Brianna Cox '20
I was shopping for snacks at Target when our president, Brigid Lucey ‘18, called me and offered me the position of Social Media Chair for the next year on the Chorus Council. I answered cheerfully and accepted the position, but inside I was thinking about how social media chair was not even my 3rd choice for officer positions. Later, I thought to myself, “Posting on Facebook and Instagram is actually going to be lit, and it fits in so well with being a communication major.” Little did I know that the job would be so lit, I would be excited to do work almost daily from the day I officially became Social Media Chair.
Continuing the work of my predecessors, Kathryn Miller ’19 and Megan Larkin ‘17, I started out simple. But the first time I read through the Social Media Chair log in its entirety, I realized that this position was much more than posting on social media. (FYI: An officer log is a Google document on the officer email’s Google Drive that explains everything that needs to be done in the position and how to do it.) Writing my first Advisory Council report allowed me to flesh out my goals for the position. One of the goals I wrote was, “showing the world who we are: an outstanding treble choir, a student-led organization, and a community with the Glee Club.” How could we show people who we are if a lot of people don’t even know we exist? This is something I still think about and work on. It’s difficult because I have to somehow convey the special part of my life that is Chorus simply through social media posts. To me, increasing our presence is the biggest challenge of the position, but I love the fact that I get to tackle it and make a real impact on this organization.
As I posted more and more on Facebook and Instagram and watched notifications roll in, I was intrigued by the “Insights” button at the top of the Chorus Facebook page. I genuinely wanted to know how people were reacting to our online presence, and increasing reach and engagement was a crucial step in achieving the goal I had articulated in the AC Report. One June night, I clicked that “Insights” button and was transported to a world of statistics, marketing, and social media metrics. Since then, I have been working to figure out the best posting times and days of the week, content that our fans enjoy the most, and strategic ways to reach people outside our current fan base. I found myself creating more work like this beyond the log because I love the position so much.
One of my responsibilities for recruitment as Social Media Chair is to coordinate posts in incoming Cornell class Facebook groups. I began working with John Schafer ’18, the Glee Club Recruitment Chair, to figure out the best way to approach joint recruitment from the social media side (Chorus has two wonderful recruitment chairs, Chiara Alvisi ’20 and Marta Faulkner ’20, who work on recruitment outside of social media, such as Orientation events and talking to prospective students). Coincidentally, John is a communication major like me, and his knowledge from upper-level communications classes and his experience from being Glee Club president last year proved invaluable in creating a posting schedule. We set out to create the “perfect Internet storm” of posting frequency and content that would drive signups for auditions from the summer through O-week.
At some point, this reminded me that people do social media as a career, and it was entirely possible that with my communications degree, I could end up working in marketing for some big company just like I’ve been marketing the Cornell University Chorus. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I have the Chorus to thank for showing me an option.
Three years ago, Marissa Grill ’17 started the position of Chorus Social Media Chair. The position has evolved from the early days of posting rehearsal times on Facebook, PicStitch collaging everything on Instagram, and using hashtags galore on Twitter. It has passed through the hands of two other Chorus women before me, and after me will probably be passed to someone who will be taking their first class at Cornell this fall. But Marissa’s words in the Social Media Chair log will always ring true: “Congratulations on having the best job in the Chorus. Yea Social Media!”