Malvern books final report

MKT 382: Digital Marketing, Professor Bentley

Social Media Consulting Project: Final Report Andrew Craig Aditya Dharod Snehin Arambhan Zac Bodner

Executive Summary Malvern Books is an off-campus (UT Austin), independent bookstore specializing in niche prints and poetry. They have an active calendar of readings and events, and consider themselves a “A Literary Community.” However, their social media presence has a few key problems. Primarily, they do not foster a sense of community online (they mostly use their platforms to market events and books in the store). Subsequently, these posts generate minimal engagement. In terms of this project, Malvern Books and their manager, Becky Garcia agreed to work with us to improve their social media presence. Using social media best practices learned in class, from Hootsuite, from guest speakers and from a bit of common sense, we formulated a few strategies to help them boost their engagement and build more of a “Literary Community” online.

Introduction Malvern books is an independent, local bookstore in Austin that specializes in visionary literature and poetry from independent publishers, with a focus on lesser-known and emerging voices. Their inventory is curated for the reader who wishes to go beyond mainstream authors, literature, and poetry while at the same time getting to know readers and writers with common reading interests in the community.

Besides selling niche literature, Malvern also provides a community space for new authors, students, and readers alike. They host readings and musical performances, and provide a friendly meeting space for book clubs. Malvern doesn’t sell coffee; although it doesn’t have anything to do with social - this would be a quick fix worth looking into.

Malvern also hosts a blog via their website where they advertise events, special offers, book reviews, small press news, local literary happenings, interviews with

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local authors, and bookstore gossip. It is updated regularly and they encourage people to participate in discussions on the forum.

From our interviews with Becky, the manager at Malvern, it was clear that they understood the importance of social media. They are currently active on three platforms -- Facebook, Instagram and Twitter -- but their accounts lack consistency, engagement and attention. These issues are further elaborated in the Audit section of the report.

Social Media Audit From our conversations with the store manager we surmised that their primary objective is to build more of a literary community. Their offline community is fairly engaged with Malvern through events organized at the bookstore. However, the same level of engagement does not translate to their online social media platforms.

They aim to expand their literary community by building brand awareness among readers and other literary communities in Austin, which they hope will increase sales.

To help Malvern achieve their objectives, our team conducted an audit of the three social platforms that Malvern uses to engage with their community. A survey (Appendix A) was sent to Malvern's existing customer base. Please note - our team sent Malvern a list of original questions to zero in on who their customers were, what their needs and challenges were, and what they would like to see added to their social media presence. Malvern modified it significantly and declined to use the questions we proposed. You can see the survey they used by clicking the link on Appendix A. As a part of the social media audit, we reviewed all of Malvern’s posts on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for the month of April (See Appendices B-E). The posts were then divided based on subject matter and purpose (whether it was marketing oriented or not). We noticed that 72% of their total content was 2

marketing oriented and 28% was non-marketing. Also, they had repetitive content/posts across their platforms. Furthermore, they were not using each platform to its respective strengths.

This excessive marketing content lead to very low engagement levels for Malvern.

Facebook and Instagram were at 2.58% while that for Twitter was as low as 0.02%.

They were not using any Call to Action buttons in their posts nor were they encouraging their customers to participate. Overall, we noticed that their most effective channel was Instagram; they have 1072 followers.

Competitive Analysis We analyzed the social media profiles of other independent, local bookstores in the Austin area, among them: South Congress Books, Monkeywrench Books, Book People, 12​th Street Books and Book Woman. Most of the posts by the competitors were similarly focused on marketing, and as a result most of them had similar low engagement levels. However, we made a few observations that Malvern should take note of.

Monkeywrench Books effectively engaged their community by re-tweeting a lot.

Whether it was customers’ posts, or posts of events and news related to the Monkeywrench community (they are an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, pro-LGBTQ bookstore), they managed to add some good value for their audience. This led to slightly higher engagement levels as compared to others. Book People did a great job of highlighting staff’s opinions and favorite books/authors/works on Instagram (most of these types of posts generated above average engagement for them).

Malvern did highlight their staff opinions, but only in-store and not via their social.

