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January 2008 - Strategy Magazine
Media

How to make friends and influence readers
Adventures in Web 2.0 - Vol. 2

by Jesse Kohl
page 26

Last month, strategy looked at what the big banks - which have lots of marketing dough but little "story" - are doing in the social media space. In part two of this Media series, we're reviewing the strategies and tactics deployed by publishing companies. With less dough to work with but lots of story to share, they've found interesting ways to join the conversation.

Anybody who's picked up a book on how to get published knows that landing the book deal is only the first hurdle. The biggest challenge is generating attention for the new title. When you're a publisher pumping out hundreds of books per year (or just 10), each one's only getting a sliver of the marketing pie.

The solution? Web 2.0. MySpace isn't just a pixel-based stomping ground for tomorrow's bands - it's a place where authors and publishers communicate with readers. Facebook isn't just a place for posting meaningless drivel on your friends' walls - it's a platform that lets you keep in touch with book clubs via electronic groups and discussion boards.

Every book is targeting a fragment, so the social media space - where you can reach the sci-fi/fantasy crowd with a supernaturally compelling ROI - is a welcome plot twist.

Random House of Canada has been promoting its authors via social media for more than a year now. A strategy that began with microsites promoting individual books has quickly grown into a world of book-loving communities, social networking tactics and podcast-like short-form video content.

Of course, audio books on iPods and other mobile devices are a no-brainer when it comes to successful distribution of content. Those people on the subway sporting white earbuds might not be listening to the top 40 dance or R&B tracks. That late-20s guy in the suit could be listening to Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief. Maybe he bought it after a friend sent him a link to the viral clip, narrated by Coupland himself and found on YouTube.

Random House's BookLounge channel on YouTube was created over a year ago, and its content has attracted thousands of viewers. Heading into the holiday season, the channel hosted over 40 videos, including author interviews with John Irving, Alice Munro, Bill Bryson and John Grisham. An interview with Margaret Atwood got 3,858 views in one year; John Grisham snared 4,008 in 11 months; and the video for Random House's The Complete Trailer Park Boys book reeled in a whopping 23,474 viewers in eight months. The channel also drives people to the BookLounge.ca community, where more video content is available.

The September release of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine had Random House driving online users to the book's accompanying video. In three months, the clip recorded over 375,252 views and 796 comments, and was chosen as a favourite 2,041 times. That's not counting the inevitable reposts that happen on YouTube, which racked up anywhere from 18,000 to 35,000 views over the same period. When Rick Mercer Report: The Book launched this fall, it made sense for him to plug it on MySpaceTV - and in two months it racked up 7,290 plays (his channel's total plays is 52,938). For Coupland's The Gum Thief, Random House launched a series of dramatic shorts at the end of September, created by Crush Toronto. By mid-December, one of the series' nine clips had racked up 219,987 views.

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