Coverage of this session by SAP’s Sylvia Santelli. Follower her on Twitter at @SylviaSant.
2:10 — Bergen Anderson introduces Scholastic’s Digital Publicist, Ivy Li and Senior Manager of Internal Communications & Social Media, Morgan Baden.
2:10 — Ivy and Morgan start off the session sharing that Scholastic Book Clubs has been sharing content for 61 years.
2:10 — Big dilemma: How to tap into the teacher community online. It took a company crisis to find them, but now that we found them—the next question is how do we keep them engaged.
2:11 — Started with Scholastic Book Club on Facebook. There was an attacking Facebook group, “Shape Up, Scholastic” sharing wrong facts with the public about the company.
2:12 — Scholastic Book Clubs is more of a BtoB company. They need to connect with teachers who can pass out information to students, who then pass it on to parents. Facebook allowed them to connect directly to their customers.
2:15 — Scholastic opened up a new FB group. E-mailing was always an effective path to reach their audience, so a personal e-mail was sent out from the president to introduce the new Facebook page along with a sweepstakes. The number of followers exploded.
2:17 — The sweepstakes was promoted on Facebook, but logistically coordinated elsewhere. The sweepstakes was a 32-book giveaway and hosted the blog on a Scholastic webpage, plus a contest tab was added.
2:18 — First content: 12K entries + 50K new fans, Second 17K new fans. Sweepstakes also spiked engagement.
2:19 — Strategy: Target posts towards specific audience, example: “Attn: Teachers”. The tactic also creates highly engaged fans.
2:20 – The Clubs’ social media team posts 5-10 times a week and has constant communications with the editorial team.
2:21 — Scholastic Book Clubs bridges the home/school connection and the Facebook page has become a teacher’s lounge where they are can ask questions to other teachers.
2:22 — Fans spent 29% more than non-fans overall, and spent 7.6 % more per event than nonfans.
2:23 — One year later, they now have 145,500 fans, plus executive buy-in. Facebook messaging is on all outgoing messaging, including shipment boxes.
2:24 — Good news: The attacking organizations moved on.
2:24 — Scholastic now has over 15 different Facebook pages, 14 different Twitter accounts, several YouTube channels to reach audiences.
2:25 – They hold a “Social Media University” to teach @scholastic’s goals and tactics.
2:26 — You are what you read is Scholastic’s new, social networking community for adults and another designed for children. The site asks which five books shaped you. More than 130 influentials submitted theirs, including Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Clinton, the Jonas Brothers, Bill Gates, and Mel Brooks.
Q&A
Q: How do you stay up to date with social media?
A: Must have a general interest. Also SM team produces a weekly blog of recent information. Also the social media team tries to get others excited about social media by sending out weekly social media pieces of interest.
Q: How did you compare those who are fans of the groups and their purchase behavior?
A: Teachers fill out a survey when they turn in their order. It was all manual.
