Friday, December 4, 2009

Big Box Bookstores & Social Media

I spoke earlier about some St Louis-area indie bookstores and how they're implementing social media, and I've been thinking about the big chains. What's their presence on Facebook, Twitter, or blogs? Here's a rundown:


Twitter:
None of the searches brought up actual accounts from any of the major retailers, but they are being talked about. Oh, wait: the Borders Facebook page includes a link to their Twitter feed. It includes a good mix of random thoughts, article links, replies to others' comments, and retweets; 35,000 followers. Pretty good.

Facebook:
  • Barnes and Noble seems to be doing pretty well:  nearly 50,000 fans, author discussions, guiding you to their website, 500+ comments to wall posts such as "Finish this sentence: All I want for Christmas is _____"
  • Borders: the first hit on Google is for a England-specific fan page, but the second hit is the real deal. And it appears to get the process, with 90,000 fans; comments about the holidays; video clips of authors' appearances; book excerpts

Blogs:
  • There is a Borders blog website, but so far there are only two: one for science fiction (Babel Clash) and one for romance (True Romance), and it's hard to determine who's blogging for them. For Babel Clash, it may actually be authors, but again, it's not specifically mentioned (or if it is, and it's now archived, it's not easy to see). Additionally, it was hard to find the blogs in the first place, and they're very narrowly focused--and they don't appear to be popular (no or very few comments).
  • I can't find anything for Barnes and Noble blog-wise
Overall: both get good points for Facebook, and Borders is ahead for Twitter. But I don't know what's worse: the fact that Barnes and Noble doesn't have a blog, or that Borders has blogs that are somewhat problematic.

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