Scholastic knew it had an existing community of fans in teachers and parents — but it didn’t have an established platform to reach and connect with them. When a communication crisis arose over misinformation, Scholastic saw an opportunity to bring this community out.
Using Facebook, Ivy Li, Morgan Baden and their team at Scholastic launched a simple, yet vibrant community that is creating real results: These fans are placing 29.8% more orders than non-fans — and spending 7.6% more on each order when they do it. And more importantly, they have the ingredients to support a long-term, loyal base of brand ambassadors.
In their recent BlogWell presentation, Li and Baden shared the details behind how they’re doing it. A few of their big takeaways:
- Introduce your new community to existing customers. Scholastic leveraged its existing list of loyal e-mail subscribers by giving them the first look at their new Facebook community. With a simple giveaway, it was able to generate some early excitement that got things off to a fast start.
- Give them a reason to keep coming back. Scholastic’s editorial strategy for Facebook is to share exclusive content, behind-the-scenes details, expert advice on children’s books, advanced previews and general book buzz.
- Keep promoting and supporting your community. Scholastic’s fan page continues to see steady growth because it continues to promote it to new fans and customers every chance it can — for example, it is even promoting it on their shipping boxes.
And if you love this presentation, be sure to check out our upcoming BlogWell in Austin on Feb. 2.
