Social media has its place, but I prefer old skool posters - Kevin Buckle

My problem is when I look at what other shops do to promote themselves I can’t help but cringe and I can never see myself doing an unboxing video in which I open a box, the contents of which I already know, and then rave about how good the colour of the record is.

Avalanche Records owner Kevin Buckle at his new, larger store in Waverley Market

Even worse are the day in the life of a record shop worker videos which would be easy to parody. But one thing I have learned over the years is that any kind of sarcasm or mickey taking of a current trend on social media just doesn’t work.

I did threaten to put up a video of me on the train into work followed by me moaning about how big the queue in Greggs is as I try to buy a bacon roll but was warned many would just take it at face value.

Similarly I thought of doing a piece on having a section in the shop called “albums we definitely don’t recommend but you are going to buy anyway” but was warned it would just offend Geese fans.

To add context, Geese are a band that do sell very well but have been shown to have been massively and cleverly hyped to reach the popularity they currently have.

I did also think of trying to start my own trend and given that Sofia, who works in the shop, used to be a successful cheerleader back in San Diego before she came to Edinburgh for university, I thought she could present all the new releases in the style of a cheerleader, but for some reason she is not keen!

We already have fantastic word of mouth, which is really important to a shop and we don’t completely ignore social media. But since the demise of twitter which worked very well for us we have focused less on that.

What I have found is, if we post news of some sort on twitter, people do still see it. It is just that these days people don’t necessarily want to be seen interacting the way they used to.

However, I did agree that we should up our game and there will be more posts on TikTok and Instagram, but my main focus from now until the New Year is going to be far more old skool.

We have three spaces for large posters outside the shop which we have used but they are now going to be official poster sites with proper frames.

At the same time I have booked two poster sites in the Waverley Market food court for the next six months, taking us into the New Year, which are ideal to reach people while they eat their food and also, I have discovered, while they queue for the toilets on busy days.

With the Waverley Market having a footfall considerably over seven million people a year, while social media has its place I’m backing our posters to have the biggest influence on sales.