Waterstone's Success Story

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I Spy help UK’s leading bookseller to promote Waterstone’s online via the implementation and management of social platforms to drive further traffic to their site.

Waterstone’s, hired I Spy in 2008 to develop their Social Media strategy and manage all Social Media platforms. The brief was simply to promote Waterstone’s online, increase the number of inbound links and drive more traffic to the site.

Aim:

Raise awareness within online media and drive further traffic to Waterstones.com

Key objectives used to quantify the campaign were as follows:

1. Promote Waterstone’s across a range of social media:
2. Target book related blogs
3. Set up, manage and promote social media networks including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
4. Optimise YouTube channel
5. Utilise social bookmarking sites to promote interesting content.
6. Submit competitions/offers to competition and community sites.
Strategy: Utilise social media tools to engage, entertain and provide value to Waterstone’s customers.

Strategy

• Approach bloggers to promote new books, e.g. French and Saunders, Jon
• Holmes, Strictly Come Dancing, Foodie List
• Create a Facebook page with videos, special offers, events and more
• Set up and promote Waterstone’s Twitter, continue to provide strategic ideas and insights

Social Media Results:
• I Spy have managed to establish Waterstone’s across a variety of social media platforms driving large volumes of traffic to the site. Through innovative projects like the twinterview I Spy has assisted Waterstone’s develop as a brand and connect with a new type of customer, one that they had not been actively targeting previously.
• Facebook fans increased 32% with 760 new members over a two month period
• Twitter followers increased by 44% with 2,431 new members
• Ant and Dec twinterview generated huge buzz online with more than 500 related tweets / questions asked
• 250 voters on twitter and featured on Waterstone’s.com.
• 500 + new followers just from the twinterview campaign.
• ‘Waterstone’s YouTube videos featuring on the first page of Google.’
• Ran a ‘twinterview’ with Ant and Dec to promote the launch of the TV star’s Ant & new book
• Created a Twitter poll to ask the Twitter community what they want from Waterstone’s Twitter
• Created Flickr page for Waterstone’s ‘Picture this’, a search, alongside Macmillan Children’s Books, for an unpublished illustrator to work with Britain’s biggest-selling picture book author, Julia Donaldson.
• ‘Extensive blog targeting and social media lead to improved link popularity and quality dramatically improved. As a result Waterstones.com was promoted to 3rd position in Google’s natural search results for “books”.’

“I Spy delivered an extra 10,000+ visits to Watersones.com
which were generated through managing Facebook, Twitter and YouTube effectively.”

“I Spy have been at the forefront of our initiation into and our ongoing strategy to engage with our customers through social media. They continue to provide us with cutting edge advice and ideas on navigating this new and exciting landscape.”
Glenville Morris, eCommerce