Promoting Raising Children in a Digital Age for Church & Media Network Conference

Editor's Notes

1. 5 minutes… Welcome. Let’s see “mixed-mode” marketing for ‘Raising Children in a Digital Age’ – as we’ll see, it draws on the power of a traditional publisher, powerful media outlets, but mixed in with my own profile as a ‘social media known name’.
2. The physical product Published by a ‘known’ publisher, rather than ‘self-published’ – immediately gives credibility, and puts their power/connections behind the book. The title/cover design were created using that expertise – what sells? Originally there was an idea about “digital jungle” but I thought that gave the wrong impression (although it made a reappearance on the back cover!) … The brief I gave was that most books in this subject area are negative/dark/scary, so could we have something ‘bright, simple, that stood out on the shelves, and would engender a sense of positivity”. As a starting point that has worked well …
3. This is an example of people I know spotting the book in shops/at conferences, etc. and sharing on FB/Twitter… and you’ll note that the shops like the cover, so give it good prominence, meaning more people are likely to pick it up…
4. Important to note that there’s a long game at play here… and that’s what I really want to demonstrate through the next few slides… My PhD thesis had been online in various forms since 1997 – and here it is now, and, as an accessibility/usability project in 2001/2 had demonstrated – focus first and foremost on quality content, so that you rank highly in searches – which paid off in 2005, when I worked on an online project ‘The Art of War’ with The National Archives. Helps that this is a topic is ‘public-friendly’ (unlike many PhDs), and also there’s the ‘right-time, right-place’ factor – ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ rose to prominence in 2009 – my work (because findable) got picked up by Daily Express, New York Times, The Independent, the BBC, LA Times and various other outlets – so I needed to be available to talk to those people at short notice (the other week, I filmed for a Chinese documentary programme on the poster!)… gave me some media experience…
5. As has always been, important to be ‘known’ and let others know what you’re working on, so that they will push others in your direction too… I also worked hard to get material onto Wikipedia about Keep Calm which certainly sent 1000s of visitors to the site… Lots of people know me through my Twitter ID @drbexl, so it was important to use that too - use my ‘personal’ blog site, and ensure that my avatar and photos available for publications were clearly visible (and print media could download easily – so they didn’t miss deadlines). My 80% work, CODEC, also came to support the launch, which we scored well on getting Westminster Central Hall, less well planned, picked half-term!
6. … this is my social media consultancy site, where I post stories of relevance to the book, each redirecting people to this page, where I collated together everything to do with the book – front cover/back cover, commendations, press coverage, extracts, opportunities to buy, etc…. And regularly tweet about that - I used a programme called Hootsuite to preset tweets that would share out at specified intervals, so I was able to prep all of that in one fell swoop … and then just add as new press came in. This was then a useful page to send to contacts as a one stop shop… and note it’s not particularly flashy!
7. What you’ll see further down the same page is that it was really important to find strong commendations – so we had extensive discussions about that – “celebrity” and “expertise” do help give credibility … Sonia Livingstone, although not necessarily known amongst the general public, is an expert academic voice, whilst Reg Bailey from the Mother’s Union gave the more general ‘clout’. We had other names lined up, but, as we know, they don’t all come off… You’ll see here that I listed everything that I was on (still ongoing!) … but also a page of ‘thank you’, which I shared with all those I’d acknowledged in the book – relationships are important … they feel valued, and potentially share (with excitement, often)… Note that this is not done in a machivallean way, but because I have made social media and it’s culture a part of my daily experience (as anyone can), it’s ‘natural’ to do things this way.
8. One of the strategic areas we discussed – with intentionality – trying to get that “lucky break” that I’d got with ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ was to look at important dates that we could hang material, press releases, etc. The book was due to be released 19th Feb 2014 – although I had notifications from people they were buying the week before in shops – and I was aware of Safer Internet Day, which was the week before. Because a number of pre-publication copies of the book were available – Lion Hudson’s PR (Rhoda Hardie) targeted a number of places online & offline … The Financial Times describes book as ‘sensible’ in a sea of scare books - we picked up a number of regional/Christian media, The Daily Telegraph – extensive discussions with The Daily Mail, lots of specialist media to do with parenting, etc. (all about going where people are, rather than expecting them to come to you).
9. .. But the biggest winner was getting invited as a ‘big guest’ (George Clooney type of slot) for Steve Wright in the Afternoon – 8 million listeners, a largely secular audience (the book, although published by a Christian publisher, is for a general audience) – checking onto UK Amazon that evening – the book had gone into the top 1000 books being sold across the whole of Amazon … and probably helped reach the need for a reprint 4 months after the book was published. Now need to capitalise on the return invitation…
10. Note that this is all a learning curve – although pre-recorded, I’d been trailed on Radio 2 for several days, so the BBC wanted to be sure that I had the right ‘quality’ for a high profile slot in a high profile show – so they wanted to listen to material that I had done on previous radio programmes, most notably this one… Most publicity opportunities are good opportunities…
11. As I work most frequently within the Christian sector (although a quick visit to Girlguiding has led to a commissioning of training work) – getting good coverage in Christian publications was important, and sometimes you get more than you expect. We pitched for a piece on children & the internet, but Vicky Beeching had just published one a couple of weeks before the book was published, so further discussions led to that prime real-estate – the back page of the Church Times!
12. Don’t forget to take some of these!!
13. The big ones are the ones we may mention, but all those smaller interactions on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, regional radio, etc. have fed into the bigger picture, and often led to bigger opportunities. As I’m always pretty busy, it’s involved a few late nights, and the occasional ‘no, sorry’ but the presence of the book is high both online and offline. So … if you want to read more about digital culture, digital theology – connect with us at CODEC.