Vaynerchuk to Booksellers: Crush It!

Now is the time for independent booksellers to cash in on their passion, according to YouTube wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk, who coached attendees on his highly successful method of branding via "sweat equity" at the BookExpo America session "Crush It!" on Saturday, May 30.

After using traditional advertising to build his family wine business, Vaynerchuk (Crush It!, HarperStudio) increased sales exponentially by using video, Twitter, and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his (well worth watching) video blog. Viewership increased to more than 80,000 a day, and the company's sales topped $60 million a year.

Vaynerchuk told those at the BEA SRO event that independent booksellers are "sitting on... gold" regarding their brand-building potential, and solidifying relationships with customers is the cheapest and simplest strategy for increasing sales. The formula is essentially -- "Pump out content, build community around the content, and build business."

Vaynerchuk doesn't pretend that building a brand is easy, and he underscored that he worked for 18 months without seeing much return. However, the foundation of his formula -- creating content -- is something indie booksellers already do. "You all have the ability through human assets to communicate to the world," he said.

It doesn't matter if booksellers use video, blogs, or podcasts, the point is to get the brand out there, said Vaynerchuk. "Put out a review every day. Content is king. But marketing is queen, and she runs the household." Vaynerchuk's enthusiastic delivery highlighted the endless possibilities of wide-scale distribution "using tools that cost zero dollars and zero cents."

While there are many book blogs, there is far less book-related video content, Vaynerchuk noted. "The fact that there are not thousands of book review shows is a major missed opportunity."

And he urged indie booksellers to jump on the free video bandwagon. "Where is 'Thursday night with [fill in the name of the bookstore] owner' on Ustream?" Vaynerchuk asked, referring to the Ustream site, which allows for live interactive streaming. He also recommended TubeMogul, a free one-stop service for distributing video uploads to the top video sharing sites, such as YouTube, Viddler, etc.

Lack of fancy equipment shouldn't be a barrier to creating video: a Flip cam works fine for in-store content, he said. And he advised booksellers not to worry about lighting, expensive microphones, or complicated video projects. His unedited 25-minute daily wine shows are shot in one take -- Vaynerchuk talks about wine directly to the camera or with guests.

Booksellers, he said, could easily host similar shows interviewing authors or discussing their daily book picks and should do on screen what they already do every day -- handsell books.

Another free, possibly underused, tool is Twitter, said Vaynerchuk. He just about demanded that booksellers not only Twitter about events, but use the search function to see what people are saying about the store. And if there are any negative posts, he said, "go out and fix it."

Ultimately, Vaynerchuk emphasized, the way we do business has changed completely, and good or bad, it's a change that must be reckoned with. "It's not about what you want, or how it used to be, or how it should be," he said. "It's only how it is. And the quicker you adjust to those market conditions, the faster you'll make things happen."

Watch Vaynerchuk's entire BEA presentation on Viddler.com. --Karen Schechner