As I read the UnME Jeans Case I was wondering whether all companies can use social media to advertise their products. A category of companies that came quickly into my mind was publishing companies.

Is it therefore wisely for publishing companies to advertise their books through social media?

Many will think that the target group for a publishing company consists of people of old ages that are not interested in social media, as a result the idea of advertising through social media will seem a joke. However, in such a competitive market where companies try to catch people’s attention in terms of the content of their books, publishers should look to solutions to make their products also visible to the overcrowded marketplace. Furthermore, books are the types of products that put the customer in a relatively high risk before the purchase. This is because when someone buys a book he doesn’t know the actual quality of the product. This risk can be minimized by making an active dialogue between the author and the customers through social media and other means of Web 2.0.For example, the author can provide information about the book in a blog, so that the customers can expect what the book is about. This way there will be created an emotional bond between the customers and the author of the book. A large part of such activities is described by the term author branding .

Finally, from a research conducted by Bettina Lis and Jennifer Berz it was found that the extensive use of social media from publishing companies increases the probability of customers to purchase these products.

Refferences: “Using Social Media for Branding in Publishing” by Bettina Lis and Jennifer Berz, Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies