strategy & tactics
NVS Audio Style
By posting build photos on Instagram, you will be able to demonstrate the skills of your shop to potential clients. Learn how NVS Audio uses strategic tagging and striking photography to inspire new and repeat customers. WORDS BY CARLOS RAMIREZ
I opened NVS Audio in August of 2003 with only one employee and one authorized line to offer customers. We currently have five employees, and we are an authorized dealer for over 30 lines. We also have one of the nicest wood and fab shops in the entire state. When we first started, we barely made payroll each week. Now, we are blessed enough to be booked out two to three months for custom work. We moved into a bigger building in January and it’s already filled beyond capacity.
42 Mobile Electronics December 2018
We were early adopters of all the major social media platforms, but we picked Instagram as our main focus because of the almost immediate return on investment—and by investment, I mean time. Customers see our builds and screen-shot the picture, then ask us for a price via Instagram direct message. That doesn’t really happen with Facebook or YouTube, at least not for us.
Which Social Media Platform is Best? I don’t think shops should invest in only one platform. I think you should use all of them. Consider which age group
is your shop’s main focus. For example, Facebook works better for attracting 35to 65-year-olds, while Instagram works best for attracting 20- to 40-year-olds. Remember that these platforms are often changing. When they do make a change—as Instagram did a couple of years back—the change may cause the platform to not work as well for you as it used to. After the change, the rate of our growth was cut by 60 percent and our messages from potential clients were reduced by half. What makes Instagram so useful for us is the fact that it’s all about the photos
