Marketing & Technology Meetup Recap: Social Media Series Part 1

On Thursday, July 1, the American Booksellers Association held the first in a five-part social media series (a merging of its Marketing and Technology Meetups), with this session focusing on “Need-to-Knows and Best Practices.”

Guest speakers included:

• Isis Asare, Sistah Scifi (online)
• Christina Ciampa, All She Wrote Books (Somerville, MA)
• Claire Phelan, Third Place Books (locations in Washington)

Here are some of the key points from the session:

• When starting out with social media marketing, set goals for your store. Do you want to build a community online or a more dedicated following? Do you want to use it to boost sales this year? Setting goals can help you come up with content.
• Stay organized with a social media calendar that plans out posts for each specific platform and when you want to run them. Scheduling services like Hootsuite can also streamline the posting process.
• Use each platform to target different audiences. Tailor content to the demographic that engages the most on each specific platform and post on a regular basis.
• Facebook, for example, is useful for reaching local audiences, which makes it an ideal choice for promoting events. Facebook also has a Groups option that allows users to join groups based on specific topics and niches, like book clubs or sci-fi/fantasy books, which can help you foster community online.
• When posting, think of social media as a two-way conversation. Respond to comments, repost from other users, and engage as much as possible.
• Experiment with your content. High-quality videos tend to do the best in terms of user engagement, but get creative and use an analytics tool (whether its the free tool within the service you're using or a paid tool like SproutSocial) to see what’s working.
• Across platforms, tag authors and publishers as much as possible. This will expand your reach and optimize your social media presence.

The session closed with an extensive Q&A about growing a following, crossposting content, and more. Booksellers can view a recording of the session and access handouts on the Education Resources page on BookWeb.org. Handouts include detailed information on each platform as well as top tips from each bookseller.