I spent some time at Village Books in Bellingham yesterday. It is a very popular local, independent bookstore; a place where the hours slip by easily. They also have a very well managed online and social media presence. Their offline and online brand is solid.
Online, they use Facebook very effectively to announce events at the bookstore, promote authors, provide incentives to get people to visit and initiate conversations for book lovers.
Similarly, on Twitter, they provide a consistent flow of topical, informative and entertaining dialog with their followers.
They also have an informative, well written blog and regularly updated website and online store.
In short, they are really exploiting all online marketing channels to get people into their bookstore — and they are doing it with a personality that will certainly attract people to stop by and check them out.
They have created a bridge between the Internet and their offline presence in downtown Fairhaven and the traffic is, I’m sure, flowing.
Of course, it is also important to build that bridge for two-way access. I didn’t notice any @Villagebksbham banners or appliques on the front windows and I’m not sure if they put their Facebook profile address on their receipts. If they aren’t driving in-house traffic to the conversations that they are having online, they should.
A nice slogan for them (or any bookstore) would be “The plot thickens. Follow our story @Villagebksbham and facebook.com/villagebooks”
Are you building solid, two-way bridges between your offline and online environments?
If not, why not?
