Canadian Music Trade - August/September 2017

FROM THE FLOOR... S ince taking over his family’s long-running store, Granata Mu- sic, a few years ago, Gino Granata has been doing a great job of sharing interesting and engag- ing social media posts through various platforms. While some of these pertain specifically to new products and offerings at the store, others are simply fun online finds that he shares with his audience to strengthen existing connections and forge new ones. Gino tells us about his store’s general approach to social media and the benefits it has yielded thus far. CMT: Granata Music’s social media activity has really increased since you took the helm a few years ago. In gen- eral, why is social media an important means for your store to interact with current and potential customers? GG: Our online social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give us the opportunity to promote, engage, and connect with new potential clients. For example, our music school is very colourful and vibrant and with social media, we get to showcase that. If a post gets people ex- cited about music lessons and we get a few likes and a share, it’s working. It’s important to stay up to date and keep our followers informed on all the awesome things going on in our music school. CMT: On which platforms are you most prominently engaged, and how do those various platforms work indi- vidually and together to extend your reach? GG: All the major platforms are vital. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter give us analytics to help understand which posts work and which types our audience connects with most. Our most successful Up Your Social Media Savvy account by far is our Instagram. Our follow- ers not only love to see what’s going on at the shop, but also enjoy the fa mily aspect of our small business. We find that being personable and relatable on social media is the key to getting an avid following. Q&A with Granata Music’s Gino Granata with our customers and our community. We try to emphasize the fact that, primarily, we’re musicians and we’re here because of our love for music. CMT: What kinds of posts and shared content do you find gets the most engagement from your followers? How do you use those to then promote the store and specific products or services? GG: Posting content based on current events that relate to our products gives us the most engagement. For example, we like to get personal and post in real time. The same night that Ed Sheeran joins Jimmy and The Roots in the Tonight Show Music Room to perform “Shape of You” with classroom instruments, we share it to our Facebook page and promote the print al- bum and instruments used, like the ukulele. We like to think that our music school is as vibrant and creative as these performers. CMT: What’s the overall tone you’re going for with your posts? GG: We keep our posts relevant and fresh by posting daily. If an order lands with new guitars, we post it and if an order lands with new top hits for print music, we share it. Our goal is to promote our easygoing small business with no-pressure sales tactics and to create a consistent theme relating to our brand. CMT: How much time in the typical day or week do you dedicate to social media, and beyond simply posting content, how else are you using your social platforms? GG: On a typical day, spending one to two hours on social media is our norm. We use social platforms not only to promote our music school and products but to engage CMT: Any cool stories of how your social media activities have led to pos- itive results or connections with your online community? GG: Our most successful campaign that gave us the most interaction is when we launched our new Spotlight Series in November 2016 at our store to showcase local musical talent. We had the idea late one night to help make our Sundays more entertaining. We started reaching out to local musicians and it took off from there! We transform our store into a stage, turn on the spotlights, and crank up the speakers. It’s a sweet platform for the artists and Granata Music to seek exposure and make some noise. We also found our Artist of the Month intitiative was a great way to get new people into the store, create traffic, and allow up-and-coming artists the chance to gain experience and perform. We stream these events on Facebook and Instagram Live. Check them out! CANADIAN MUSIC TRADE 9

Canadian Music Trade - August/September 2017 | Page 9