Thanks for being here!
Listen here:
Following below are the shownotes from the episode.
Here are links to things mentioned (also linked in the transcript)
Find me online at:
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast page
Plattsburgh, NY (where I’m from!)
Bookshop Santa Cruz
Hicklebee’s
My book, TA-DA!
Chronicle Books
CALIBA
Bards Alley
NAIBA
SIBA
New Voices New Rooms
MIBA
ABA marketing meetup: getting organized
ABA marketing meetup: Q and A
ABA Marketing meetup: how do I know it’s working? (analytics)
ABA Marketing meetup: all about video
Publisher’s Weekly Article
Book: Ophie’s Ghosts
Welcome to Social Media for Bookstores: the podcast that encourages and inspires booksellers to have fun on social media. I’m your host, Kathy Ellen Davis, author, bookseller, social media manager, mama, and person who stays up way too late reading books. If you work for a bookstore and want to up your social media game, you’re in the right place! Each week I share actionable advice for you that will really help. Thank you so much for being here. Let’s get into this week’s episode!
Hey it’s EPISODE ONE!
How exciting!
Today we’re going to talk about my origin story,
and then my top ten bits of advice for social media.
Finally, we’ll end with what I’m reading right now!
Why in this order?
I could give you the advice first.
But why would you listen to me?
Plus, my origin story is a great way to get to know me.
and maybe it parallels yours in some way.
In a future episode we’ll talk about
why origin stories are important for bookstores and booksellers too.
So I thought I’d give you a great example.
My story begins in Plattsburgh, NY, on April 5, 1983…
Okay I mean that IS where my story begins,
but that’s not entirely the best place to start.
Let’s try again.
Since this podcast is called Social Media for Bookstores…
let’s start with me in bookstores.
Then social media comes after.
I grew up in Plattsburgh,NY
Does anyone know where that is?
It’s way up there in NY,
about half an hour south of Canada.
Anyway, growing up in Plattsburgh,
I didn’t have an indie bookstore that sold new books near me.
I had a used bookstore.
The kind you had to really work to find something in.
And I was pretty lazy, so I rarely went there.
My mom taught kindergarten and first grade.
She taught me how to read and kept me in books.
It also helped that she did those book club flyers once a season.
We always got books that way, and books from the book fair that came to our school.
Our mall had a Waldenbooks (remember Waldenbooks? RIP)
and a Borders (remember Borders? RIP) that we went to often.
Every once in a while, we’d hop on a ferry.
Yes, a ferry; you drive your car on it and everything.
The ferry took us over to Burlington, Vermont,
Where there was a Barnes and Noble.
There was probably an indie bookstore there too,
but I never knew about it.
My mom probably didn’t either.
The first indie bookstore I went to was in Quebec,
during a French Immersion program I took at Middlebury College.
I got a bunch of great books in French!
That nearly 12 years ago.
In the states, the first one I went to was probably Bookshop Santa Cruz,
because after that french camp I moved to San Francisco then Santa Cruz
to be with the boyfriend I met at that French Camp and to pursue Waldorf Teacher Training.
Both of those are LONG stories that we won’t get into here,
but most likely the reason that I first went to Bookshop Santa Cruz.
I love that store, and it was my first indie bookstore experience.
That was followed closely by a trip to Hicklebee’s in San Jose, CA,
which is a mostly children’s bookstore.
It’s not big but I spent about three hours there the first time I went,
and eventually ended up working there, first as a wrapper during the holidays,
Then as a bookseller, book group leader, summer reading program helper,
storytime leader, offsite events helper, and general outgoing bookseller.
Oh and author on staff, since my first picture book, TA-DA! was published by Chronicle Books while I was working there! I had my launch there and everything!
While I was there I helped the former NCIBA and now CALIBA
do social media for their conferences.
How did that come about?
Someone asked, “Who likes to do social media and doesn’t like adult books?”
and my name came up!
Why the not like adult books part?
Because I would be covering the adult books part of the conference,
since they already had someone doing the kids day.
Someone who worked for NCIBA used to manage our store.
They heard about me, and I got the gig.
I was happy to be able to get into all of the events in exchange for my work
(The awesome events that included food!) and ended up helping NCIBA out with their conference the next year too, and helping Hicklebee’s out a bit with their social media.
Then we moved to Virginia in April of 2019, to follow my husband’s job that does most of the heavy financial lifting in our family. Suddenly I was out of bookstore work!
All along I’d been posting on social media channels of my own, mainly Instagram, about books, and was having fun with it. I had also scoped out bookstores near where we were going to live, and after heading out to Bards Alley in Vienna, VA, I knew I eventually wanted to work there.
I attended book club there for a bit, shopped there a lot, got to know the staff, and let the owner know that I had bookstore experience and would love to work there if something came up. In August of 2019 something did come up and I started working there!
I quickly discovered that Bards Alley was part of NAIBA, their regional bookselling association. And I wanted to go to the conference for free so I reached out, asking if they needed someone to do social media for the conference. To my surprise the director said they were looking for someone to do social media year round, would I want to do something like that?
