Publishers: You Need a Corporate Social Media Strategy
by Ami Greko
Wow. So that happened. I don’t have a lot to add to the Team Macmillan or Team Amazon sides, but I do think this is a good time for us all to touch base about a little thing called corporate communications.
Publishers: In times of crisis, the social media tools you have invested time into building up are worth their weight in gold.
I love that John Sargent’s letter went out via Publishers Lunch. It was a smart choice of delivery method, and pushed discussion in a seriously pro-Macmillan, pro-publisher direction. But let’s talk beyond official channels. If anything, this dogfight should be remembered as having launched hundreds of blog posts, thousands of comments, and at last official counting, a gazillion tweets.
Unfortunately, since Macmillan doesn’t have an established social media strategy as a corporation, or an official, empowered spokesperson who has spent the time building a respected and trusted presence in this arena, they didn’t have a way to leverage the support, or respond to their detractors.
No, ‘thank you!’ response to the number of indie booksellers who announced on Twitter that they would support Macmillan by hand-selling their titles. No comments on the blogs of authors like John Scalzi or Tobias Buckell, who wrote insightful, even-handed posts about the dispute and urged their readers to understand Macmillan’s side.
But most importantly, without a corporate social media strategy, the company couldn’t leverage a response to authors like Cory Doctorow, or blogs like the Business Insider, who both raised legitimate concerns about the nature of this fight and its impact on authors. (And lest you think these are the sort of blog that could be swayed by no argument, it is worthwhile to note that Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s comment on the BoingBoing post argued for Macmillan’s side persuasively enough to get Cory to re-edit the post.)
I don’t mean for this to turn into a slag-Macmillan party, both because, as Scalzi points out, in terms of traditional media they handled the conversation pretty well, and also because I don’t see any of the other major houses out there in a position to handle a situation like this much better.
It just seems like a good time to think about corporate policy towards social media communications. If publishing houses like Macmillan can’t step up and extend the etiquette of at least a ‘thank you’ to their authors, booksellers, and fans who took to the social media sphere to advocate for them, maybe it’s a good time to empower their army of smart, web-savvy employees who have invested the time to build up online reputations to do it for them.
Comments
This weekend was a perfect case study for anyone who questioned Shiv Singh’s keynote at Digital Book World last week, or what Pablo, Jennifer Hart and I said on the #dbwsocial panel.
Social media isn’t a timesuck; it’s a requirement.
This is the exact topic that got me frothy this morning on Facebook. Oy. Pubs, I love ya, but you have to learn how to reach your readers where they want to be reached. And I don’t want to hear that you don’t have time. We do, THEY do, and so should you.
Minimum number of lit magazines that I have contributed to that are on Twitter, which I follow, but which don’t follow me back: 2.
I’ve heard the results aren’t much better when it comes to publishers and their authors.
The publishing industry can do so much more with social networking than simply marketing, but so many people forget that. I wrote a master’s thesis on digital publishing business/production models using conversations on blogs and Twitter as my resources because there is so little scholarship on the industry because we’re apparently afraid to officially share the same information we tend to Tweet about. So social media is a great resource for investigating what’s going on in the biz. But it’s also a way to humanize a company in the face of public outcry. It’s been said that music pirating became as pervasive as it was/is because the public sees record companies as a demonized power that must be taunted and cheated into submission. Social media–if used the way you’ve suggested here–can give a *real* face to a publisher when issues of pricing, piracy, and public outcry threaten to inspire lasting disdain. I’m certainly not suggesting that tweeting in a familiar tone will keep people from illegally downloading e-books, but wouldn’t it be great to inspire some public investment in the future of publishers, authors, and booksellers?
Hey Ami. Great post. Publishers do need to get better w/ social media. BUT what exactly (beyond John Sargent’s very classy letter) could/should Macmillan said that wouldn’t have soured things further? Their restrained response got them what they wanted… And was Amazon’s response really any better…?
I accosted Sargent in the elevator and informed him that he MUST appoint me Director of New Media Communications, but I think he mistook me for the deli delivery guy. Better luck next time?
@Dan Thanks for the smart comment! What I’m hearing you say here is that the path Macmillan chose was a smart one in that it managed to get the job done simply and without needlessly encouraging negative communication online (aka, don’t feed the trolls).
My concern is that while *this* time Macmillan came off at little bit better that their competitor in the public sentiment, this is in no way a guarantee for any future dust ups the company gets into. Even in the posts of supportive authors, there was some concern over whether this pricing model would be the right one, or over the handling of ebooks in general. The next move the company makes might result in a flood of negative coverage from the same pundits they relied upon on for support over the weekend, and what communication options would they have then?
