The Voice’s Alison Haislip Talks Twitter, Contestants, and Coaches

 Last week, NBC’s The Voice kicked off the third stage of it’s vocal competition with the live shows. This week we find out which two members from Team Blake and Team Christina advance, as well as see Team Adam and Team Cee Lo take the stage for the first time during the live show.

Alison Haislip, The Voice’s social media correspondent spoke with the press last week about how her role on the show is changing now that The Voice has gone live, how important it is for the contestants to connect with their fans via social media, and what she thinks about the reports on the lack of critiquing from coaches Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, and Cee Lo Green. 

Haislip has a unique opportunity as the show’s social media correspondent to connect with fans through Twitter and other social media outlets as a way to encourage their participation in building The Voice contestants’ individual fan bases, connecting with the contestants, and most importantly, voting. Haislip feels like the excitement to participate has grown, since fans realize that they can get their questions/comments shown on the air.

“I had so many people hitting me up with all sorts of questions from, you know, how did Lily feel about her performance to where did Raquel get her shoes. So we were trying to acknowledge as many of them as we could,” Haislip said.

For fans that want their tweets to show up on the air, Haislip commented that the more specific the tweet is, the better chance it will have of appearing onscreen.

“You know, we get so many generalized tweets of just people saying I love the show or I love Frenchie, things like that. But the tweets that we – at least the tweets that we used last night were the specific ones, the ones that were like, you know, ‘Lady Marmalade’ gave me chills and, you know, those kind of things. Like the ones that just had a bit more to them that would lead to more excitement on the show,” she said.

As much as it is important for Haislip to encourage fans of the show to interact on different social media platforms, it’s just as important for the contestants to engage with their fans. Haislip said contestant Raquel Castro is probably the most Internet-savvy, due to her age, where as Jared Blake and Patrick Thomas had issues logging in to their accounts from a tablet; Haislip shared that she had to help them out. She thinks that it’s crucial for the contestants to utilize social media, especially for contestants getting their second shot at a singing career.

“Some of those artists who are being given a second chance on the show have said that the reason they didn’t have their first chance is because labels or managers or whoever it was said that they just did not have a strong enough online presence, like they did not have a big enough fan base online to get, you know, to get their news out there. So this is a show that’s really embracing that and regardless of what happens to these artists, like regardless of who wins the show, everyone who is on the show has got a huge leap forward because of the social media aspect of it,” Haislip said.

According to Haislip, Frenchie Davis, a contestants who considers The Voice to be her second chance, was probably the most nervous during last Tuesday’s live show.

“You can tell that this means a lot to her and that she was – like, she wasn’t messing around backstage,” Haislip shared.

“When I first walked into the V Room and all the artists were sitting there I was like there are nerves in this place. I think it was the first time that the artists realized how big the show was going to be that night and they all had their game faces on. Normally they’re all like really happy and goofing around and like best buds and last night they were just like in the zone to perform.”

At one point Haislip was asked about the coaches and their critiques, reacting to reports that coaches refuse to say anything negative about their singers. Haislip addressed this saying, “Well, you know, they haven’t been told that they can’t say any critical but I think it’s part of the show the fact that they are their coaches and they are mentoring these people that they’ve come to care about these artists. And it’s a different beast when you aren’t put up there as their judge, jury, and executioner. When you’re put up there because you’re supposed to be coaching them you’re obviously going to give them criticism in a different way.”

“And I believe that more of their critiques come during the rehearsal process, during those sort of behind-the-scenes moments that we get throughout the show as opposed to after the actual performance. Because once the performance is done, you know, it’s in America’s hands at that point.”

When asked about her interaction with the coaches Haislip said that her dressing room is set up with them and that the vibe is that of “a summer barbeque.”

“Blake just always leaves his door open and is like kicking it with his buddies in there. Carson’s always blasting music. I mean, everyone’s just kind of friendly and out there and really excited to be doing what they’re doing. It’s kind of got this cool kind of summer camp feel to it,” she said.

So which one of her fellow summer campmates would she want to sing a duet with?

“Honestly I think I would want to duet with Blake just because he and I have this fantastic kind of witty repertoire in person that I feel like that would translate into a song as well.”

The Voice airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on NBC.