Social Media Manager for an A Cappella Group

           

My younger brother is in an all-boys college a cappella group called the Originals, an award winning group full of talented vocalists. Music is his passion and he strives to be a leader in anything he is involved in. He recently took on the position of social media manager for his group. When I asked him about his experience, he had a lot to say!

“As social media manager, I am in charge of making sure that our group has a strong online presence. In order to maintain an active fanbase and attempt to keep our name present and relevant in the collegiate and contemporary a cappella scene, social media is incredibly important. Our main forms of social media are Facebook and Instagram (follow us @cmuoriginals for dope music), and I use both of those to update our followers and the a cappella community on the ongoings of our group. This includes all sorts of events in our group, from members' birthdays to gigs to performances to national competitions. There are low-key events in which I can do a quick post on Facebook, and there are also events of greater importance in which I am posting quite frequently. This semester, these high-key events include our album recording and our competition over the past weekend. All in all, it's all about maintaining group identity and presence!”

I went on to ask him more specifically about what he has learned about social media and I was happy to hear he has discovered some things we’ve touched on in this class:

“In terms of branding, my group actually has a specific idea of what our brand is- classy, confident, honest. Therefore, when I am creating posts, I have those three words in mind, and I make sure that I stay true to those words. A lot of my posting has been about big opportunities that our group has had, and so I also am very deliberate about being gracious, so that both our followers and those who provide us with our opportunities know how much we appreciate them. I think ensuring that our social media presence is characterized with being genuine is one of the things I try hardest to maintain. Another thing I've learned is that our presence should be relatively constant, but not too constant. I try to only do posts on Instagram when we have a gig or a performance. I use Facebook a little more- that's where we post about members' birthdays and also where we can share any posts that mention us or advertise important opportunities/performances/festivals. A great tool that I love to use is Instagram stories. It's a short post that doesn't require a lot of time of anything elaborate on my part. It could just be a picture of a new piece of music, or a video of the group at rehearsal. This can serve an easy, short reminder to all of our followers that we are indeed around, even if we don't have anything big going on. I also use stories to post multiple updates in a day for big events like gigs and competitions.”

Hearing all of this I was super proud of my brother, who’s had limited guidance, for catching on quickly to the tools and trends we have learned this semester.

Have you ever been social media manager for an organization? If so, what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned?