Book Aid International is one of the world's foremost library development charities, distributing hundreds of thousands of books each year in sub-Saharan Africa and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In the first few months of 2011, I'll be working with this incredible charity to understand how they can use social media to increase support for their cause. I'll also be lending a hand with their promotion of the brilliant World Book Day initiative.
For this new, independent children's publisher I shall be working to boost their profile in social media. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in, helping them to promote some great picture books and implement their strategy for Facebook and Twitter.
For further information about Maverick Children's Books and natashaworswick.com please download the press release.
This year, Booktime launched its annual programme with a social media campaign and fantastic prize draw - and I'm really chuffed to have implemented this for them. The aim was to start conversations and build relationships around Booktime's activity, and its principle of reading for pleasure.
I put together a marketing strategy that targets influential bloggers who are parents, librarians or teachers, finding ways to add our voices to other relevant social spaces, or gain mentions in the online publications relevant to those wider audiences. I even played a role through my Children's Books for Grown-ups blog. The Booktrust Facebook and Twitter profiles were of course an essential part of the mix.
So, I'm delighted to say it's gone really, really well.
Year-on-year, there was a 50% increase in the volume of unique visitors, visits and other measures on the Booktime site. At peak times it was more like a 100% increase and 150% around the launch date. The traffic was quality traffic too, with more than 70% of the audience never having visited before, and staying on average for more than four minutes.
Of course, what these hard measures can't really capture is the amazing sentiment there has been around Booktime, its activities, and most importantly reading in general. The Booktime team has been surprised and delighted at the way parents in particular have responded - take a look at our blog round-up for a small example of these.
If you are interested in talking about how social media can work for you, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
So after a winter and spring break for the Booktime blog, I am back and blogging through the launch of the 2010 titles.
The blog is one conversational tool that Booktime has to reconnect with its local partners, and to explain all about the programme to teachers and parents who may not have come into contact with it before.
There is a lot to tell everyone about this year so stay tuned - especially around the great prize draw social media campaign, as well as some of the fabulous online and printed resources that have been developed for parents and children alike.
It's been a busy year again for Booktrust's flagship programme Booktime.
2010's book is the wonderful "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," Said the Sloth by Eric Carle and in place of The Booktime Book of Fantastic First Poems, we have Why is the Sky Blue? a gorgeous book full of questions that little ones would like the answers too.
I was delighted to be writing and project managing the activity and session ideas again for both of 2010's books. These will be delivered as part of the Booktime resource packs to schools and libraries across England and enjoyed by the 600,000 children that receive Booktime's book pack each year.
From 2009-2010 I've had the pleasure of working on Letterbox Club - a programme that’s managed by Booktrust in association with The University of Leceister. They focus on improving the educational lives of looked-after children by providing them with parcels of books with maths and other educational activities.
For Letterbox Club I project managed the production of their 2007-2009 evaluation report, planned a celebration event to detail the findings of the report, and wrote and project managed an information leaflet.
In 2009 I wrote for the all new Booktime blog and the Bookstart parents' blog.
These are both excellent communication tools for Booktrust to reach their wide and varied audience. It is a brilliant way too, for both me and everyone reading the blogs, to keep up with all the new Booktrust happenings.
The Bookstart blog gave me a chance to involve my son Milo too as I watch his reading habits change and progress as he grows.
If you think you or your company could benefit from blogging as a communication tool, and you need someone to write it, regularly update it and even set it all in motion for you, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I’ll be more than happy to help. My own blog, children's books for grown-ups, can be found here.
I worked once more on Booktrust’s Booktime project, producing their activities and session ideas for the 2009 book Mr Big by Ed Vere.
Again I worked on Booktime’s 2009 celebrity PR campaign, researching suitable celebrities, contacting them and securing quotes, interviews and Booktime's spokesperson.
After a lot of work and effort last year on Booktime's new website, I continued to work on it to maintain the high standards we had set for ourselves, keeping all our news and information up to date.
As part of my work on the Booktime site I created and wrote their communications toolkit. This area is for teachers and librarians to find ways to design and get inspiration for their Booktime event as well as download useful tools and resources.
If you don’t already know, Booktime is a programme run by independent education charity Booktrust in association with Pearson and the then DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families, now Department for Education).
In 2008 Booktime's book for the year was the rather brilliant Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School by Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds and for the first time a free, abridged poetry book.
I jointly created the poetry book (The Booktime Book of Fantastic First Poems) and a range of promotional materials from stickers and badges to posters and bookmarks; wrote tailored resources for the teachers’ and librarians’ packs and helped to develop Booktime’s first whiteboard CD-Rom for the classroom; provided writing, marketing and design advice for the website.
I also had fun working on Booktime’s PR campaign, contacting and helping to build up a list of celebrity advocates; co-project managed a celebration event at the Jerwood Space, Waterloo; and project managed the 2008 programme’s launch event at the Natural History Museum in London.
Pictured above is author Ian Whybrow reading to reception children at the launch event (photograph by Ken Lennox).