I went a bit above and beyond, recording a video introduction about myself and included some sample posts. Before the regional conference in 2019, I got the gig! I was thrown in quickly but had a lot of fun and made lots of connections at the conference. In 2020 we were virtual which was fun, but still a lot of work, and it was the first time I presented at a booskelling conference! I did a best practices social media presentation.
Also in 2020 I started posting about books on TikTok, used the #booktok hashtag for the book talks I was sharing. I grew quite a following as people realized they could use that platform to talk about books. It felt great to connect with a ton of new readers and to get recommendations out there. I was excited about TikTok and told my friend who manages social media at Bards Alley about it, and I started sharing TikTok like video ideas with her.
In March 2021 I helped create and host a social media conference for NAIBA and SIBA’s joint programming, New Voices New Rooms. I presented on Content planning for bookstores, TikTok 101, and Canva 101, and also moderated a panel on scheduling platforms, while also hosting a few Q and A sessions. The programming and conference was a hit, and I started my dedicated social media channels about social media for bookstores shortly after.
All while I was JUST coming out of the most exhausting first trimester ever! I am pausing to give myself a pat on the back as we speak! Following the conference, MIBA, another regional bookselling association, reached out to me and I did two presentations for them. One centered on fresh ways to present about books on social media and the other was a content planning workshop.
Most recently I was on four panels for some ABA marketing meetups with some stellar fellow presenters! We chatted about video, analytics, getting organized, and answered questions in a dedicated Q and A session.
Possibly the most exciting thing that’s happened? Publisher’s Weekly reached out to me for an article. And it was in the magazine! The same magazine I would read on my lunch breaks at Hicklebee’s years ago. The same one I still read in down moments at Bards Alley today. The article published in August and I’m still not over it.
I thought about this podcast for the last few months. I’ve podcasted about children’s literature before (did I mention I’m a published children’s book author too! It’s true!). I thought this medium would be a great way to connect with other booksellers.
My goals with this podcast are to inspire you and empower you to feel better and dare I say excited about social media? I dare say it.
I also want to interview social media managers from bookstores so everyone can see that there isn’t just one way to do all of this, there are many ways, and it’s a matter of finding the right way that works for you and your store. Since I’m launching this season while also bringing a baby into the world, those interviews will most likely be in season two!
And finally, if you haven’t guessed, I simply love to talk. So this is a great medium for me.
WHEW!
What an origin story.
It would have been a lot easier if I would have been bitten by a radioactive social media platform.
Or book? Would that have done it?
I didn’t share this story to brag; I shared it to show you my experience. I also shared it to make you think about what things in your past you have done that could lead you forward into something. If someone would have told me back in 2017 when I started doing social media for NCIBA, that five years later I’d be presenting about it and starting a business to help bookstores with their social media accounts, I would not have believed them.
I thought I was on track to own and run a bookstore, but I quickly discovered after working at one that I really LOVE hand selling, I don’t love managing people, and I REALLY don’t have the kind of capital to even think about starting a bookstore right now. So this is a great way that I can still help bookstores and do something I love.
Without further ado, here are my top ten pieces of advice for social media::
- Think of your social media feeds as an extension of your store
How can you continue the conversation and community you have in your store online?
How can you make your feeds feel like your store?
If you can do this, it will be easier to think of content to share
and will be a great way to connect your store with your online presence.
- Know your goals.
What exactly do you want to accomplish on your social media channels?
Nailing this down is going to make it a lot easier to measure progress and success.
Your goals do NOT have to look like anyone else’s either,
and it’s always a good idea to know WHY you want to accomplish something.
Do you want more followers so you can get the swipe up feature? Do you want more saves on posts so you start to become the expert in the eyes of your followers? Do you want to drive more people to the store? Some stats are easier to track than others, and your goals and focuses can change each month, season, and even with each post!
- Be yourself.
No one has time to be two separate people.
Being yourself on social media allows you to connect with people in a genuine way,
and that’s what we’re going for!
People buy from people they know, like, and trust. It’s a given.
How many customers have you had a conversation in the store with
that turned into them being a loyal customer for years?
The same thing can happen on social media if you are being yourself.
You get to decide how much of yourself to be as well;
you don’t have to be a completely open book.
I like to think about it this way:
When I say something online, is it also something I would say in person?
Is it something I stand behind?
- Make a plan.
Even if it’s just one week out. I like to plan on Sundays. It’s so much easier when you have a little bit of a plan to post and engage. When you know what you are going to post, it’s easier to batch create content and also makes it easier to have ideas in the moment. How? Your brain is not occupied with “what am I going to post today?” You already know, You have a plan. So ideas have the space to sneak in. You can choose to post them immediately or add them to the queue. Either way, you’re building up content that you can use in the future. And you’re always going to need content!
- Speaking of, ENGAGE.
It’s called social media for a reason; you cannot just post and ghost. You need to be engaging. Conversations happen online in comment sections on your posts and other people’s posts, in DMs, in stories. Look for chances to connect with your customers and followers this way. I like to make this a bit of a challenge: okay, today I’m going to retweet 5 tweets, or comment on ten posts, or reply to ten bookstore stories. It’s always a good idea to like comments left on your posts (unless they’re trolls, then feel free to delete/block them) and try to respond when you can. It DOES NOT mean you have to reply right away, just make time to do it if you can.
