The Impact of Social Media on the Reading World

Readers of all genres no longer only find their next read in the stores, but online and on social media. The rise of social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have begun to make an impact on the publishing world. Readers creatively named the book/reading sides of these platforms as BookTok and Bookstagram. Content creators online can easily influence readers on what to read through videos, sharing their thoughts, or reviewing a book. Now, authors use social media to market books by making their own accounts. Social media affects the publishing world through marketing strategies, algorithms, trends, and popularity. 

Once people in the publishing industry began to see a rise in social media, they started using it as a creative and smart marketing tool. Authors and publishers make social media accounts and use popular trends on TikTok and Instagram to market and sell books. Authors promote/tease new books, book tours, and other events through posting on popular platforms. Small authors often gain lots of popularity through not only using social media themselves but also through the help of popular influencers. When book influencers make content simply by reviewing a book they enjoyed, they can exponentially be helping those authors and promote their books for them. In the modern literary world, marketing is all about using the community to help sell books. 

Not only does social media help to promote books, it also helps to shape a book’s plot and overall idea. Certain trends such as book tropes are a noticeable example of this. Authors use book tropes to identify what their book is about and help promote it to readers, but what most people don’t realize is how different authors write their books surrounding a group of tropes to increase the appeal to readers. For instance, on Instagram, authors list their tropes in the captions or comments for people to review. Most readers will have preferences on which tropes they prefer, especially in the romance world. Other genres are capable of tropes as well, and oftentimes micro tropes that fall under the idea of a bigger trope. Tropes and other trends can heavily influence how a book is written and/or marketed.

Social media algorithms, moreover, have a big influence and control over what people see when they’re scrolling on apps. In the reading world, the algorithms will cater to a reader’s preferences and feed them popular videos relating to what they have liked previously. This not only controls what books people are encouraged to buy to read as individuals, but it also controls which books become more viral in the community overall. Many people use social media to find books now rather than a bookstore or library. This can impact how quickly books become recognized, which can be a positive or negative. Some authors’ books become popular faster with the use of social media and algorithms. Although this can be great for those authors, other authors can be pushed out of the spotlight, and it may be harder for them to gain popularity through social media. Overall, algorithms and social media impact authors and book popularity. 

Therefore, social media brings big changes to the reading and publishing world. Although there are some downsides, using online platforms is a much easier and convenient way to get the latest news about books, book reviews, and much more bookish information. BookTok and Bookstagram can be great communities to connect with other readers and talk about new and popular books!