Recommendations Based on our interview with Becky, the social media audit, and the competitive analysis, we propose 3 keys areas for Malvern to improve:

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1. Identify their core customer 2. Improve engagement levels on social 3. Expand their literary community via social and generate some short term brand awareness

For each of the above key areas, we developed a corresponding recommendation.

In the next section, we detail the implementation of these recommendations.

1. Do a customer analysis survey and create some customer personas 2. Revamp their social media content strategy 3. Engage influencer networks and put on a writing contest

Implementations 1) ​Define Core Customer Malvern can significantly improve its content and marketing efforts, both online and off, by identifying their core customer. Based on early consultations with Becky, we inferred that the bookstore does not have a clear, focused idea of their customer. When asked who their primary customer is, Garcia said “grad students from UT, creative writing professors, young people that are probably in their twenties and thirties, a lot of old austin people - late forties and fifties - and younger women writers.” While this dispersed, “target-all” customer acquisition strategy may generate sufficient income to keep Malvern’s operation afloat, we believe a more targeted approach could bolster sales. Our first step was to make a survey.

The one we initially wrote (see Appendix G) and submitted to Malvern featured questions that probed customers’ underlying rationale for shopping at Malvern books, i.e. what problem does Malvern solve in their lives, and how does Malvern fit within their scheme of aspirations? Unfortunately, Malvern did not recognize the value in asking these types of questions: its administrative staff edited our survey 4

and removed the intrapersonal questions we posed, instead opting for questions that concentrate on how customers relate to and use Malverns’ digital media platforms. More than 225 customers completed the modified survey. Interestingly, many of the respondents expressed satisfaction with Malvern’s digital media presence.

From the survey data, we gained insight into the identities and social media habits of Malvern’s customers. We analyzed and segmented the survey data to formulate three personas, each of which is described below. (See Appendix H) 1. John Wilkins, a 26 year old white male who works at Wheatsville Co-Op. His hobbies include trying new recipes and biking. He is curious about the world, cares for the environment. A sense of adventure drives him.

2. Joey Espinosa, a forty-two year old Latino male who is a caseworker for the City of Austin’s Social Services. He loves writing poetry and community advocacy. A desire for social and artistic impact drives him.

3. Ella Barker, a sixty-eight year old retired Austin Independent School District teacher. She enjoys traveling with her husband, who is also retired, and sharing stories. She wants to keep busy and spend time with loved ones.

Through using these personas as templates for content marketing (and being strategic about matching the personas to certain social media channels), we believe Malvern can further improve its sales performance, streamline marketing operations, and bolster customer satisfaction.

2) ​Revamp Content Strategy If we recall social media content best practices from class, guest speakers, Hootsuite and common sense - a couple of key themes stand out. Among them: 1)

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add value, 2) don’t be too marketing-y, 3) appeal to our humanity and emotions, and by all means 4) be social!

Appendix C-E provide a breakdown of Malvern’s social media posts (across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) by subject in the month of April. With few exceptions, all the posts take a marketing/sales-first approach. According to the survey (Appendix A), the heavy posting emphasis on events turns out to be okay, but Malvern needs to do a better job of bolstering a literary community online (to match the thriving one they have going offline) and adding more value to the lives of their customers. For Malvern, there will be three steps to overhauling their content strategy.

The first is to have a general idea of some social media content best practices, as discussed at the beginning of this section.

The second, is to utilize these best practices to organize some initial “content pillars,” based on the needs and wants of their core customers and the identity of their brand. Malvern’s core customers are literary enthusiasts (poetry, prose) and fledgling writers.

So what do readers want? They want to marvel in and celebrate the written word.

They want these words to ignite their imaginations, fuel their curiosity, and inspire their thoughts and conversations. They want to read good books and talk about them. They want to make recommendations and discover noteworthy literature and authors.

And writers? They want to do all that too, but they also want to use their authorial skills to relate truths and connect with audiences. Most importantly, they want to drink lots of booze and make their opinions known! Luckily for Malvern, they can begin using their social to meet all these needs (except for the booze, unless Facebook knows something really cool that we don’t), and the final result will be a true “literary community.”

