can be married to theater in such a cool way, was on Waitress's opening night, like original opening night way back a lot of years ago. They did Snapchat coverage of it, and it was so cool. I think they live streamed or not live streamed, but they posted a couple numbers from the show and like their final bows, and then a bunch of like red carpet and party content, and then you know, it's Snapchat, so it disappears 24 hours later. And I just thought that was the coolest thing because it's like fleeting in the same way that like theater is fleeting.

Obviously people can save it and record it and like people do do that but like it's not meant to be consumed that way so everyone who's consuming it knows that it was live at one point and I just think it's a good way to include you know people who aren't there that night and let people in. We do it a lot with Joe's shows. It's really fun to live stream because it's fun to see the comments it's fun for people to interact. Yeah I think it's great. I think it's such an awesome and smart like social media move on show's parts.

[27:04] Mason Bray: Absolutely. So we talked about your education and also your experience how that affected you learning and you wanting to have more of an education behind social media. But which do you think fueled your career more in the theater? Education or experience?

[27:18] Bailey Ford: Oh I mean definitely definitely experience fueled like my social media career because I didn't get a ton of education in that like in school but I loved my experience in college I studied creative writing as my minor and that is so helpful being a good writer is such a huge part of social media because you know we're doing you're writing copy all the time you're writing tweets captions stuff like that which is great and helpful to have that writing background and I also am like really thankful for my arts management education because it taught me so much about how like nonprofits work, which is such a huge part of you know the theater industry and the arts industry in general. And I have such a good basis for that.

So when I work with nonprofits, which I have, with like Two River Theater, for example, like I know what to expect from that and I can understand and appreciate everything that goes on behind the scenes. And I think it's just helped like from a business standpoint to know like numbers and accounting, especially as a freelancer, like there's been so much accounting and like taxes and number crunching, all of that stuff, realizing like trying to figure out how much I should charge based on how many hours it takes me to do something and also like laying into it like the experience that I have and stuff like that. It's been really helpful to have like that basis for you know how to do all of that.

So I loved I loved my college experience and very much recommend Weldon Wallace's arts management program for people who are like interested in it. There's not very many programs like it in the country and I think it's really great.

[29:13] Mason Bray: Yeah.

[29:15] Bailey Ford: Um is there anything else that you want to add any more advice that you want to give before we start to wrap up the episode?

[29:21] Bailey Ford: Oh gosh, I don't know. I mean the advice that I always give to people is to find like a mentor who is a few steps ahead of you in their career who is as equally interested in you as you are in them. That's really important to me I think someone who you can like talk to open and honestly about what you're going through career wise helping you make decisions they're giving you opportunities my first mentor for sure was like Jen Tepper who really guided me through that like high school to college transition and like helped me get my foot in the door in the industry in general and I still look to her for career advice I've had so many like subsequent mentors my boss on Be More Chill her name is Michaela Brewster she's an amazing social media manager she's definitely like my social media mentor someone I still go to to ask questions about things or you know bounce ideas off of in terms of new jobs that I'm getting how much should I charge blah blah blah blah stuff like that.

I think it's really important to have those people because they'll give you the opportunities, they'll recommend you, they'll introduce you to the right people and connections are just so much more important than you know being good at the job most of the time honestly there's a ton of people who are equally as good at the job but you know knowing people is what gets you the job for the most part.

[30:53] Mason Bray: Yeah. Well that's all the questions that I have. Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for agreeing to do this.

[30:58] Bailey Ford: Of course I love it.

[30:59] Mason Bray: Yeah it's awesome.