Week 2: Barnes And Nobles Case Study
March 17, 2023
This week, I decided to specifically analyze Barnes and Nobles and how they’ve taken advantage of modern social media to boost their business. According to journalist Russell Raath from Forbes, “Barnes & Noble has suffered from seven years of declining revenue as Amazon’s dominance in online retail grows.” As the digital takes the place of the physical, it’s no surprise that physical book retailers suffer in revenue and relevance. However, as examples of authors and books that go viral due to specific and well-placed marketing strategies on apps such as TikTok and Instagram increase, I’ve noticed that Barnes and Nobles has also hopped on this trend in hopes of increasing customer engagement.
For example, this is a picture I took of one of Barnes and Nobles’ many ‘cluster-bookshelves’:
This week, I decided to specifically analyze Barnes and Nobles and how they’ve taken advantage of modern social media to boost their business. According to journalist Russell Raath from Forbes, “Barnes & Noble has suffered from seven years of declining revenue as Amazon’s dominance in online retail grows.” As the digital takes the place of the physical, it’s no surprise that physical book retailers suffer in revenue and relevance. However, as examples of authors and books that go viral due to specific and well-placed marketing strategies on apps such as TikTok and Instagram increase, I’ve noticed that Barnes and Nobles has also hopped on this trend in hopes of increasing customer engagement. For example, this is a picture I took of one of Barnes and Nobles’ many ‘cluster-bookshelves’:
Here is another example of Barnes and Nobles directly aligning itself with popular social media. It is interesting how even physical book retailers increasingly rely on the digital to stay afloat. In the next few weeks, I will further analyze the consequences of this through surveys and interviews and create more quote outlines and annotated bibliographies for the three spheres I intend to focus on.
Thank you for reading!
Works Cited: Raath, Russell, Will Barnes & Noble’s Next Chapter Be Its Last?, https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2021/02/09/will-barnes–nobles-next-chapter-be-its-last/
Waterfield, Angela, “Barnes & Noble Embraces BookTok”, GoodEReader, 2022, https://assets.goodereader.com/blog/uploads/images/2022/03/18131613/2022-03-18-2.jpg.webp, Accessed 16 Mar. 2022