Most classical singers, in one way or another, do more than one thing with our professional lives. Many have a day career. Others may sing different genres of music that can seem incompatible to the outside world. One way singers deal with these “multiple personalities” is to use different names, or different versions of our real names, for different aspects of our lives.
Online, as in real life, this can get complicated. Some websites won’t let you create more than one profile, and others insist that you use your real name. Signing in and out of accounts can leave many traps to accidentally “cross the streams.”
Here are a few ideas to help you navigate the sea of schizophrenia that is having a stage name.
1. Decide just how separate you want your accounts to be.
Is your stage name a dead-set secret? Will your law firm fire you if they find out you’ve been moonlighting as an opera singer? Will your parents disown you if they find out you’re using those years of expensive lessons to sing in a metal band? Or do you just want your businesses to have different branding?
It should go without saying that a more secretive separation will require many more precautions than a simple nickname. For example, don’t “retweet” or “friend” yourself. In fact, avoid having social media contacts mutual to your two personalities. You don’t want to show up in the wrong person’s “People you may know” window.
2. Create your new domain name and e-mail address first!
Many websites won’t let you create more than one account with the same e-mail address, so you will need an alternate e-mail anyway. You might as well avoid having to redirect things later on down the line by setting up the e-mail address you want first. For many people, this means getting a new domain name, so they can have a nice, unique, professional address, such as, hypothetically, amanda@notjustanotherprettyvoice.com. To avoid being that guy with five different e-mail addresses, where nobody ever really knows which one to send to, buy your domain name and set up its associated e-mail address first. (You can put up the website later, if you choose to do so.)
If you don’t want to use your own domain name, just go ahead and set up a new e-mail address at the free e-mail service of your choice, such as Gmail, Hotmail, or whatever the kids are using these days.
Finally, it’s a good idea to make sure you actually get the e-mails that are going to your new address. If you know you won’t sign in to your new account and check your messages every day, make sure they are sent to wherever you usually check your e-mail: Outlook, Apple Mail, your phone or, for the less tech-savvy, just arrange for them to be forwarded to your main e-mail address. We’ve all had people say, “Oh, sorry I missed your message—I never check that account.” You don’t want to be on either end of that communication breakdown.
3. Consider using two different browsers.
Signing in and out of each of your different accounts can be a nuisance. You might be less likely to check your blog stats, something that usually only takes a few seconds, if you have to sign out from one account and back into another. Even worse, you might forget to sign out of one account and into the other, and then tweet something that doesn’t belong.
One way to avoid this hassle and potential minefield is to compartmentalize your two Web presences to two different Web browsers. If you normally use Safari, you can keep using it with your primary set of accounts, but set up your second set on Firefox or Chrome. That way you can stay signed in to all of your accounts, and instead of signing in and out multiple times a day, you can just toggle between open browsers. This will save you time and make you more likely to keep up with accounts on both sides of the divide.
Likewise, you can use different smartphone apps for different accounts. While the Facebook scene is dominated by its official, sanctioned Facebook app, Twitter has dozens of competitors for your mobile tweeting experience. Confining one of your names to the official Twitter app and the other to Osfoora or TweetDeck can be easier to keep track of than switching back and forth between accounts.
4. Know where you can and cannot have more than one account.
It’s against the Facebook terms of service to create more than one account. People do it, of course—but if caught, you risk having all of your accounts deleted. Google+ is even stricter, actively discouraging people from using assumed names and forbidding multiple accounts. (And Google knows everything about you, so don’t expect to get away with it like you can on Facebook.) Twitter disallows “serial accounts for disruptive or abusive purposes,” but it’s permitted and even typical to have multiple accounts for different businesses. While most limitations can be worked around, it’s good to know what you’re getting into and what the consequences are if you break the rules.
5. Beware of automatic signatures.
If you have your e-mail application set up to attach a signature to each outgoing message, make sure it is turned off for your secondary account! Otherwise, you might send an e-mail from “Josephine DeSilva” on “Josie Thunder”’s letterhead. Check this from every place you send e-mails: Web-based e-mail (reading Gmail from the Gmail site), your e-mail client (Outlook or Apple Mail), and your phone. If you send personal e-mail from the office, check there too.
6. Use Google’s “Multiple sign-ins.”
While most online services allow only one account to be signed in to at a time, Google has begun allowing you to stay signed in under different accounts and to choose “who you are” at the moment from a drop-down menu. You simply have to go to your account settings and next to “Multiple sign-in,” select “On.” Every time you are on a Google page, the upper-righthand corner displays the account you are signed in under.
For example, right now I am writing this article on Google Docs, and the righthand side of the top bar reads “amanda@notjustanotherprettyvoice.com.” Next to that is a down-arrow signaling a drop-down menu, and the last option on that menu is “Switch accounts.” Selecting that option displays my other Google accounts (one with my school e-mail address and one for another business of mine).
Google’s multiple sign-in option is a great facilitator of multiple personalities. It’s very easy to forget, however, which account you’re logged in under and post something, or even send an e-mail, from the wrong handle. If you don’t want to accidentally post a video of your opera scenes program to your rock-climbing page, you have to keep an eye on the top righthand corner of your screen and make sure you know who you’re being at the moment.
Both a blessing and a curse, your accounts might not all be equally enabled. My notjustanotherprettyvoice account is powered by Google Apps, because I got in there when it was still free. (It pays to be an early adopter!) My other business account uses Gmail and other Google services but is not a Google Apps customer, so that changes what I can do with it. My school e-mail address also runs through Gmail, but it’s not enabled to set up all the same applications as my own accounts.
If you know you’ll never need to post a video as your rock climbing self, don’t even set up YouTube for that account. That way you won’t make the mistake of accidentally posting to the wrong account—one less trap to fall into.
Nearly all singers have more than one job or career, and nearly all singers need to use the Internet to market themselves. May these tips help you to keep your different worlds from colliding.
