McNally Jackson: Using Social Media to Help Brand a Bookstore in the Digital Age
McNally Jackson is an independent bookstore on Prince Street, Soho, with a counterpart stationary store and photo store nearby. They have a strong local presence, demonstrated by their always-busy cafe and the fact that they are preparing to set up a second branch of the bookstore, despite many thinking that print books are a declining industry. The brand regularly hosts talks and events with literary figures, and engages in some social activism. Their space also has its own printing press, so that you can have your own (or a friend’s) piece of literature published.
I spoke to Matt Pieknik, the Director of Marketing for McNally Jackson, in order to find out how the store uses social media to its advantage.
Why social media is so important:
A big part of the brand is about having a unique voice and personality, so that they can seem a human presence in an otherwise corporate world. Pieknik spoke particularly of the struggles of being an independent bookstore at a time when everything is being digitalized and argued that this is a particularly crucial way for them to connect with the public and expand their customer base.
He was also wary of appearing too hipster or pseudo-intellectual, therefore they try to speak in an unpretentious but smart voice and social media is the easiest way for them to showcase that — beyond demonstrating it in person.
The weekly output on social media:
There isn’t a set schedule or a quota of posts that they need to meet each week, instead it’s mostly about being intuitive. Pieknik explained that they would rather wait for people to have good ideas than force posts, as they want to maintain an organic and personable voice and this is more important than perhaps appearing more often on people’s newsfeeds.
However, they still manage to tweet a couple of times an hour most of the time, despite having no member of staff specifically designated to run the social media accounts. They also tweet a reminder about an event that evening, if there is one, at approximately 11am as standard practice.
Tumblr is then posted on only once or twice a week, due to its posts usually being more long form and so requiring more time to create. Also because these posts are more likely to stay within view for days at a time, unlike the constantly-moving home screen of Twitter, there is less need for constant updating. Instagram is used roughly twice a week.
The marketing team doesn’t really like Facebook’s platform in terms of commercial purposes, as McNally Jackson feel it’s designed to promote larger corporations who can afford to pay extra for sponsored posts and promoted material. This goes against their ethos of being a small, personable brand and so they don’t post often on the site. However, they do have a page and updates appear every week or so, just to cover all their bases.
How different platforms are utilized:
Matt and his team have found that Twitter is best for making announcements, due to customers’ regular engagement with the platform, so they like to post about new events or releases. Pieknik explained that it’s also a great way of having conversations with people and just making regular contact with customers, so they also curate content from other sites that they find of particular interest. This is their main priority as it has “immediate kickback”, in Pieknik’s words.
Tumblr they use more for jokes, information and increasingly original content. As these can be long form, they like to encourage their staff to use this opportunity to showcase their creativity as they feel that this is more personal to the store.
In terms of their Instagram, McNally Jackson is still in the process of working out how it should be used best. As their material is not digitalized and they do not want to produce repetitive shots of book covers, they are still unsure how to maximize their content on here. Right now, it is more about keeping their name as a presence on the feed.
The primary goals that McNally Jackson has for their social media use:
On a commercial level, McNally Jackson use social media platforms to promote their store events. They want to be seen as a cultural hub and this is an important aspect of that, however they also don’t want to be seen as pressuring customers. Social media feels like a more subtle way of reminding people about what McNally Jackson has going on. However, it is also supplementary to their newsletters and posters, which are able to carry a more visual and tactile aspect.
Making it clear what they stand for and what their ethos is is one of their most important purposes, so a second key goal is to display and maintain their individual voice. They hope to create a more in-depth identity so that customers are encouraged not just to purchase from the bookstore, but also to sit in the cafe or in one of the chairs downstairs and really engage in the atmosphere of the store.
They also seek to use these channels in order to communicate with customers. They want to appear as a very human presence, one that is interested and interactive with people. Although they have always been contactable by phone, social media allows them to speak to customers on a much larger, easier scale.
How McNally Jackson manages their accounts in terms of additional sites or programs:
They have discussed using HootSuite before but they have never really got round to it. As they are focused on being intuitive in their posting, scheduling tweets kind of goes against that philosophy.
In terms of analytics, again they don’t use a particular system that regularly as they tend to be able to spot the more popular posts quite easily without this. If need be, Pieknik sheepishly admitted that they usually just Google ‘analytics for [insert Social Media platform]’ and use the first result. For them it’s less about statistics and more about expressing a viewpoint.
Biggest challenges they face:
“It’s challenging to just be totally attentive to it,” said Pieknik. They don’t have a single person whose primary job is social media, as this doesn’t fit the independent bookstore economic model. Therefore, finding the time is difficult, particularly as they’re not just directing people back to their own material but also need to be looking out for external things to link to. Creating original content is also an extra consumption of time, straining their already thin resources.
Another side effect of this is that many different people post from the accounts, as people are in and out of the store. Keeping their voice consistent is therefore an additional challenge, especially as this identity is at the heart of the reason why they use social media at all.
Why McNally Jackson has decided to also promote other content on other websites/by other brands:
Part of creating a three-dimensional identity is sharing their interests further than just what they are able to sell in their own shop. They want to curate content and support ventures they’re interested in, in a way that is very reflective of how they select the books that they stock. If they think something is cool, they want to share that with their customers. Pieknik was very passionate about advocating for the material you admire. “If you respect it and think it’s smart and good, then get behind it,” he said. Particularly at a time when big brands are swallowing up smaller, independent ventures, they believe it is important to show support for good work, no matter how prestigious the source.
Pieknik also explained that they are not into “transparent marketing”, by which they mean they don’t want to bombard their customers purely with information about what they’re doing. Instead, they want to show that they’re engaged and paying attention to the wider world, just like the customers that they are trying to attract.
How social media has created positive change for McNally Jackson:
Rather than creating new possibilities, it makes things easier, more efficient and more interactive. They already held Q&As in the physical store, but now they can source questions from readers who couldn’t be there by having them Tweet their questions. They also already put books on hold or delivered books to people who called in, but social media has made this much easier to do — Pieknik claims that they can deliver a book to you within 90minutes in Manhattan. They can link to live streams of their events much more easily through Twitter as well.
Measurable effects of social media:
There is definitely an increase in sales for those books that they promote specifically on social media. There are far too many works within the store for them to promote all of them, so they are limited in how much they can share but there is a tangible result for what they do. However, Pieknik argues that he can’t quantify in economic terms the full effect of social media, due to so much of it being about conveying voice and personality.
How social media might be used in new ways by the brand, short term:
They would like to just get more followers in general, particularly as their Tumblr following is higher than their Twitter and Instagram following — despite their prolific Tweeting.
Pieknik is also very keen to produce more original content, as he thinks that the content they do produce is really good but they don’t manage to get enough of it out.
Also they would like to make the Instagram’s purpose more clear, as right now they are still unsure how to maximize it. However, they are not sure yet how to do this so this might a long work in progress.
And long-term:
At the moment, McNally Jackson has two additional stores (photo and stationary) but there isn’t the level of cohesion that Pieknik wants. They would like to set up another bookstore in Williamsburg and perhaps elsewhere in Manhattan, so he believes that social media would be a very useful tool in unifying the difference branches. It would also allow for easier collaboration between the teams. “We want to produce a kind of mini indie conglomerate,” Pieknik explained.
Overall, it is clear that social media is very important for the McNally Jackson brand in terms of giving their bricks-and-mortar experience a digital edge. However, they are still working out how best to utilize it for their predominantly print-based company.
