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Remember when chewing gum was typically packaged in a thick, long rectangular casing that caused a bulge in a person’s shirt pocket?

Today gum packaging has taken on a sleek, slim look, more like a matchbook with a flip-top cover. As always, the relevant and fresh look and feel of a product is just as important to its sale as what the product is and does.

This kind of upgrade is happening in the book world, too. According to an article in The New York Times Media & Advertising (@NYTimesAd) section, publishers are wrapping books like Emma and Jane Eyre in new covers: provocative, modern jackets in bold shades of scarlet and lime green that are explicitly aimed at teenagers raised on “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games.”

The new versions are cutting edge replacements for the traditional (read: stuffy, boring) covers that have been a trademark of the classics for decades, those familiar, dour depictions of women wearing frilly clothing. In their place are images like the one of Romeo in stubble and a tight white tank top on a new Penguin edition of Romeo and Juliet.

The covers are intended to tap into the soaring popularity of the young-adult genre, the most robustly growing category in publishing. In the last decade, publishers have poured energy and resources into books for teenagers, releasing more titles each year. Bookstores have followed suit, creating and expanding special sections devoted to them.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you upgrade the cover design and packaging of your titles.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Between traditional publishing, the legitimization of self-publishing, print-on-demand, and Internet technology lowering the barrier to authoring books, roughly 1,000 books are now being published every single day in the USA.

We’ve never had so many books available, yet bookstores are going out of business like never before. With the astronomical number of books in the marketplace and stores closing their doors where books have historically been displayed for serendipitous encountering, the question these days is, “How will people conveniently browse and discover new titles.” The following social websites are one answer:

·         AudioBookFans (@AudioBookFans)

·         AudioFile (@AudioFileMag)

·         Audiobook Jukebox (@audiobkjkbx)

·         Authonomy (@authonomy)

·         BookCrossing.com (@BookCrossing)

·         BookFinder.com (@BookFinder)

·         BookFinder4U.com (@bookfinder4u)

·         Book Genome Project

·         Bookhitch.com (@bookhitch)

·         Bookins (@Bookins)

·         Bookish (@BookishHQ)

·         Booklist Online (@BooklistOnline)

·         Bookmarks Magazine

·         BookMooch (@bookmooch)

·         Booknibblr (@booknibblr)

·         BookPage (@bookpage)

·         BookRabbit (@thebookrabbit)

·         Bookreporter (@Bookreporter)

·         Book Review Index Online

·         BookRiff (@BookRiff)

·         Books & Culture (@booksandculture)

·         Books For Ears

·         BookShout (@BookShout)

·         BookSpot

·         Book TV (@BookTV)

·         Book Verdict

·         Byliner (@TheByliner)

·         DearReader.com (@DearReaderCom)

·         Edelweiss (publishers catalogs) (@weiss_squad)

·         Everyday eBook (@EverydayeBook)

·         Fanado (@Fanadoevents)

·         FiledBy (@filedby)

·         Findings (@findings)

·         FirstChapters (@first_chapters)

·         ForeWord (@ForeWordmag)

·         fReado (@freado)

·         goodreads (@goodreads)

·         Google Books

·         Hyperink (@hyperink)

·         Kirkus Reviews (@KirkusReviews)

·         Lendle (@lendleapp)

·         LibraryThing (@LibraryThing)

·         Listal (@listal)

·         Little Free Library (@LtlFreeLibrary)

·         Los Angeles Times Books (@latimesbooks)

·         Lovereading (@lovereadinguk)

·         The Midwest Book Review

·         NetGalley (@NetGalley)

·         The New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) (@Book Reviews)

·         Oprah's Book Club (@OprahsBookClub)

·         Published.com

·         Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly)

·         Reader2

·         Readmill (@Readmill)

·         Revish

·         Riffle (@Rifflebooks)

·         Shelfari (@shelfari)

·         Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness)

·         ShelfCentered

·         Shelf Unbound (@shelfmagazine)

·         Small Demons (@smalldemons)

·         Togather.com (@TogatherInc)

·         USA TODAY Books (@USATODAYBooks)

·         The Wall Street Journal Books (@WSJBookReviews)

·         Wattpad (@wattpad)

·         Zola Books (@zolabooks)

·         Zooba (@MyZooba)

Also see our blogposts:

·         “Findability, Discoverability, & Marketing" 

·         “Discoverability in the Digital Age: Personal Recommendations and Bookstores" 

·         “How Ebook Buyers Discover Books" 

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to market your books so consumers readily discover them.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, where you’ll find the above list of links in the Book Discovery Sites tab.

The above video has now achieved 5.2 million views on YouTube. It’s a promotion for BBC One using clips from David Attenborough’s (@davidattenboro) Life series.

What makes it so viral?

·         It’s simple

·         It’s majestic

·         It’s entertaining

·         Its music is familiar, catchy, and appropriate

·         It’s light-hearted

·         It invites repeat viewing

·         It’s emotionally uplifting

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The Verge (@verge) reports on a publishing/marketing concept that uses disappearing ink to print books whose text gradually fades away over a period of 2 months as it comes into contact with light and air.

Dubbed "The Book That Can't Wait," the format — an intriguing one in a world increasingly dominated by Kindles and Nooks — is being pioneered by independent Argentinian publishing house Eterna Cadencia, which is using it to promote new authors. As the promo video points out, “if people don't read their first books, they'll never make it to a second.”

Read this in full.

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In a column for BBC Business (@BBCBusiness), Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) CEO Muhtar Kent cites 5 global mega-trends from a Consumer Goods Forum report on the "Future Value Chain," and stresses how fundamentally important they are to the future of retail and consumer goods.

2020 Future Value Chain Webcast Presentation

1.    Mass Urbanization. The proportion of people living in cities has now surpassed 50% worldwide, and should reach 70% by 2050, necessitating new supply chain and logistical models.

2.    We're Getting Older. By 2047, the number of individuals over 60 years of age will be higher than those under 15 years of age, a shift presenting substantial possibilities for suitably adaptive organizations.

3.    The Middle Class Cometh. The world is experiencing the greatest economic shift in history as the global middle class grows by another billion people in the next 10 years. By 2030, over 90% of this audience are set to reside in emerging nations, compared with 50% today.

4.    Consumers in the Driving Seat. Evolving technologies are transforming customers’ expectations and ability to influence companies. By 2013, for example, there will be 2 billion mobile users, while a third of purchases are due to be completed online by 2020. Among the requirements on companies will be finding the right channels through which to converse with shoppers, alongside leveraging big data and embracing collaboration.

5.    What About the Planet? Sustainability will assume heightened importance. By 2030, the global population should hit 8.3 billion, while the demand for food and energy is anticipated to leap by 50%, an acceleration standing at 30% for fresh water.

Read this in full.

Coca-Cola also shares it’s branding vision:

How do the above mega-trends impact your publishing plans? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify and maximize trends impacting your brand’s message.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Thad McIlroy (@ThadMcIlroy), publisher of The Future of Publishing, writes that the word “‘discoverability’ is being used carelessly and doesn’t provide ready answers” in the never-ending quest to help consumers become aware of new books. He says, “Metadata’s first task is mere findability – and the distinction is important.”

·         Findability is the challenge of locating exactly what you’re looking for (even if you have incomplete or inaccurate information about the book).

·         Discoverability is the process by which a book appears in front of you at a point where you were not looking for that specific title (although you are looking for something other than a pound of butter).

·         Marketing a book involves reaching out to a community that should be interested in that particular title and bringing it into focus in a way that captures their attention.

Metadata plays an important role in all of these tasks, although the role it plays is substantially different in each.

Read this in full.

Also see Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) article, "BISG Releases Report on Book Product Metadata," and the Book Industry Study Group (@BISG) press release.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you make your books more findable, discoverable, and marketable.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The above video demonstrates the value of a company taking a consumer’s question seriously and answering it honestly. A consumer asked McDonald’s (@McDonalds), “Why does your food look different in the advertising than what is in the store?”

The hamburger chain responded with a behind-the-scenes tour of a McDonald's Canada photo shoot showing how Watt International (@Wattisretail) preps a Quarter Pounder to look edible for ads. In 3 days, the 3½ minute viral video had 3.5 million views.