- Have a store hashtag!
Create one that’s simply your store’s name, or something like “I bought it at” store name, “look what I got at” store name, or store name “haul” Make a sign in store to encourage people to use it. Follow the hashtag and repost people who use it! This is a really easy way to build community and connect with your customers. They’re going to feel good that they’re featured by you, and you have content to post! When you’re starting out, you may not have too many people use it. Encourage some of your customers who are active on social media to use it. Create posts where you share hauls that you bought from the store (c’mon, we know that everyone buys books at their own bookstore!) You can also ask people when they check out if you can take a picture of their haul and post it online (with or without their picture, with or without their name). Every time you post about it people learn about it, and more people may use it. You can also print out pictures and post them in the store, create a highlight on Instagram of people sharing hauls, or even have a giveaway where people who use the hashtag are entered to get interest in it going.
- Think about content you can post that you don’t have to create.
Of course it’s okay to post content that you create, and most bookstores are creating their own content. But it’s also a sure fire way to burn out. Explore your options: the ABA, Libro.fm, and many publishers have content that you can repost. See an interesting tweet? Reshare it! A great post by another bookstore? Share it in your stories. Cool book article? Share the link. In your customer’s eyes you are also the expert on the book industry.
- Do not be afraid to try new things.
I know, there seems to be a new social media platform every five minutes, and it can make you feel like you will NEVER catch up. You do not have to be on every platform, but it is good to know where people’s attention is being held. If people are spending time on a platform, you can bet there are some readers there too. Budget in some time to learn about new ways of communicating. And think about it this way: it’s never a waste of time to learn something new. Yes, platforms will change but each time you are learning something new you are essentially learning new ways to communicate with your customers and followers, and that’s going to continue to serve you as you move forward.
For example, say you want to learn about TikTok. That’s a video platform, so you’re going to have to learn video. But the skills you’re going to gain can translate to video on other platforms too. You’ll learn how to make engaging videos. You’ll learn what people like to interact with. You’ll learn how to hook people early on in a conversation, and how to sell a book in under a minute (you probably already do this multiple times a day at the bookstore in person!) When you change your mindset from “Ugh, I have to learn this new platform” to “This gives me an opportunity to build skills that I can take to any platform” it makes it more applicable and wide reaching.
- In that vein: try video.
I know so many people, especially booksellers, who have decided video is just not for them and that’s it. There are many reasons why someone may not want to put their voice or likeness on the internet; I understand. But I also understand that video is THE MOST ENGAGING form of content on social media right now, and I don’t think it’s wise to ignore it completely. There are many different ways to create and share videos. I want you to think about it as communicating with just ONE person. You do that all the time in your store. Your videos do NOT need to be amazing Oscar worthy productions; in fact most of the videos that make it big are ones that are a bit rough and are highly relatable.
- Remember there are no rules, and everyone does social media in a different way.
There may be best practices, but they may not be best for you, and that’s okay. There is NO ONE judging you on your social media accounts; I follow a lot of bookstores, probably more than any other individual (though ABA probably follows the most) and I PROMISE you I am never looking at your accounts and laughing or scoffing at you. I think something that holds people back is they feel like they aren’t doing social media right, or they’re not doing enough, and I want to remind you that YOU get to decide what doing social media right means to you, and you also get to decide how much you want to do. It’s in your hands.
What’s Kathy Ellen reading right now?
I’m trying to record this as close as possible to the day the podcast goes out, but hey, I have a baby who sometimes isn’t quiet, and a kindergartner who is RARELY quiet. So sometimes I may be joined by some special guest voices!
I have been listening to audiobooks since that’s easy to do while feeding Juniper and rocking her to sleep, and I JUST finished Ophie’s Ghosts.
What a great book for the fall! I loved all the characters and the mystery of the manor. I’m a big fan of historical fiction, and this is an awesome one, taking place in 1920s Georgia and Philadelphia. There’s a lot in here about segregation, discrimination and racism that I think will get young readers to reflect about how far we’ve come but also how some things happening nearly 100 years ago are still happening today so we have a ways to go.
Readers will fall in LOVE with Ophie; she is such a likable and relatable character. The mysteries in the book drive the plot forward: how can Ophie talk to ghosts? What are the rules? What does each ghost want? How did a ghost she soon befriends die? How can Ophie help ghosts move on? Will Ophie and her Mom ever get their own place?
Finally, I loved the chapters where we get to see things from the point of view of things and places! We hear from the house a few times, a train line, and more. I love anthropomorphic writing, and these chapters that are spread out throughout the book are really fun and unique. They’re also a great way to add some history and context to the story.
Have you read it?
Let me know what you’re reading right now on my post about this on Instagram and TikTok!
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you like the show, let me know! Sharing it with someone and/or writing a review is always helpful! You can find shownotes at: kathyellendavis.com/podcast and you can find me on Instagram at @socialmediaforbookstoreswithKE and on TikTok @smforbookstores. See you next week, and until then happy reading and have fun on social media!