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The last step in overhauling their content strategy is to make sure to play to the strength of each channel, and to develop content that meets the aforementioned wants/needs of their core consumers. Here are some examples of what they should be doing.

Facebook - Since there are no character limits and you can add any type of link or attachment you want, this is a good channel for Malvern to develop a community forum. This can be like Malvern’s central hub: a place to pose questions and writing prompts; a place for everyone to share great books they are reading; a place to respond to writing prompts; a place to attach things that they are writing/working on to get critiques from the community.

Malvern could pick a cool passage from one of their myriad books, post it and ask everybody what it means to them, or to wax poetic/philosophic on it. This will be a great way to let everyone in the community start using their voice, (which is one of their main wants and needs in life!) as discussed before. They could pose questions about what unknown authors everyone is digging at the moment and why. They could encourage everyone to post drafts of things if they’d like some critique.

Being a writer is tough! And it’s lonely. Malvern could really separate itself from other bookstores in a pretty epic way by providing their community a real place of support. One where they can talk to others going through the same writing struggles as them, get honest feedback, get cool recommendations, and (as we’ll discuss in the next section) find out cool stuff that’s happening in the local literary community, and last but not least - still find out about some cool books and authors that Malvern is featuring.

Twitter - This channel is a great place to start engaging other networks of influencers in Austin, and at the same time provide some value by sharing cool things that are happening in the local literary community. As noted in the competitive analysis, some of the other bookstores in town (like Monkeywrench, for 7

example) do an outstanding job of letting their audience know of happenings and events around town that will appeal to them.

Malvern should be doing this, as well. For example, they could retweet events that are happening with other bookstores, writing groups, book clubs, readings, and general goings on about town. This will benefit Malvern’s audience by giving them cool stuff to engage with, and it will benefit the other networks by letting them know that Malvern is a cool place to go study, to find super cool books, and to be part of the local literary community. It’s a win-win.

Furthermore, based on the surveys - most of Malvern’s audience reported visiting their social channels to find out about in-store readings and events. Twitter, due to its limited characters and quick-hit nature, would be an awesome channel for these types of postings and updates.

Instagram - Social media is about having fun! Poetry and prose can get a bit intellectual, a bit stuffy, a bit (dare we say) pretentious, and a bit full of itself. Why not play around with these stereotypes a bit and have some fun in the process? Life is tough, but laughter is the ultimate panacea. Think about it. What movies do you love? What posts on social media do you share? Which of your friends do you like having with you at the bar the most? The funny ones, of course!

In this vein, why not use instagram to get a little silly? Why not come up with a new segment, something like “Puppets Performing Poetry Poorly!”?!?!?!!! It could be great. Little socks with googly eyes on them, reading otherwise serious and dense material in a goofy way. They could have trouble opening the books because they only have one hand, so a friend puppet would have to help, and then they high five each other but lose their place in the book and have to start over. The real kicker, however is that everyone in the audience will be encouraged to make their own puppet show and send it in.

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Smart brands let their audiences help them write their story. What brand more fitting to do that than a bookstore! It doesn’t matter if it works or not. Like Alberto said, social media is a place to exhibit your brand’s human side. If this stands true, which we believe it does - Malvern’s audience will appreciate the attempt. Now, the whole community can have some fun together making fools of themselves. This is the kind of stuff that really builds community. Guaranteed, no other bookstores are having fun with their audience like this.

Last thing they should use Instagram for is to highlight life behind the curtain at Malvern and show some love to their employees. What books do they love? What are they working on and reading? Maybe they could read some passages they like or put on some skits. Just as the audience wants to express themselves, so to do the employees. Instagram is a great way to let them shine, and further expose the audience to more of the brand’s human side in the process.

3) ​Get Some Buzzz Going!

So far, all of these implementation recommendations have been long term strategies. It takes a while to revamp your entire social strategy, and produce new content across all channels, and get to know and understand your core consumers.

This last implementation will focus on generating some brand awareness and having some fun RIGHT NOW! In Implementation 2 we discussed engaging networks of influencers in the Austin literary scene. Here’s where that will come in handy.

