Creative Technologist Connor Raus Brings New BOWIE Biography Into the Limelight
Cindy Rogers
Marc Spitz was released on October 27th, 2009 by Crown/Random House.
Connor Raus, the marketer behind the book's online success has just
released a case study which details the digital marketing strategy.
When author Marc Spitz needed to draw attention to his new book
“BOWIE: A Biography,” he knew what his publisher could and couldn’t
do. That’s why Spitz turned to new media expert Connor Raus.
“Publishers specialize in drawing broad attention through traditional
media,” explains Raus. “But Marc Spitz needed to target fans of David
Bowie specifically. You can’t do that in magazines, radio or
television.”
Through web analytics, Raus realized that a Bowie book was in big
demand—there were over 20k searches a month for the term. On behalf of
the author, Raus acquired a domain, DavidBowieBook.com, designed an
intuitive website and began optimizing the site for search engines.
Then he took it a step further by marrying the website to social
networks like Facebook and Twitter.
“Traffic exploded on the site almost instantly,” says Raus, “But I was
shocked to see what an enormous impact we were able to make with
social media.”
Before the book was even released, the author had over 1,700
interested fans on his newly-created email list, and over 500 pre-
orders for the book. In just two months, Raus corralled over 3,000
fans to Spitz’s fan page on Facebook. Within a matter of weeks, Spitz
had readers all over the world clamoring for his book—and he was able
to sustain their interest even after the books release.” “Has anyone
started reading the book yet?” the author asks on his BOWIE: A
Biography Facebook Fan Page. Seventeen people immediately chime in
with praise.
Following the wild success of Spitz’s digital strategy, major
publishers and literary agents have sought out Raus’s expertise and
have signed on in hopes of tapping into his social networking prowess.
Although Raus is able to tap into readers, he still maintains that a
book has to have the right kind of draw in order to work as a social
networking phenomenon.
“Books that deal with a specific topic that we can find a large viable
audience to connect with will initially fair much better than general
interest books,” says Raus. “But every author needs to have a web and
social presence regardless.”
Connor Raus is a Creative Technologist with CRKWD, a Digital Agency.
To learn more, check out the just released BOWIE Case Study (http://
www.scribd.com/doc/23524539/BOWIE-A-Biography-Case-Study) or visit
CRKWD online at http://www.crkwd.com