Jeff Dwoskin is an award-winning comedian hailing from Detroit, Michigan. He was the prestigious winner of the Dick Purtan Comedy Showcase, has been seen on Fox’s Laughs TV, and has appeared in numerous festivals. I asked him a few questions.
1. How do you describe your comedy?
I describe my comedy as ‘hilarious and not to be missed.’ To those who know me I may word that as ‘sarcastic, and dry wit.’
2. How did you get started in stand-up comedy?
In the late 90s I owned a web development company. One of the websites we did was Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle. Because of that I was aware they had comedy classes. Years after that I was working a different job and was laid off. At that job I was ‘the funny one.’ During staff meetings I would crack people up. They said, ‘You should try stand up.’ Since I had remembered the website I had done for Mark, I knew there were classes available and signed up. That was over 13 years ago.
3. You are an entrepreneur and have been very successful in the digital space. How do you balance your stand-up comedy and your “day jobs”?
I work hard to fit in both. Early on, I prioritized comedy over everything else. I missed many family events because open mics were more important to me.
4. You’re the co-founder of HashtagRoundup. Tell us about that.
I got really tired of Facebook. Posting on Facebook and getting likes or not getting likes from the same people over and over because horribly unsatisfying. A friend suggested Twitter as an outlet with greater exposure. I started to really get into tweeting and started to gain a following. Over a few years I grew from 1k to over 43k followers. As a result of my tweeting I’ve been featured in articles in almost every major publication and news outlet.
As part of my Twitter journey I discovered hashtag games. Originally the ones done by Comedy Central and Jimmy Fallon. Hashtags are a great way to focus on a premise that someone else sets and then apply your voice to it.
On Twitter there is a huge community that engages in these hashtags. I formed @HashtagRoundup and built an app also called Hashtag Roundup (free on Android and iTunes) that pushes out over 60 original hashtags weekly.
These 60 hashtags 90% of the time trend top 10 in the USA (and other countries) and collectively Hashtag Roundup on a monthly basis, via these hashtags, generates over 2 million tweets of content which has a reach of over 2 billion people. Every month!
I encourage comedians to reach out to me, or download my app, this is a great way to tap into Twitter and become someone known on Twitter.
5. You’re very active on social media. Tell us about what else you do there, and how it has impacted your comedy career.
I focus a lot on Twitter. I spend a lot less time on Facebook these days, I don’t find any gratification from Facebook. I also have @absrdNEWS and absrdcomedy.com – the twitter site is pretty active and the website is a bit stagnet right now. They were both started to help give exposure to other comedians posting news satire, etc. I had hoped absrdcomedy.com would be a platform for local comedians to have a place to publish and get exposure. It took off but then it because harder to sustain after Hashtag Roundup launched. I’m looking for folks that are interested in helping with that site.
6. You were a blogger for the Huffington Post. Tell us about that experience. How did it come about? Did your comedy play a role in it?
Blogging for the Huff Post is pretty cool. Most of my pieces are comedy related, or at least they are humorously written. The coolest thing that came out of it was I was invited to London by Gilette to cover their Rogue One partnership announcement. That was a lot of fun.
7. What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a class to help educate and teach comedians and brands/agencies how to leverage and utilize Twitter more effectively.
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