Asia Publishers Week
Participant
Asyila Syafawani Afifah
Country : Indonesia
Name : AsyilaSyafawani Afifah
Company : MizanPustaka
Job Title :Content Strategist
E-mail : asyilasa@gmail.com
Work Experience in Publishing
I have work in Mizan Pustaka for more than 7 years. I started as a social media specialist in charge of making contents about book promotion for teenagers and young adults. In 2019, I was promoted as the head graphic designer with a responsibility of planning, supervising, and creating book covers and illustrations for teenagers and children books.
During 2020, I returned to the special media socialist position for general books, fiction and non-fiction for adults and teenagers. And then, in the end of 2022, I was appointed as the content strategist. My job is planning the strategies for contents in social media, websites, as well as paid contents. I am also responsible in overseeing a team of content creators, designers and videographers, as well as coordinating with the editorial team, digital marketing team and community development team. I have to make sure that the contents are in line with the current trends, with the books we published, in order to meet target awareness, reach, and sales.
Current Projects
The project we are currently working on is:
1. Netizen/Reviewer/BookTok-Based Content
In this era of content overload, our publisher competes with countless other creators. To stay ahead, we need to produce a lot of content. Since we can’t do this alone, we’ve created a program to build a "content bank" by collaborating with netizens, KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), and bookstagram/booktok influencers. This way, we can generate more content without extra effort and reach a wider audience beyond our usual market.
2. Community-Based Marketing: Mizan BookTroops
We’ve also launched a book community called Mizan BookTroops. Readers who join get various benefits, and in return, the publisher gains valuable customer data, resources, and loyal customers.
Main Interest
My main interest is in how to maximize content so it can keep up with the vast amount of content on the internet, especially in the teen market, where trends change very quickly. Plus, the fact that the teen market itself shifts rapidly each year. For example, in 2016-2017, Wattpad-published books were popular, then in early 2020, books based on alternate universes (AU) became more favored, but now the AU trend is starting to decline, and there might be another new trend emerging.
Experience Related to This Year’s Topic
From our experience, to stand out in the crowded content space, we publish books that relate to current trends and issues. We also use "trend-jacking," where our content follows popular trends. By staying relevant and trendy, our publisher and the books we release quickly gain high exposure. But it's not just about being on-trend; the content must also be engaging to drive comments, likes, and shares, helping it appear on Instagram's explore page and TikTok's FYP.
For example, our philosophy content "Understand Philosophy with These Books" received 429K views, 33K likes, 296 comments, 5.2K shares, and 12K saves. Similarly, our young adult book, Dilan 1990, got 3M views on TikTok. These engaging, trend-relevant contents not only connect with readers but also drive high engagement, which in turn boosts book sales.
What would you like to discuss related to this year’s topic?
Viral content quickly gains awareness, but it fades just as fast. What we want to discuss is how to create books and content that remain "evergreen," not just momentarily viral. How can we sustain the hype of a product, not just for a week or a month, but for years?