All About Choir,

Whether you're wedded to your smartphone or you think the internet spells the end of civilisation, social media is here to stay.  My company, Total Voice, which runs choirs and vocal workshops in the south of England, has been using social media for a while now and we've learned a lot in a short time.

 

This article is by no means an exhaustive guide to using social media for choirs.  We've really only scratched the surface so far, but we've had some promising results which might be useful to you.

1.  Who do you want to talk to?

If you want to use social media for administrative purposes, to communicate primarily with your singers, a Facebook group is probably the place to start.  This will be particularly true if you are running a youth choir because all your singers are probably already using Facebook.

The advantage of using Facebook for organising your singers, rehearsals and performances is that it has built-in functions which will save you a great deal of time.  For example, when you set up an event for, say, a performance, you can invite your singers and get a "yes", "no" or "maybe" from them in reply.  You can update the group with messages and they can post queries and comments.  It's a whole lot easier than managing email lists (or even physical lists on paper - do people still do that?)

If your choir's demographic is older and/or more curmudgeonly about the internet (or specifically Facebook) there are lots of event-planning web apps that use your email list.  I'm not a Google+ user, but I imagine there's also an equivalent on that platform.

If you want to talk to past and prospective audience members, a Facebook page is also useful.  People can "like" your page, following which they will see announcements and messages from you in their news feed.  You can also post photos, audio and video of your choir, or links to external media.  A word of caution - be circumspect about what you post if you're aiming at audience members.  Firstly, make sure any media you share is of good quality.  Grainy phone-shot video is worse than no video.  Secondly, keep a close eye on the content of the page.  It's great to share in-jokes or deal with minor complaints within your choir in a private Facebook group, but on your choir's main page, you need to maintain a professional attitude.

Twitter is also great for announcements and for sharing media.  The advantage of Twitter is that you can re-post messages several times (don't overdo it though or the Twitter police might think you're spamming) at different times of the day or week to reach as many people as possible.  The disadvantage is that users tend to follow lots of people and organisations, and may well miss your tweet.

The other main network that I use is LinkedIn.  This platform is aimed at professionals and it's a great way to get in touch with all sorts of useful contacts.  It's very like Facebook in that you link to people, who can then see information about, and communicate with, you.  You can also join interest groups and engage in discussions.  In my experience, the tone is generally polite and users are keen to connect.  I find it extremely useful to canvas opinion among other conductors and workship leaders about skills and repertoire.

As I've learned over the last year, it takes time and patience to build up an online community, but the potential reward is that you have an engaged audience that wants to hear from you about what your choir is up to.

2.  What do you want to say?

If you're organising your singers on Facebook or discussing topics of interest with like-minded professionals on LinkedIn, it's pretty easy to decide what you're going to say.  If, however, you're trying to entice interest in your choir from prospective audience members, it can be tricky to get it right.

If you're posting on Facebook or tweeting, you want to get a conversation going.  Ask a question, invite opinions, comment on someone else's tweet or post a link to something that interests you.  Don't be downhearted when you don't get instant comments or responses - people are bombarded with media every day and miss a lot of it.  If you remain authentic and interested in what you're doing, you'll find that people will engage with you.  It's a process of "making friends".  You say "this is me and this is what I'm about" and hope that like-minded others want to be part of that.

To an audience of choir leaders, I'm sure this goes without saying, but always, always be courteous.  Don't forget that it can be difficult to convey tone in posts and tweets (hence the use of emoticons) and what might sound pithy in your head could sound downright abrupt to your audience.  Never troll, never post angry (or drunk!) and always re-read before you publish.

If you get unpleasant comments from others, don't feed the troll!  I've never really understood who all these people are on the internet who want to rant and rage about YouTube videos, but there are plenty of them and you might fall foul of someone's temper at some point.  Rise above it and move on, unless you can turn the experience into a fabulous song and dance number (warning - explicit lyrics).

3.  Beware the tumbleweeds!

The challenging thing about social media is that you have keep at it, particularly when you're trying to build a following.  If someone visits your Facebook page and your status hasn't been updated for a fortnight, they're going to assume that you haven't got anything going on and leave.

There's a balance to be struck here.  Don't tweet "having a nice cup of tea" just to have something to tweet, but don't let the tumbleweeds blow through either.  This shouldn't be too difficult - you're talking about a subject that (presumably) interests you.

The more you share, the more likely people are to "like" or follow you, which will gradually increase the size of the community that is engaged with you.

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