Lesson? Answer your customers’ questions with transparency and it will contribute to your brand’s positive reputation.

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize public relations and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

TechJournal South (@TJ_South) reports on a new University of California, Davis (@ucdavis) study of “buzz” marketing on YouTube that says the quality of videos aren’t as important as “seeding” them to influential people (bloggers, tweeters, etc.).

The study’s author, Hema Yoganarasimhan, professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, says seeding information in social media outlets through handpicked agents is crucial.

“It’s not the number of people; it’s focusing on the right people,” she explains. “They need to ask who are their friends, and who are their friends’ friends — and how are they positioned in the network?”

While a close-knit community may be committed and loyal to a dispenser of information, that community may generate low video popularity in the long run, the study showed. That’s because people in a close-knit community don’t interact much with outsiders, resulting in few interactions with 2nd- or 3rd-degree “friends.”

The study, Impact of social network structure on content propagation: A study using YouTube data, finds that while 1st-degree friends are important for initial marketing, 2nd- and 3rd-degree friends are essential for “viral” spread.

The study says video ratings are important — but it doesn’t much matter if the rating is good or bad. Yoganarasimhan’s analysis shows that video quality, as measured by viewer comments and ratings, have little effect on viewership in the long run. However a video with any rating is likely to have more viewers than one with no rating.

Read this in full.

Tim Schmoyer (@timschmoyer) of ReelSEO (@Reelseo) offers 6 tips in “How to Connect with Key Video Influencers in a Social World.”

1. Become engaged in other creators’ blogs and videos....

2. Be genuine....

3. Start with your niche....

4. Collaborate with others at your level....

5. Give a glowing review....

6. Invest the time....

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In Forbes (@Forbes), Jacquelyn Smith (@JacquelynVSmith) writes, “We live in a world where word-of-mouth is the No. 1 driver of sales and competitive advantage — and because there’s a strong correlation between a company’s reputation and consumers’ willingness to recommend it, businesses need to focus on building those strong bonds with stakeholders. Companies should of course strive to earn the trust and esteem of consumers in its native land, but given that a multinational gets a majority of its revenue from international markets, it really needs to be liked everywhere else, too.”

A newly released global reputation study of more than 100,000 consumers shows that who you are as a company is more important than what you produce, with BMW, SONY, and Disney topping the list of the most reputable companies.

The third annual Global RepTrak™ 100, by reputation consultancy firm Reputation Institute (@Reputation_Inst), identifies how stakeholders perceive companies and how those perceptions affect purchasing behavior.

The companies with the 10 best global reputations are:

1.    BMW

2.    Sony

3.    Walt Disney Company

4.    Daimler

5.    Apple

6.    Google

7.    Microsoft

8.    Volkswagen

9.    Canon

10. LEGO

Each company earned a “Global RepTrak Pulse” score of zero to 100, representing an average measure of people’s feelings for it. The scores were statistically derived from calculations of 4 emotional indicators: trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling.

Reputation Institute also analyzed what it calls the 7 dimensions of corporate reputation. That’s where it found that perceptions of the enterprise (workplace, governance, citizenship, financial performance, and leadership) trumps product perceptions (products and services plus innovation) in driving behaviors.

Read this in full.

Read the news release (pdf).

Also see our previous blogpost about the value of brand reputation, “Ford Gets Its Logo Back.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you manage your brand’s reputation.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Marketing/PR tab.

In Search Engine Land (@sengineland), SEO expert Rick DeJarnette (@rickdejarnette) says a webpage’s <title> tag “has the most SEO power of any tag on the page for establishing keyword relevance.” He offers the best practices to achieve optimized results:

1. Use only one per page, placed within the <head> tag…

2. Place top-performing keywords in descending order…

3. Ensure site branding goes last…

4. Use no more than 70 characters, including spaces…

5. Avoid using stop words (“the”, ”an,” “a” and many others)...

6. Reflect the most important keywords used in the page’s body text…

7. Keep it unique between pages…

8. Avoid duplicating the exact text string within the <h1> tag text…

9. Avoid keyword stuffing…

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you optimize your Internet branding presence.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

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