Foreword Online

Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers



Improve Your Store’s Social Media Engagement

Posted by Liz Schulte on 9/26/22 6:30 AM

Social media is a very simple, cost-effective way to engage students with the bookstore. In a perfect world, you would post on your store’s social media account and all of your followers would see and remember the content you post. Better yet, they would heart the post and leave a comment, and maybe even share the information with their friends who don’t follow you. However, as we all know, that is not the reality. So, how can stores get customers to follow and interact with them on social media?

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2021-2022 College Store Social Media Marketing Guide White Paper

Posted by Liz Schulte on 7/26/21 6:15 AM

Prepare your fall social media marketing strategy with the help of this free social media marketing guide. The downloadable guide explores:

  • The most popular social media platforms
  • Timesaving social media hacks
  • What to post on social media
  • Social media best practices
  • Five social media marketing ideas for the upcoming year
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Three Tips to Improve Your Alumni and Community Marketing

Posted by Liz Schulte on 3/17/21 6:30 AM

The college store site is your most valuable resource for attracting alumni, parents and fans to shop from your store. However, these groups might not actively look for your store when they want to show their support for your college. So, how can you drive alumni and the extended campus community to your college store website?

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Hundreds of Free Ways to Promote Your College Store

Posted by Abraham T. Dyer on 5/23/19 3:19 PM

What if your college store had one more employee who devoted 10 more hours each week to developing your campus store's marketing plans and materials? What could your store accomplish? You don't have to spend more on staffing to find out. We have already laid the groundwork and all you have to do is implement it.

Since 2011, Foreword Online has developed complete (and completely free) marketing plans, covering: holiday marketing, charity and community outreach, unique events and sales, faculty relations plans, and more. Below, sorted by time, topic and audience, are the plans and resources you need to keep your store's marketing fresh from month to month.

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How to Create Shoppable Ads on Instagram

Posted by Liz Schulte on 2/18/19 6:00 AM

Social media can be a tremendous tool for connecting with students, alumni and the campus community. However, starting a social media platform is more than just picking one channel and posting from time to time. Your store needs a social media strategy and  it absolutely needs to be on the platform students use. Right now, that platform is Instagram. Right now, that platform is Instagram.

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How to Optimize Your Social Media Reach

Posted by Liz Schulte on 7/26/18 5:30 AM

The intricacies of social media can make even the most stalwart of fans sigh. There is an art to figuring out how to craft a social media post that will sound genuine, yet still perform well in the algorithms that determine a post’s reach. Today, we’re going to discuss how to maximize your social media reach and engagement to drive more students into your store and build trust.

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How to Refocus Your College Store’s Social Media Presence

Posted by Liz Schulte on 2/15/18 5:30 AM

A new year is a great time to revamp your social media efforts. Maybe you have pages on multiple social media platforms, but are only interacting on one of them. Maybe you have fallen off on your posting consistency or tracking efforts. Now is a good time to hash out a new plan and stop doing what isn’t working.

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Why Your Facebook Reach Is Down

Posted by Liz Schulte on 1/19/18 5:30 AM

Have you noticed that your store’s Facebook reach has gone down? This isn’t necessarily a reflection of what you are or are not doing on your page to drive engagement. Facebook is making changes to what users see in their newsfeed. Find out how the changes affect your page.

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Easy and Timely Social Media Polls Produce Helpful Results

Posted by Liz Schulte on 11/17/17 9:00 AM

Social media can serve many functions. It is a great tool to network with peers, it can strengthen your store’s brand, and it makes conversing with your customers easier. But, merely having a presence on social media isn’t enough to garner results. Finding new and creative ways to engage with your audience is an essential part of establishing a robust online presence.

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Marketing in a Snap

Posted by Connor Wiemann on 8/4/17 5:30 AM

Grabbing my attention, or most college students’, isn’t easy because we are bombarded with images and advertisements all day every day. However, catch my eye on Snapchat, and suddenly you have my attention — at least for 10 seconds.

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