4 Tips to Tune Up Your Choir’s Social Media

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that in this day and age having some semblance of a social media presence is a requirement for any organization, business, or person offering services. And yet… many choral organizations often fall short or miss the mark with their channels. This could be because they don’t see the value in investing in their socials, or maybe they buy into the stigma that high-caliber musicianship equates to boring in-the-box posts that don’t show your organization’s personality, or they just don’t know where or how to start.  

If you find yourself falling into one of these categories, I promise you, having a fun, thriving social presence can be absolutely game changing for your organization!

The common misconception about social media is that it’s superfluous; and while it can be a mindless place to gather memes and laughs after a hard day, that’s not its sole purpose at all. In fact, social media is like a second world ripe for community building, education, and enacting your mission statement in a relevant and accessible way. So if you’re itching to amp up your social presence while remaining authentic to your organization’s core values and goals, these tips will help you get started. 

1. Your mission drives your content. 

Building a social presence that is on brand and in line with your organization begins with your mission statement. Without this being strong and clear, the likelihood that all social pages, including your website, will be cohesive is subzero. Your mission statement serves as the foundation and sounding board for all your branding, content creation and ideation, and should be the thing you return to time and time again when considering what next steps to take. 

Your mission statement is also the key element to consider when developing your brand voice, or the ‘what’ you say and ‘how’ you say it across all channels. This includes tone, perspective, and your organization’s values.

Take for instance this static post from the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s instagram page promoting their performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana.

While the graphic itself is not inherently engaging, their brand voice comes across loud and clear through their caption copy and use of emojis. Their tone is approachable and informative, their perspective is that choral music is fun and interesting, and their organization’s values of being a “vocal ensemble that shares the traditional and evolving spectrum of choral music" shines through their inclusion of a new work by Reena Esmail in their programming.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s brand voice takes a different, but incredibly effective, approach in this Tik Tok video:

Highly engaging, this hilarious video spotlights the orchestra in an indirect way, but showcases the organization’s friendly and humorous tone, their perspective that classical music can be fun and doesn’t have to take itself too seriously, and uplifts their mission of bringing “wonder to the modern world”. 

Once your organization’s brand voice is established, the next step to developing a killer social presence is to…

2. Remember to use content pillars. 

A trap that many choral organizations fall into is not diversifying their feed. This can be hard to do without a structured, yet varied set of content pillars. Content pillars are foundational broad topics that your chorus content revolves around. This allows you to categorize your content internally and avoid finding yourself in a content rut. 

The tried and true content pillars I use for all my clients’ social channels include: Educate, Entertain, Celebrate, Connect, and Promote.   These five pillars provide a breadth of content possibilities that can carry your organization’s name, mission, and talent across the worldwide web.

• Educate - Educational content might include talking head videos about marginalized composers, a la the Music Ed Monday videos I’ve developed for VOX Femina Los Angeles; vocal warm ups for singers of all ages, or infographic carousels spotlighting special parts of an upcoming concert. 
• Entertain - Entertaining content could include online trends or clips of past performances, BTS clips, or even interviews with commissioned composers, singers, or leaders in your organization
• Celebrate -  Celebratory content highlights your organization’s wins, special singers or events. This could include grant announcements, meeting fundraising goals, MVP singer spotlights, or even letting the online community know that your organization was a part of another organization’s event like a benefit or a holiday program.
• Connect - Connecting content on the other hand revolves around community partners, opportunities, and outreach.

3. How to use trends.

To trend or not to trend, that is the question. Don’t think too hard, the answer is to trend. Trend away my friends! But let’s be smart about it. There is a way to partake in trends and have it be on brand for your organization. The trick? Figuring out how the trend applies to your niche.

As a choral organization, it’s likely that your niche includes being a choral music lover, valuing musicianship and good music making, and/or the life of a singer. You can use these or any other music based thing as a guiding light for gearing trending content toward your brand. 

