With the social media landscape constantly evolving, it’s vital to have a dynamic and responsive social media plan in order to give our books the best chance to find their readers. It has become clearer than ever over the past few years that the platforms we use to find and share book information are changing, with X/Twitter becoming less central to a lot of users, TikTok establishing itself as no longer a newcomer but a major reading community, and other sites such as Threads and Bluesky building their own book-related audiences.

We were delighted to host a BookMachine panel event at the London Book Fair earlier this month, with expert speakers from across the industry sharing their insights into how we can successfully navigate social media in 2025 and how best to balance paid and organic strategies. The discussion was chaired by our Digital Marketing Strategist, Gemma Rostill, with panellists Louis Patel, Head of Marketing at Orion, Kate Molyneux, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Bloomsbury Publishing and Matt Rafiq Vaz, Head of Digital Media at Penguin Random House UK.

Thinking strategically about books and their audiences

When approaching each new book campaign, it’s important to ask whether social media is actually the right place for a marketing campaign to focus. Who is the target audience for the book, and where do they spend their time? If the majority of a book’s target readers aren’t spending much of their time online, then another type of campaign would be more effective at reaching them.

Another key decision to make from the start of a campaign is whether you are aiming to drive sales in a very direct way through your online content, or rather to build awareness of an author, series or imprint. Matt Rafiq Vaz of PRH explained that with debut authors, building awareness is key, because the online community doesn’t know much about them yet, while with more established and better-known authors, campaigns can be aimed more at driving sales.

Changes in the social media landscape since 2020

Social media has evolved significantly in the past five years, with platforms rising and falling in popularity, and no one site dominating the entire reading marketplace. Kate Molyneux of Bloomsbury described how content creation has developed over this period: while in the past, one piece of content would be used across multiple platforms, her team now adapts content in a bespoke way to the platforms it will appear on. For example, on TikTok it’s vital to grab the viewer’s attention in the first 1.5 seconds or you’ll lose them to the scroll, while content made for Instagram can have a slower pace and a more considered aesthetic.

Louis Patel of Orion stressed the importance of choosing the right platform for specific genres of book and then communicating this strategy to sales teams, authors and agents. Matt added that his team at PRH have pivoted away from a Meta-based model for paid social, and they are now exploring multiple platforms, including Pinterest and Reddit.

As publishers don’t generally have a direct link through to the consumer, it can be hard to know how views and online engagement translate into sales. In order to assess the effectiveness of campaigns, the publishers on our panel use social listening tools such as Brandwatch to see how their marketing campaigns are performing. 

How to work effectively with content creators

As well as generating their own content for social media marketing, publishers work with online content creators, who create their own posts and videos about new books in order to communicate with their highly specific follower bases. Kate described how the Bloomsbury Creator Circle enables her to identify creators with particular interests, based in specific locations. One of the benefits of this tool is that she can easily invite people to book events in their area, on topics that they’re interested in.

As before, the panellists stressed the importance of tailoring the choice of platforms and creators to each specific campaign. As an example, a children’s picture book campaign would work better on Instagram than TikTok, as more parents and grandparents would be likely to see it there.

Sites of untapped potential

All three of our panellists had tips for underexploited platforms where our campaigns might get more bang for their buck:

• Pinterest: an ideal place to promote cookery and craft titles, and any book with a beautiful aesthetic.
• Reddit: not easy to crack but perfect for reaching specific fandoms such as Doctor Who and Percy Jackson.
• LinkedIn: a natural platform for business and other non-fiction titles, offering potential for some fun and disruptive techniques to create engagement. (A great example of this beyond the book world is the Lumon Industries LinkedIn page, which celebrates the innovative severance procedure without mentioning the Apple Plus series Severance once.) 
• YouTube: although often overlooked, YouTube adverts can be a great way to promote books, and parents tend to trust advertising on YouTube more than ads from other sites such as X.

The only certainty is change

Our panel of experts had a rapt audience for their case studies, tips and predictions, and one of the key takeaways from the discussion is that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for the social media marketing of books. Instead, we need to look out for the places where our audiences hang out, and create content that speaks to them in a way that’s appropriate for each platform. 

It seems likely that the tectonic plates of our online landscape are going to keep shifting beneath our feet over the coming years, and our strategies will need to shift with them. Social media offers us amazing opportunities to reach readers and build communities – so it will be worth the journey, wherever it takes us.

Many thanks to our wonderful speakers at this panel event: Gemma Rostill, Louis Patel, Kate Molyneux and Matt Rafiq Vaz.

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