I also think that publishing houses would do well to begin to throw some light on their insular decision-making process. I’m not saying completely opening the doors of their negotiations, but engaging with bloggers who are misinformed or who lack understanding of a basic part of the publishing industry could go a long way towards keeping public sentiment on the side of the publisher. As @Victoria said below, social media is a way to humanize a company, one that currently appears very distant from its customers.
It seems like the move into selling ebooks is going to be a siege rather than a skirmish, and one of the weapons publishers will need to wield is public sentiment. With no social media presence, they’re allowing others to make decisions about how the company is seen online–a dicey game.
I totally hear you about Amazon’s response, though. Sargent’s letter struck a much better tone.
@Ben Hmmm. Did you tell him you already had the crown and Ferrari required by the job? Sometimes companies can be reluctant to invest in all of the ephemera that this position necessitates.
@ami @dan: I’ve noticed a lot of people dismissing Amazon’s handling of their own announcement, but really, they did EXACTLY what publishers wish they could do: they spoke directly to their most passionate customers via the Kindle forums on their own site, and they presented their case in way that made Macmillan look like the bullies.
“Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!”
Macmillan won this battle, but Amazon is still fighting the war.
Ami: You’re right, of course. It is a process not a one event thing. Publishers do need to be more transparent and communicate directly with readers if they want to avoid getting battered in future! Macmillan handled this well in an old school way, but it isn’t enough (or it won’t be for long)…
Guy: I think Amazon did what it needed to do. It was effective — especially in the way it turned the tables on Macmillan (e.g. calling THEM a monopoly) and they preached to choir — but it was not, in my opinion, as classy a Sargent’s letter and I do not think that publishers could imitate their strategy (can you imagine if that had been a post by Macmillan?).
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@ami Great post. I think publishers do need a strong social media strategy and presence, but I agree with @dan. It’s hard to see how many different voices from Macmillan wouldn’t have made things harder to understand. (I think it was Macmillan’s authors who got the point across the best, and they were speaking about their own situations.) There are a lot of publishing folks online in a non-official capacity, but they may not be allowed to speak on their company’s behalf in these instances, especially on a weekend when they don’t know what talking points the PR office wants to emphasize.
You know what is almost as knee-jerk as some publishers’ resistance to new media? The complaint by would-be svengalis that publishers are doing social networking wrong. Each is equally well-informed.
Macmillan’s statement got out quickly because it was persuasive and they made it available fast and people who were interested (authors, editors, journalists) tweeted and posted about it. Authors, editors and journalists are in fact ALL OVER social networks like Twitter, and a referral from any of them is far more persuasive and effective than Macmillan themselves tweeting and FBing about the mess. Who would follow a publisher’s twitter feed, honestly? I don’t even follow my own publisher’s twitter feed or any other company’s feed because I prefer to hear from people.
The real reason this round went to Macmillan is because Amazon very, very stupidly stopped carrying the company’s *print* books, which was so screamingly retaliatory and unfair to writers and readers who have no role in the dispute that they could not thereafter cast themselves as the victim. Their mistake was 1) doing this in the first place and 2) thinking, apparently, that it wouldn’t get out or be noticed when they already knew from last year’s GLBT books scandal that authors would raise the alarm when their book sales are impacted.
@LauraM We definitely agree on two points: 1) Macmillan’s statement got out quickly because it was persuasive, and 2) hearing things from individuals (as opposed to a faceless corporate Twitter feed) is the preferred way to hear information. I think your insight into why this round went to Macmillan is spot-on: Amazon does has a history of being unfair to writers.
As I said to Dan earlier, things went okay for Macmillan over the weekend because of the support of the author community, and I agree that Sargent’s letter was a good one. However, as a model for conveying information, this can be a dicey game. You’re relying on others to be your champions. As an example, check out these recent comments from Macmillan authors:
http://twitter.com/JoeFinder/status/8526442879
http://twitter.com/jchutchins/status/8527698134
http://twitter.com/doctorow/status/8534021171
http://twitter.com/GrammarGirl/status/8509385233
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/seriously-now-theyre-just-being-dicks/
Sounds like people are starting to get a little frustrated, right? Maybe wanting a little information about what’s going on up top? Unfortunately, in the system Macmillan has set up, communications with their authors aren’t quick and easy. There isn’t a system in place for the CEO or a company representative to quickly pop in and say, ‘I know it’s hard. I assure you we’re working on it. When something is decided, you’ll be the first to know.’
Taking out a full-page ad in Publishers Lunch works when you want to make a splash. Day-to-day communications with authors and, hell, even with employees, is a different animal.