Check out these successful examples:

• Trending Sound: Got Your Coping Skills - This sound was trending all over TikTok a while back and it seemed like every other video on my feed was some person or brand making their own version of this. For VOX, I used being a choral music lover as the thread for connecting “coping skills” to our organization’s brand.

• Trending Moment: Jennifer Lawrence “What do you mean?” - When Jennifer Lawrence asked Sean Evans, “what do you mean” after eating a spicy wing on the Youtube interview show Hot Ones, I doubt she understood just how viral it would go, but it became a meme overnight. When moments in pop culture like this happen, CapCut is on the case immediately, turning the viral moments into easy to use greenscreen templates for its users to apply their niche to. Which is exactly what the Los Angeles Master Chorale team did while using the good old, “sopranos always have the melody” joke. 
• Trending Sound: Lady Gaga - You’d have to be living under a rock if you didn’t hear the opera and classical music community’s commotion when Beyoncé dropped a sample of Caro Mio Ben in the song ‘Daughter’ on her album Cowboy Carter. In response, LA Opera used a trending sound/video of Lady Gaga raving about something to comment on the cultural moment.
• Trending Sound: Love is Blind - When Jessica delivered her iconic “you’re going to choke” line to Jimmy on season 6 of Love is Blind, the whole world snapped in approval and began using the sound across social platforms. For VOX, I decided to take a humorous approach to reading music and missing a repeat because we’ve all done it before and I knew it would appeal to other musicians.
• Trending Sound & Action: Where the Wind Takes Us - The LA Phil utilized this trend and their musicians to show a bit of personality and BTS moments, showing that high caliber musicians are human too. 
• Trending Format: Gen Z Intern Writes the Script - This trend was HUGE across social platforms and allowed organizations and companies of all sizes and missions to show the world that 1. They employ a range of generations and 2. They have a great sense of humor. When the Hollywood Bowl did this trend last summer with their director of operations, the world screamed for more Mark content! Now he’s participated in multiple videos on the channel, providing the social channel with a friendly face the people love.

When utilizing trends correctly, you can boost your organization’s engagement in ways you never imagined! Most trends are 90 seconds or less, which is perfect for getting your content pushed out on Instagram’s discover page or TikTok’s FYP (for you page), resulting in non-followers being served your content if it aligns with their niche interests.

4. Social Media as a Tool for Equity

In addition to building an online community, your social channels can and should be used as a tool for promoting equity within your organization. There’s a variety of ways to go about this but the biggest things to think about are the following:

Who are you showcasing on your platform? Whether you’re creating original content or reposting content from other creators, it’s important to think about who’s showing up in front of your followers. Are they only seeing cis-het white men and women in the content you share, or are they experiencing a variety of faces from different cultures, ethnic backgrounds, gender identities, and physical ability or two?

What are you showcasing on your platform? This kind of goes hand in hand with your content pillars, but as you’re brainstorming what content to make, consider how to be inclusive and diverse in your content outside of its ‘type’. Does your educational content include the history of marginalized composers and musicians? Are you reposting stories about disabled musicians and how they’ve adapted instruments to work for their needs? Are you dissecting the patriarchal hierarchy of theWestern canon? Does your community pillar include content uplifting local organizations doing the good work that aligns with your upcoming concerts?

Are your social platforms and content accessible? We often think of accessibility only pertaining to a present physical being such as in the concert hall, but accessibility on social platforms is just as important, especially for those who are deaf/hard of hearing and blind or have low vision. When creating graphics, make sure to run your drafts or color choices through a contrast checker to see if it’ll be easily read by someone with impaired vision. All video content should include captions for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. And video and photo content posted on socials should include a video/photo description in the caption.

Social media is more than endless scrolling, it’s an important part of an organization’s growth and survival in this day and age. My hope is that these insights help your understanding of how to navigate this digital landscape and maybe feel a little more confident. Are there places in your own organization’s social presence that could use a rework or second look? Or have you recently tried one of these tips? How did it go? Let me know below!