The Marketing Power of Social Networks

In my short, but invariably interesting experience as an intern and student, I’ve learned that as others’ expectations of my work decline, so do my own. And in the absence of a better transition (they don’t expect much in grad school), expectations that users have of a given medium can have a similar impact, and in some cases determinative effect, on those media’s potential as marketing tools.

Despite the (almost) incomprehensible mobilizing potential of social media, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have not caught on for seemingly anything other than colloquial, fragmentary and senseless gossip, or at least as much as 140 characters will allow. Although the academic literature on social networking sites and collaborative web portals would use many more words, 140 of which may be recognizable, it essentially would predict that because most Facebook users do not expect to engage in an academic conversation on the same medium on which they gossip with their friends, it is difficult to mobilize an audience behind an academic product on a social network.

While the enormity of the Web allows for even the most specialized user or author to find an audience, finding that information can be daunting, especially for first-time or inexperienced users. Even more daunting can be sorting through a mass of information about the same thing, and more daunting still, deciding which of that information is worth reading. The PSU Press faces a unique challenge in harnessing the power of social media to market what is quintessentially a traditional medium, the book.

It must not only market books written by both academics and community members to both academic and community audiences, but also identify and target the niche audience for each book. Social networks seem made for this type of targeted marketing but, unfortunately, those who are reachable on Facebook aren’t likely to be interested in academic publishing, and those interested in academic publishing aren’t likely to satiate their intellectual curiosity through likes, comments and pokes. But why?

Social networks, collaborative online news portals and blogs, like the one I’m writing and you’re reading, and are so popular because they provide us with a bit of individuality in an infinitesimal vacuum. But is that not the job of books? And publishers? Bending these two media is not impossible, it just takes some getting used to, which is my job as an intern this semester. If we succeed, we could strategically mobilize social networks around each book the press publishes, becoming one of the first university publishers to truly harness the marketing potential of new media. And if we fail, well, what did you expect? I’m just an intern.