Beatport is an online music store that specializes in electronic dance music and culture. Founded in 2004, the site boasts some impressive social media stats. In the past year Beatport has seen a 67 percent increase in referral visits and a 52 percent increase in gross referral revenue from its Facebook page. They are also hold the number one spot for a non-artist DJ brand on Klout.
Beatport’s CEO Matthew Adell shares his tips for creating authentic content that is convenient, sharable, engaging and boosts future transactions. He also touches on the importance of using social networks to cultivate lasting relationships and gain insights that will help you improve the over-all user experience of your site.
Here are Beatport's tips for producing valuable content on social media:
Good social media is sharable
Matthew Adell compares social media to dance music: a mash up of elements that creates a new form of expression. He also uses this metaphor to judge the quality of the social media that they are producing: “Additional value is created when it is shared or reproduced,” Adell said.
Focus on value
Be good to your consumer and recognize what is important to them. “When we look at the business model we really have to think about what is important to the user. To be successful you may need to take a smaller profit margin. We focus on scale and value as opposed to thinking about how much cash we can generate,” Adell said.
Create context around your content
Creating a defined context can help small companies outweigh the convenience of large companies. “There remains opportunity in the media space, even against the main players, if you are willing to understand your user and create the appropriate content. This context can outweigh competitor’s convenience,” Adell said. To illustrate his point he used the example of iTunes vs. Beatport: iTunes has the convenience of being in your pocket but Beatport has a curated selection with more specialized categories like Psy-Trance, Deep House and Glitch Hop that helped them to build a loyal audience.
Bring this content directly to your audience
Because today’s media is so dispersed, you have to build your content and bring it directly to your audience. To do this you must understand their consumption model and find out where they are active online. “It makes little sense to believe that you can build something and they will come. What you have to do is build many things and bring it to your audience. Most people consume media when it reaches a certain level of popularity in their social circle,” Adell said.
