I made my European opera debut in Italy in 2008 singing Sesto in La clemenza di Tito at the Teatro Regio in Torino. It was my first time working in Europe and my first time ever in Italy, and at times I was sure I must have been the unsuspecting star of a Candid Camera type of show. From getting lost inside the theater on the first day of rehearsal (you try getting directions in Italian on your first day that involve a lot of turns and staircases) to trying to accomplish the most basic of tasks of getting to the bank or grocery store on a free day that wasn’t some kind of national Italian holiday, my life suddenly seemed interesting and funny enough to warrant some kind of daily transcript of my experiences. So I started writing a blog.
The regular blogging went on for four years through many countries, roles, and experiences—and the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast both featured articles about my blog noting the honesty in my writing about the life of an itinerant performer. In 2012 I entered a competition for arts bloggers, won first place, and was invited to become a contributor to the Huffington Post. The wider exposure it provided allowed me to create a platform for arts advocacy specific to opera and connected me to thousands of people all over the world who read my articles about everything from the stereotypes associated with opera singers to successful artistic and business models from today’s opera companies.
When I first started blogging, the posts I wrote were often very personal. I would talk about the challenges of being lonely on the road and of facing rejection from companies or critics, as well as the desire and passion that come with being an artist. I sometimes wondered whether allowing people such a personal window into even my weaknesses would harm my career, but in the end the opposite occurred. I gained attention and made connections through my writing, which occasionally even led to singing jobs.
Through trial and error and through observation and experimentation, I learned that social media can become an additional outlet for any performer to both connect with their audiences and to get their name in front of as many people as possible. There will never be any replacement for the hard work and artistic commitment that goes into becoming your best artistic self—not even 50,000 Twitter followers will get you a job if you can’t sing the role—but social media has the power to augment your own output as a musician and performer, if you choose to harness it wisely.
With that in mind, here is my list of dos and don’ts.
Do find your voice.
I give the same piece of advice to those working on finding themselves as artists to those who want to find the best way to express themselves on social media: figure out what you have to say that is unique and capitalize on that. Just as you can easily become a cookie cutter singer with good technique and pretty dresses but not enough personality, you can also have a social media presence that doesn’t add anything to your brand because you have nothing unique to say.
You can always join Twitter and create yourself a Facebook fan page and post very little, but don’t expect social media to enhance your career in any meaningful way unless you find some interesting and positive way to make yourself heard.
Which brings me to my next point.
Do assess your strengths and interests.
What do you like? Are you a writer? A photographer? A chef? Are you incredibly interested in Baroque ornamentation or contemporary French art songs? Are you funny? If you are an expressive writer, give blogging a try. If you take interesting photos, try Instagram. If you love to cook, try sharing your recipes on your Facebook fan page. If you have a particular interest in some erudite area of classical music, maybe you can produce a podcast about it.
The main thing is that if you want to put information out into the world that will get people more interested in you, it should be information that you’re interested in sharing and that you feel you have some reason to express. The best way to gain followers is through interesting content that is in some way unique to who you are.
Do be supportive and generous.
Social media are a great place to support your colleagues and the people and companies you work with. You can do this by sharing and retweeting their posts. This continues your connections to the people in the industry that you find compelling and demonstrates to your audience the people you admire and why.
Be genuine and be kind—social media are as good a place as any to demonstrate that you are a good colleague and a caring human being.
Don’t use social media to publicize yourself and nothing else.
Unless you are already super famous, nobody will want to follow your social media platforms if you use them only to post where you will be singing and share your good reviews.
Of course you should post those things, but if you want to gain followers and have people interested in your social media presence who aren’t your grandma and your cousin, you need to balance your use of social media as a publicity tool with other information.
Do realize your personal Facebook page is absolutely a part of your professional life.
I’m constantly amazed by how much business is done through Facebook. Opera as an industry is particularly conducive to the use of Facebook because we work with people very closely for a short period of time many times per year. People in the business use Facebook to keep in touch with colleagues they get to know through a gig, but the connections bleed over and our business is small enough that almost every person has a plethora of professional contacts among their Facebook friends.
I say this to remind you that when you post something on your personal Facebook page (as opposed to your professional fan page), or even make a comment on another friend’s post, the likelihood that someone in the business that has the potential to hire you will see it is quite high. Make incendiary comments, particularly related to the opera business, at your own risk.
Don’t think that just because you posted something on your private Facebook page or in a private group that it’s private.
Nothing you post or write on the Internet is ever private, ever. Once a large number of people—even people that might be your friends—see something, it is public.
If you are a public figure (which every performer is), you are required to become more aware of what you put out into the world. And the Internet is 100 percent public, even when it’s supposedly private.
Do use social media to make professional connections.
This is a big change in the way business is now done: singers now have access to anyone in the business who uses social media. When used wisely (read: don’t pester people), social media can be a great way to interact with important people in the business who could potentially hire you. The key is to allow people to know you exist without overstepping your bounds.
Friend someone on Facebook or follow them on Twitter, but don’t send them a private message asking them for a job or an audition if you’ve never met them and aren’t friendly in real life. And don’t just start obsequiously “liking” everything they say or do in the hopes they will pay attention to you. Everything in moderation.
Do connect with and work together with the companies where you sing.
Gone are the days when a singer’s only contribution to the marketing of their performances was giving interviews set up by the PR department.
The synergy between connecting a singer’s social media platforms and those of the company where they are performing is exciting because it benefits everyone. The company benefits from the active participation of the singer, and the singer is then exposed to all of the friends and followers the company already possesses.
Do have a sense of humor.
The people who manage to find humor in this crazy opera singer life are the ones winning the Internet. The Dubsmash videos of you lip-syncing to Beyoncé in your 18th-century costumes backstage, the photos of you looking exhausted and eating a hot dog at the airport at 3 a.m. on your way to a gig, or the blog post about your experience at the laundromat in Italy are all things that humanize you and bring people along on your journey.
Social media allows the world to see that opera singers are certainly not the boring, uptight clichés that people often erroneously assume they are. Expose your delicious underbelly to the world and show them the behind-the-scenes humor that opera singers’ lives possess—which is somehow simultaneously more and less exciting than they had imagined.
