Facebook Marketing India has released its first case study of 2013. Published on May 16th, 2013, it details how Penguin Books India used Facebook to increase awareness and attendance for its flagship Spring Fever 2013 book festival. Bangalore based social media agency, AliveNow, was instrumental in strategizing and executing this highly successful campaign in February and March this year. The case study was published on Facebook Marketing's official page, www.facebook.com/MarketingIndia which has close to 3 million (30 lakh) engaged users from the digital, social media and marketing communities. The case study details how AliveNow helped Penguin India garner over 7,400 registrations in a 2 week period for the 10-day gala event held in New Delhi. Spring Fever is one of Penguin India's flagship events attended by celebrities like Shobhaa De, Vikas Khanna, Ruskin Bond, Vikram Seth, Ramchandra Guha, etc, who interact with book enthusiasts, aspiring writers and literature lovers. Using various Facebook features like applications, ads and sponsored stories, Penguin India was able to increase awareness, engagement and registrations to the event.

1. Case Study
Facebook: Building Essential Connections
Penguin India used Facebook to increase awareness and
attendance for its Spring Fever 2013 book festival, a 10-day
extravaganza where authors and book enthusiasts gather
to celebrate books, reading and more.
The Facebook campaign added 20,000-plus engaged fans,
distributed more than 7400 passes and booked all Spring
Fever events to capacity.
Goals
Drive registrations for Spring Fever 2013 events during the
10-day festival.
Increase awareness about Spring Fever by sharing details
of each day’s events.
Increase engagement and conversations on the Facebook
Page regarding the event.
Approach
Penguin India had AliveNow - Social Media Management
build a Spring Fever 2013 app on the Penguin India
Facebook Page. The app was Like-gated, so people had to
like the page to enter the app. Fans could browse through
events or register and request passes to specific events.
Facebook Ads used keywords to target people interested
in books, authors and reading; Ads also used geographical
targeting because a high percentage of event registrants
were expected to be from New Delhi and Gurgaon.
Penguin India engaged new and existing fans about
Spring Fever by posting regular updates about authors
and events on its Facebook Page. By using promoted
posts, updates appeared higher in fans’ News Feeds.
Penguin India used sponsored stories to spread its Spring
Fever message at scale to friends of fans.
Results
20,000+ likes added during the duration of the campaign.
7,431 passes were requested via the app.
Database collection via the app will allow Penguin to communicate
with engaged fans about upcoming events, book launches and more.
All events were overbooked; ticket requests and event registrations
were activated ONLY on Facebook.
“Spring Fever is a festival designed by keeping the reader in
mind, and is open to all booklovers to attend and connect with
their favorite authors. Our primary outreach platform on the
digital space was Facebook, and we are delighted with the
overwhelming response and enthusiasm that our posts and
outreach generated. Through Facebook, Spring Fever quickly
became viral and was shared extensively, bringing more like-
minded readers and book lovers to the festival – and to our page.”
Hemali Sodhi,
Vice President, Marketing & Corporate Communications, Penguin India.
“This campaign was tremendously successful on all parameters.
We achieved more registrations than we expected, thousands
of users learned about the fantastic events happening at Spring
Fever and we increased our user base to touch almost 1 lakh
Likes on the page by the end of our campaign. Facebook Ads and
Promoted Posts also worked really well in spreading the news
about Spring Fever and reached the right audience.”
Adhvith Dhuddu,
Founder & CEO, AliveNow - Social Media Management.
Penguin Books India is the largest English language trade
publisher in the subcontinent. Founded in 1985, Penguin India
began publishing in October 1987 with six books. Celebrating
its 25th anniversary in 2012, the company now publishes
more than 250 new titles every year and has an active
backlist of more than 3,000 titles.
Penguin India, known for its strong fiction and narrative
non-fiction list, publishes across virtually every segment,
including biography, travel, business, politics, history,
lifestyle, cookery, religion and philosophy, health and fitness,
sports and leisure, visual books and children’s books.
Facebook.com/PenguinIndia
AliveNow is an award winning social
media agency based in Bangalore.
Facebook.com/AliveNowInc
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