Aura Music Academy is a music education centre dedicated to inspiring our students through fun, innovative and exciting music tuition.
Based in Altrincham they opened in 2016 and have been a firm favourite with parents and children ever since
Social Media has been their most powerful form of marketing over the past 4 years and we talk about some of those success stories
Q: For those readers that haven’t heard of Aura Music – would you like to fill us in your story and why you chose Altrincham?
Aura Music Academy is an exciting and innovative music education centre based in Altrincham Town Centre. I’ve always had a passion for making music accessible to everyone and having played piano since the age of five, I know first-hand how music can shape lives from an early age and stay with you throughout adulthood. It was during my studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester that I had the idea of creating a fun and accessible music school which provides expert tuition in an encouraging and engaging environment. And so, Aura Music Academy was born!
We chose Altrincham for two reasons – 1) It has a large number of fantastic schools in the area 2) We found our studio building for sale in December 2015 and it was love at first sight!
Q: About 4-6 weeks before you opened in Altrincham we had our social media training session with you. Had you had any marketing experience before this and why did you feel it was important to understand social media before doors had even opened?
I hadn’t had any marketing experience at all before the training with Altrincham HQ. Of course, I’d done some research but it was definitely the area of the business I felt the least confident on. Social Media plays such an important role in the marketing of all businesses and I knew that I had to get it right to help spread the word of our opening.
Q: What were your big takeaways from that social media training session back in the day?
Apart from some technical advice such as using Hootsuite to schedule our tweets, the biggest takeaways were to make your content relevant and to ensure that the people who ‘like’ your pages are potential customers. There’s no use having 10,000 followers on Facebook if 90% of them don’t live in Altrincham and aren’t interested in music lessons.
Q: Sometimes you can get instant wins from social media. Often it can be a long term marketing plan. Can you remember the 1st moment you won a client through social media?
Actually, one of my biggest regrets within the first year was not asking our clients how they found us. I was so focused on getting the students booked into the diary, that I forgot to do my marketing research. I’m sure that we had lots of students who found us via social media during the first year, however it was when advertising our group half-term classes in February 2017 that I first realised the power of social media marketing – 100% of our students came from social media marketing for those classes.
Q: You mentioned a drum tuition video that won a new client within 15 minutes of going live. Would you like to tell us more about that?
We like to give out free content and advice to our followers, so often we post tutorials from our tutors. One of our drum tutors, Kieran, recorded a fun video showing how you can practice the drums at home without a kit (using pillows, pot and pans). Within 15 minutes of the video going live on our Facebook page, we received a phone call from a parent asking to book in for lessons specifically with Kieran.
Q: You recently surveyed your students / parents about how they found out about Aura music and after personal recommendations Social Media came in number 1 position. Would you like to tell us more about that and did it surprise you?
Yes, this really surprised me. I knew that social media was an important factor in our marketing plan, but I hadn’t realised just how many students and parents had found us via our social media platforms. Whilst a lot of these parents and students don’t frequently interact with our platforms via likes/shares etc, they are obviously watching and are impressed with what they see.
Q: Which social media platform works best for you? And why?
This is a really hard question, as all three platforms that we use work for different reasons.
Facebook is great for interaction with parents/students and local community groups.
Instagram is really good for sharing our news with local music groups, professional musicians in the area and other music tutors.
Twitter is my favourite for keeping in touch with everything going on in Altrincham, chatting to local businesses and signing up to local events.
Q: You’ve been open for 4 years now – how do you keep social media interesting for both yourself and your audience?
This is a challenge for us, although we’re constantly updating our tuition services and growing with more and more tutors and students joining our school so we usually have lots to share each week. We try to share a mixture of student success, tutor tutorials and fantastic reviews from parents/students.
Q: You teach. You manage the business. You recruit other teachers. How do you find time for social media and make it part of your day?
I’m not perfect and you can tell when I’ve had a busy few days as our social media channels do become quieter! I try to incorporate some social media time into my schedule every morning so that I’m keeping up to date. I also have my assistant manager, Nicóla, often helping with the social media posts too.
Q: One area that you’ve moved into is Studio Rental. A new audience and source of income. How has social media helped with that?
This is where Instagram has been really important for us. We’ve reached a whole new audience of professional musicians via Instagram who require studio space for rehearsals and recordings. We’ve had a number of professional musicians use our studios over the past few months and they then share their rehearsals/recordings on their own Instagram pages (usually tagging us) and we’re getting lots of enquiries from other professionals who have seen us via the Instagram posts.
Q: Lastly – for people who have read this and want to get in touch, what is the best way? And what are your socials?
At the moment our studios are closed due to the 2nd lockdown, so the best way to contact us is either via message/DM on our social media platforms or via email (info@auramusicacademy.com). Our socials are:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuraMusicAcademy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/auramusicuk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auramusicacademy/
Photos by Nicola Pass Photography: http://www.nicolapassphotography.co.uk/
NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you
Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
We offer Social Media Training on
* LinkedIn
* Instagram
* Facebook
* Twitter
* Blogging
We can do this
* 121
* Corporate Workshops
* Group Workshops
* Face to Face or Via Zoom / Skype
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
