case study:

Launching an Author’s Brand and Her Bestselling Book

A civil conflict expert and academic author, with several books published from institutional presses, required our efforts to build her brand before going mainstream with a new work from a major publisher, Penguin Random House.

Barbara Walter is the Rohr Professor of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California San Diego. She is also a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Political Instability Task Force. An expert on violence and civil conflict, our author needed to grow her social media profile before the publication of her book, How Civil Wars Start.

Strategy

We honed in on our author’s target audiences and leveraged her value-proposition to entice followers.

Partnership Mgmt

Our author’s extensive press tour required forward planning and coordination to ensure partner collaborations.

Innovative Design

We generated eye-catching, custom content including graphics and media placements to garner engagement and drive considerable awareness.

taking action:

Analyzing the online space in which she was to operate, we developed audience personas to drive content ideation and an engagement strategy to drive profile visibility. 

As we neared the book’s publication, her Twitter channel was fully activated. And, as she secured a number of national media appearances (ABC News, CNN, NBC, etc.), Barbara’s expertise and book earned immense traction—leading her Twitter account to grow by over 800% after publication.

In two months, her profile jumped from hundreds of followers to nearly 8,000, with an engagement rate of 4.4%. After steadily driving traffic to her book’s sales page, our campaign hit its peak when How Civil Wars Start landed on the New York Times bestsellers’ list. 

In addition to leveraging her book’s publicity, our ability to secure new audiences and retain them was a direct result of our steady stream of engaging content. Our author is poised to continue growing her brand and in a position to convert this community for her next book.

Making an impact

for Barbara Walter

Our customized content strategy allowed our author’s channel to double its profile visits every month during our publishing program. In addition, by activating her profile and taking advantage of Twitter’s trending topics, her impressions increased by over 100% each month leading to immense follower growth. During our engagement, she successfully solidified her presence on Twitter, hit the New York Times bestsellers’ list, and established a brand foundation from almost nothing.