Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

What sets Twitter apart from other social media mediums is that it promotes user engagement with other users through quick messages or tweets. Twitter’s fast-paced stream of posts makes timing and quantity important factors in your profile’s success.

Twitter is most popular with those in their 20s, according to Sprout Social. This makes Twitter an excellent choice to use for promoting your campus bookstore.

“With Twitter, we also have a younger audience. There, things like humor, memes, GIFs and more casual posts do well,” Auxiliary Services Marketing Manager, GVSU Laker Store, Liza Guikema, said.

Towson University’s University Store and the New Mexico Junior College Bookstore (NMJC) are two distinct campus stores with a key feature in common: both take advantage of MBS Store Technology Solutions’ annual training. As a result, both stores find new ways to increase revenue, transcend industry challenges and serve their students every year.

For an audience of young millennials and Gen Z, Snapchat is a great way to advertise. Snapchat gives students a seemingly more private way to stay connected. Built on instant gratification, a greater sense of privacy and whimsical filters, it quickly became a favorite social platform for students. For campus bookstores, it can be a fun way to interact with your audience. To enhance your bookstore social media, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to Snapchat specifically for college stores.

Partnerships with local vendors help campus stores provide a retail customer experience that sets them apart from competitors. Produce from local farmers, coffee from a local hang-out or crafts from regional artisans can transform a visit to your store into a shopping experience that inspires word of mouth, repeat visits and customer loyalty. Here’s how four collegiate retailers maximize local vendor partnerships.

Retail store design plays a critical role in how students and the community view your campus store. When the BYU Store Director Mark Clegg joined the store team, he knew he needed to lead the way in modernizing the store. His goal was to provide the campus community a school-branded immersive retail experience that would bring customers to the store time and again.

In preparation for the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA) 2020 conference, MBS sent out a survey to campus store members asking what they’d like to learn at this year’s conference. The result: a fascinating summary of the challenges and goals of collegiate retail professionals nationwide. Here’s a snapshot of the data.

No other medium lets you share ideas, expressions of art, photography and life events like Instagram. It is the premier image-sharing site for over one billion worldwide. It also provides a digital marketing resource for campus stores. Instagram creates a space in which you can share information like upcoming events, sales and merchandise. Instagram’s like and commenting features make it easy to not only share but also engage with students. 

However, effectively using Instagram can be tricky if you’re not sure what you’re doing, so we’ve created this comprehensive guide to enhance your campus bookstore’s 2020 digital marketing.

The University of Pittsburgh Book Store’s Meagan Sotirokos knows how to find general merchandise that sells. She manages Maggie & Stella’s Cards & Gifts, the popular standalone giftshop adjacent to the main bookstore, University Store on Fifth. Ms. Sotirokos has developed strategies that dovetail with millennial and Gen Z shopping habits. An eclectic range of items adorns the shelves: colorful low-cost scrunchies, Lily Pulitzer® handbags, Corkcicle® cooler leather backpacks in seafoam green and more. Her curatorial buying approach helps Maggie & Stella’s deliver the enhanced retail experience customers increasingly expect from brick-and-mortar stores.

It is harder than ever to get and keep students’ attention. A fresh inventory selection with pop-up stores and consignment merchandise helps, but savvy stores like the UCLA Store also incorporates marketing and additional services that bring a steady stream of campus and community foot traffic.

Facebook is the largest social media website in the world.While reaching your intended audience has never been easier, it can still be difficult to engage them. We’ve put together a helpful guide on Facebook marketing for campus bookstores that will walk you through setting up an account, guide you on what kind of content to post and give you a rundown on how Facebook ads work. While many companies use Facebook to make announcements, there are a myriad of ways you can leverage it to drive students into your campus bookstore.