Waterstone’s dominated the social media performance of the major book retailers around World Book Day this year, new analysis has shown.
The analysis, conducted by social media specialists Maybe*, found Waterstones to be the most active of the retailers with 79 posts about World Book Day. One of its Instagram posts about its Children’s Book of the Month – “Moon Flight” by Gill Lewis – posted using the hashtag #WorldBookDay received nearly 400 likes. Waterstones gained the most engagement over the time frame by continuing the World Book Day conversation beyond the day itself and by also implementing the hashtag #WBD2023, which the other retailers did not use.
As a result, Waterstones had the best percentage engagement of all the retailers with engagement levels at 0.33% of its overall following.
Other retailers active on social media included WHSmith, with its most popular post being on Instagram about supporting a child to read for pleasure, which has had 219 views, and Daunt Books, which posted twice on World Book Day, the most successful being on Instagram with author Tọlá Okogwu signing copies of her book “Onyeka and the Rise of the Rebels”, which received 137 likes.
The Works and Foyles each posted just once on World Book Day.
Amazon, which had a significant world book day section on its website and clearly gained lots of engagement during the time frame, did not promote anything on social media about the day.
“Each of the retailers we analysed was very similar in terms of sharing World Book Day content on their social platforms, but only Waterstones seems to have really grasped it as an opportunity to engage with their audience and to try and convert interest into sales, online and in-store, ” explains Polly Barnfield OBE, CEO of Maybe*.
“The hashtag #worldbookday was used in all posts by each retailer on the actual day proving a great way to gain engagement and drive traffic. Those that didn’t share any content regarding World Book Day would not have joined the conversation that would have allowed them to reach out to potential new audiences.”
Maybe* provides a range of social media engagement and insight tools that help clients engage with conversations on social media to improve business results. These tools enable businesses to see what content is working best and boost their best performing content, to compare their social media performance to competitors or collaborators, and, by knowing what content is working, being able to join the right conversations. The company works with BIDs and local authorities across the UK to train retailers in how to position themselves at the centre of local conversations to ensure their businesses gain support and interest.