Malvern is going to put on a writing contest. They will let the networks they have been engaging with know about it through online and offline channels, as well as through their own social media. They will tell all the bookstores, book clubs, literary groups, university writing departments, poetry groups, and everybody else they can think of. This won’t be some rinky dink competition. This will be a legitimate contest, with a sizeable first and second cash prize. Say, 500 dollars for first, and 250 for second.

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The way it will work is simple. Contestants purchase a book from Malvern to enter.

Then, they let the book inspire them to write something. Could be a poem, an essay, a short story, an expose´, whatever. There will be two prizes. One for the best overall submission (the judging calculus will have to be determined, maybe there will be a community vote and then a panel of judges), and one for the person who engaged the most with other people’s submissions (comments, likes, shares, etc.).

This will be an effective strategy for Malvern in a lot of ways. First, a lot of the networks in the community will hear about it, so it will generate some quick brand awareness. Second, and to continue the first point - everyone will want to participate. If there’s one thing writer’s need, it’s money! And if there’s another thing writer’s need - it’s the chance to be recognized! This will provide them the chance for both. Third, it will bring some fun and life to Malvern’s community.

Contests are fun by nature! They are a challenge, an opportunity, an event - all things that humans love. This will be a great opportunity to make the Malvern brand more human by connecting the members of its community through their writing and critique. Most bookstores just sell books, but Malvern will do more than that. They’ll give everyone voice, and they’ll help foster some real community.

Conclusion Based on their surveys, Malvern is really doing an awesome job with a lot of things.

They have a great collection of hard to find, long-tail literary gems. They have a warm and inviting space where people can come read and hang out. They have a friendly, passionate and knowledgeable staff. They have tons of readings and events that the community is very engaged with and excited about.

These things are major checkmarks for Malvern in their quest to establish a literary community and sell some books. Where they are lacking right now is in their social presence, mostly because it is too focused on sales and marketing. By following 10

some of these recommendations, Malvern will be able to add some value for their followers, establish more of an online community, build some brand awareness and have some fun in the process.

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Appendix a) Google Survey

b)

c)

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d)

e) f) @MonkeyWrenchATX @BookPeople @SoCoBooks @UTEnglish @Stedwardsu @ACCdistrict @AustinPublicLibrary @LoneStarLit @WritersLeague @texasbookfest @austinpoetrysoc @austinslam @WritingBarn

Monkeywrench Books Book People South Congress Books UTexas English Department St. Edward’s University Austin Community College Austin Public Library Lone Star Literary Life Writer’s League of Texas Texas Book Festival Austin Poetry Society Austin Poetry Slam The Writing Barn

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g) Please circle one Gender

Male

Female

Other

Age

10-18

19-29

30-49

50-65

66+

Please provide the requested information Race Profession Income Highest Level of Education Number of Children City of Residence Favorite genre of literature

Let’s talk about you for a bit 1)​ ​You are one of the protagonists of our communal story. Tell us about yourself!

-​ ​Likes -​ ​What social media platforms do you use most often -​ ​Heroes -​ ​Values -​ ​Anything you want 2)​ ​All this being the case, what are some of your needs? (in life, in work, on social media, whatever!)

3)​ ​And challenges?

Let’s talk about social media for a bit 4)​ 5)​ 6)​ 7)​

Who has the coolest social presence you’ve come across? Why? ​What kind of content isn’t out there that someone should create? ​How do you discover new books? - friends, social media, online blogs? ​Do you follow Malvern on any social media platform? a)​ ​Which ones? b)​ ​What do you love about Malvern’s social media? c)​ ​What do you NOT like about Malvern’s social media?

8)​ ​What is your purpose in visiting our social channels? Are these purposes met?

9)​ ​If not, please explain.

10)​ ​How can we include you more in the Malvern community via our social media channels?

11)​ ​How can we be more useful and relevant to your needs via our social media? ​

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Let’s talk about Malvern Books, in general 12) What’s the most recent example of how we’ve exceeded your expectations?

13) What sort of new programs or initiatives would you like to see added to our literary community?

14) What burning questions do you have for us?

Thanks for being an awesome protagonist and for your feedback! We will use it to strengthen our community and optimize your experience with us. h)

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