How Can We Connect?

By DiDi Turley

I’ve heard countless opinions on social media and its role as a marketing tool for opera companies. For some, it seems insurmountable to make content that makes such a stereotypically-snobby artform read as shareable, meme-able, and relevant to the chronically-online Gen-Z and Millennial generations. For others, it seems like a natural fit (but it toes the line of relevance, and risks including too much inside baseball to go viral). 

While there have been countless discussions online and behind marketing teams’ closed doors about social media and opera, the tug-of-war on beliefs continues, and it’s time we sort it out. What I’m getting at is this: social media, as a marketing tool, can be daunting for opera companies. It can also spark a lot of interest and conversation around the artform, and if done well, can catch the ever-fleeting attention of younger generations and rekindle opera audiences across the industry. 

Easy peasy. Go forth and make Reels.

Kidding, of course. You’re probably wondering, how do we do it “well” without “hello fellow kids”-ing our audiences away? The simplest way is to find a Gen-Z self-proclaimed social media goblin with a niche passion for your company’s brand of opera. Those are hard to come by, though, and some companies might have trouble trusting their image to a 23-year-old caffeine addict with a Canva Pro account and a dream (a totally fair concern). Others might not see any value in it, or think that social media is a task best saddled onto the nearest marketing associate as a fun side-project. Wherever your company falls on the matter, here are some things to consider moving forward with social media as a tool for opera marketing:

Opera is funny! Even tragedies!

We live in dark times, and as a society, we crave bits of levity to get through the day. For the chronically online, this levity comes as memes, ironic posts about the world burning, and performing the odd viral TikTok dance while tears visibly well up in our eyes. For those that have actually seen sunlight in the past 48 hours, this levity might come from a video of a dog confused by being put into a cone of shame, or even meeting an actual dog on your walk home from the bus stop and finding out that its name is Sirloin. The throughline is that people can find humor in anything — even opera. When building content around your productions, sit back and think about what makes you chuckle about this production. Is the concept of Rodolfo missing Mimi’s death because he was singing at the audience morbidly hilarious to you? Me too. Now go find a way to post about it.

Young people live for aesthetics. Some of those aesthetics come with hobbies.

Ballet core has hair ribbons, Debussy, and the color baby pink. 

Dark Academia has used books, black coffee, and an appreciation for the classics. 

Gossip-Girl core has plaid skirts and a love of high art mixed with partying. 

All of these aesthetic communities can see the appeal of going to the opera, if you take the time to show it to them. Gen-Z’s love of identifying with an aesthetic makes it much easier to connect. By outlining how a trip to the opera fits into their aesthetic, you are planting the seed for them to buy their own ticket. This strategy can go even further if you encourage your current younger audience members to use a hashtag or tag you directly in their posts/stories. I recommend lobby signage with your social handles or a hashtag. This way, you can share these posts, gain interaction and followers, and demonstrate that the opera is the place to be for every ballet core, dark academia, gossip girl with crippling main-character syndrome.

Brand familiarity brings about brand loyalty, if done well.

This is a fundamental rule of marketing. The more you expose someone to your brand, the more they learn to trust that brand. This is relevant because not all of your posts need to be your magnum opus editing project. Simply being consistent and shareable can go a long way. By consistently tagging your artists’ social media accounts, using industry hashtags like #meetopera, and cross-posting feed posts and reels to your stories, you get your name in front of people much more frequently, and that name starts to stick with them.

People don’t know much about opera - take them behind the curtain!

Fellow young marketers: this is probably the easiest form of content to sell to your bosses. There’s so much about our industry that we see as an everyday occurrence that others would see as mind-bogglingly magical. Taking people into the rehearsal process through takeovers, videos, and information dumps through graphics or tutorials can entice them to come and see things happen live. It's also a great way to show off more niche aspects of your productions. The Metropolitan Opera nailed this with the spotlight they placed on the use of jugglers in Akhnaten. The Royal Ballet does this wonderfully by showing ballerinas’ perspective from the wings. What we do is incredible (and often absurd). People want to see how we do it. 

Lastly, 

A lazy clip can gain you endless traction. 

Traction makes the algorithm highlight your other posts to people, including that production picture you just shared with a discount code in the caption. It doesn’t take a lot to get viral amounts of internet traction. My first viral video came from a fish-eye lens shot of a horse backstage and a joke about him pooping on stage. The bar is not as high as you think it is. If something funny happens in rehearsal, and one of your artists caught it on their phone, ask if they would be comfortable sharing it for social media. Promise to credit and tag them. Share it with your hashtag block and throw a trending audio over it. It can be that simple. There should, of course, be a balance between lazy posts and curated content — they feed into each other. However, a classic silly video can be the best way to rake in a massive amount of new followers — followers that didn't even know you existed until they saw the sick wipe-out your Papageno had during act 1 of The Magic Flute tech dress rehearsal.

Ultimately, social media is a tool that can be engaged with as much or as little as you want. If you want it to impact ticket sales, though, it takes consistent posting, relevant content, and a willingness to not take yourself so seriously! Mozart could wrestle with the complexities of society in a way that wasn’t too heavy, and so can young people today. Mozart loved a good fart joke, and so do young people today. It’s easy to connect the world of opera with young people.

We just have to be willing to learn their language.