After a lot of whining, here’s a social media engagement idea – from India – that made me go, ‘WOW!’.
The initiative, by Penguin India, is simple. Send free books to people and let them review it.
Things that Penguin India got wonderfully right…
- The idea was themed – ‘Blog a Penguin India Classic’ – it was specifically about a new series Penguin was bringing out in India.
- There’s no catch – its as straight as ‘get free book’ and ‘blog’.
- The fine print does say that they expect any free book receiver to actually send a review – not sure if there’s anything for not doing a review – but that’s beside the point.
- The initiaitve actually ‘gives’ something to people – doesn’t merely push its agenda like most other brands’ social media engagement approach.
- It’s just right and very open in its ambition – it does not intend to give a free book to everyone in the country – a simple, ’till stocks last’ fine print is enough to communicate that.
- The process listed is dead simple.
- Its communicated in a simple, unpretentious manner – in their free blogspot blog, no less. Just goes on to show that it doesn’t take big bucks to engage with social media – just a damn good idea.
- Minor execution issues aside (from the comments!), it seems to be working already (again, from the limited comments!!)
- Update 1 (thanks to Anit’s comment): Penguin India actually goes through the comments and answers them within context!Â
Take a bow, Penguin India!
Update 2: Naga comments about New Horizons, the publishing outfit from former Cricinfo co-founder Badri Sheshadri, doing the very same thing, since November 2008! Ouch!