What Next for Social Media: Campus event recap
While social media has been a constant element of book marketing for at least the past fifteen years, the social media landscape itself has never stood still. Instead, we have seen new platforms enter and flourish or fade, while older platforms have transformed beyond our expectations, some of them becoming less pleasant places to be than they once were.
On Wednesday 14th May, our Events and Client Director Suzanne Kavanagh introduced a panel of experts for a BookMachine Campus event online to explore what’s next on the social media horizon, and how to be successful on today’s platforms. The panel was chaired by Jo Liddiard, Head of Marketing at Head of Zeus, and joined by Keris Fox, the author of fifteen books, most recently The Harry Styles Effect, and Louis Patel, Head of Marketing at Orion Publishing Group.
Finding connection in a changing landscape
When a new platform starts to become popular, as TikTok did shortly before the pandemic, it’s tempting to transfer your activities over to it, but all the panellists agreed that it’s important to make the most of existing online relationships rather than abandoning them in search of something new and exciting.
Facebook in particular is a great place to connect with readers, many of whom may not be active on other platforms, and it also offers closed groups where fans of a particular author can gather and participate in special events and content previews. Conversation and engagement need to be at the heart of marketing activities – it’s not just about what we broadcast to our audiences, but how we connect with them.
Like many of us, Keris found X an unwelcoming place to be after its Elon-Musk-induced changes, and she chose to leave the platform. She is now active on Bluesky and Instagram, but her key focus now is Substack, where she runs two newsletters: she explores women’s relationships with money in The Ladybird Purse and shares her writing and reading experiences in Happy Endings. Substack has started offering a range of new tools, to the consternation of some its users, including a Twitter-style Notes feed and a Reels-adjacent video function. One particular strength of Substack when it comes to community building is that creators actively recommend each other’s newsletters to new subscribers, and a third of Keris’s readers have come to her from other authors’ recommendations.
Bluesky is where many Twitter exiles have headed, and as Jo pointed out, it doesn’t yet offer all the functionality of the older platform, and it can feel a bit quiet. However, as it is still a relatively new platform, it’s likely that we will see more functions being added in the near future. Although Bluesky itself does not offer advance scheduling of posts at the moment, this can be done with third-party services such as Buffer.
As Louis also mentioned during our London Book Fair panel, Reddit is well worth looking into for book marketers. Jo pointed out that there are many active science fiction subreddits related to books she has worked on, such as Liu Cixin’s The Three Body Problem. and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books, and Louis highlighted a Reddit campaign for Rachel Maddow’s Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, in which the publisher sponsored some threads on issues Rachel raises in the book. As well as generating constructive conversations, this project also gave Rachel material to use elsewhere to promote her book.
Other platforms to explore include: StoryGraph, where Jo runs regular UK book giveaways; Pinterest, which is ideal for reaching audiences with specific interests such as gardening, baking or party planning; and LinkedIn, to reach readers interested in business-related topics. Spotify is another platform that offers fun ways to connect with readers: Keris explained how authors are creating playlists to share the musical worlds of their books, increasing their engagement with their readers.
Authenticity matters
Online, as in real life, it’s not what you say but the way that you say it that matters. When publishers and other organisations communicate with a voice that sounds real, they’re more likely to develop lively conversations with people. Keris highlighted the caterpillar cake wars, and Louis recommended that marketers should focus on producing content with a consistent tone of voice that leads to meaningful connections with their audiences; this may mean producing less, but with more intention behind each post.
So what’s next?
In their closing remarks, Jo and Louis highlighted Bluesky as a platform that is likely to become ever more important over the coming year, and Keris praised Substack Notes as a great tool for making connections with new and current newsletter readers.
As always, opportunities are infinite while time and resources are not, and all the panellists agreed that it’s best to focus your effort on the platform or platforms where you feel most confident and where you are building the strongest connections. Whether you like making video content, producing beautiful images or writing your thoughts down, there’s a place where you can build meaningful relationships online, and share news of your books with an interested and engaged audience.
Our thanks to all our expert speakers, and to everyone who joined us for last week’s event. A recording will be available to all Campus members in our Content Library soon, and Campus members can also access a wide range of online courses – including several on social media marketing – in our Courses section. Join BookMachine Campus today: click here to find out more about joining the community.
Our next event is a panel at the Bookseller Marketing and Publicity Conference on Monday 30th June: Changing Lines: The overlapping roles of sales, marketing & publicity, chaired by our Lead Marketing Strategist, Gemma Rostill.
Finally, if you are looking for support with your marketing campaigns, the BookMachine Creative Agency is on hand to help: find out more at https://bookmachine.org/agency/.
