Pros say that modern publishing needs to learn how to blog, blast, and tweet

11/17/09Those interested in publishing and marketing must embrace social media, a panel of experts told Emerson students Monday. The panel concluded the college's series "From Gutenburg to Google."

Jessie Bennett, the blog editor for Beacon Press, said the Internet allowed for another way to "get content out there" via both publishers and authors themselves. By using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, Bennett said it was possible to make information more accessible and to establish a "relationship" between publishers, authors, and even the press.

"This is a jumping off point for years to come," Bennett said in regards to the use of social media, and said that it would create new channels for communication.

Mark Bloomfield, the marketing director for Chelsea Green Publishing, talked about the tendency for marketing outlets to "jump the gun" and use social media neither positively nor productively.

Authors and publishers, Bloomfield said, possess relationships with different groups of people. He said publishers had a relationship with the media, and authors with their audience. It was important, he also said, for both authors and publishers to consider the people that they were trying to engage.

Sean Maher, marketing manager of Da Capo Press, did a walkthrough of an online publicity campaign for a Lance Armstrong biography. This emphasized the point Bloomfield made about being aware of audiences because the campaign targeted a specific audience, an online cycling community, as well as Livestrong.org.

"The cycling community either loves [Armstrong] or hates him," Maher said, "selling the idea [was] not tough to a Livestrong crowd."

Maher said that focusing the audience of the campaign was ultimately successful, especially after Armstrong tweeted an Amazon link to the book, which led to a spike in sales.

Andrew Rohm, associate professor of marketing at Northeastern University, offered insights on "the new marketing." He said that he did not know anything about book publishing, but offered three pieces of advice in order to utilize social media and the Internet positively.

Rohm said it was important for both big and small corporations to "adapt, embrace, and monitor" new social marketing channels, to "capture movement from social media to social commerce," and to monitor "trends toward experience marketing and crowd sourcing."'

Insight on social media was exactly what Jessi Colund, a publishing graduate student and intern at Harvard Common Press, was looking for by attending this event. "Nobody knows what's going on," she said. She talked about an "exciting and confusing" trial/error approach to some aspects of her experience as an intern. Colund was interested in learning about different social media platforms, and how she could apply them to her job.

The panel was cosponsored by the Bookbuilders of Boston and Emerson's Publishing Club.