What Can Podcast Publishers Learn From BookTok?

Image: Molly-Mae Hague, left, interviewed by Steven Bartlett, right, on his podcast The Diary of a CEO. [Screengrab from The Diary of a CEO, YouTube]

By Sophie Stevens

What even is BookTok?

Here’s a quick summary for you:

• As of July 2022, the hashtag, #BookTok, has 64.2 billion views on TikTok

• Yeah, 64.2 BILLION

• BookTok changed the publishing world as we know it

• #BookTok has been around since 2019, but saw its most growth in April 2020 as the pandemic took hold and sent the world into lockdown

The TikTok-centric community flourished amidst the chaos of lockdown as many people began to pick up books for the first time as their time at home increased, while those who had neglected their love for reading began to rediscover their passion for it. 

This love for reading found its way onto TikTok where so-called BookTok users began to upload a variety of different videos showcasing their devotion to all things books, attracting millions upon millions of views in return.

And the videos all have one thing in common: they’re emotional.

The book recommendations are unlike any traditional review. The videos centre on the visceral and emotional reactions the readers had when reading specific books. 

The young adult fiction, We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart published in 2014, reemerged on BookTok in a viral wave of videos which followed users as they read the book in one day, documenting the very intense emotional rollercoaster they experienced during the process.

The videos all end with creators tearful, shocked, or in many cases, distraught.

Despite this reading experience first appearing particularly off-putting, to BookTok users it made them desperate to purchase the book. Whether it was out of curiosity or due to a degree of FOMO, the TikTok videos sent the book back onto the best-seller list six years after its initial publication.

Image: BookTok reviews of We Were Liars. Left: Screengrab from @brontereads on TikTok. Centre: Screengrab from @bookswithannel on TikTok. Right: Screengrab from @lydiaslittlelibrary on TikTok

This incident is not an unlikely one-off event but is rather a customary and recurring pattern within the BookTok community. The community has undeniably driven the boom in fiction sales and revived the publishing industry as seen by UK publishing’s total income reaching a new soaring high of £6.7bn in 2021. 

But why and how exactly has BookTok managed to have such a distinct impact for the publication industry? 

The answer is not simple. BookTok’s hold upon the publishing market was not an intentional objective of the community, but rather came as a surprising consequence.

BookTok’s popularity itself came by chance. 

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, the growth of TikTok and fan culture - these various intersecting factors gave rise to BookTok. This organic conception of BookTok was a result of individuals' love and passion for books and this authenticity is one of many reasons that BookTok has such an influence over the publishing market.

When people trust BookTok creators as they not only relate to them but believe that they are truthful in their reviews, viewers purchase the books in an instant. 

But there is more to it. 

The videos are characterised by a distinct emotional quality which works to add a dimension to these book recommendations that publishers have always been striving, but failing, to achieve. BookTok creators successfully convey the raw emotions evoked by a particular book in such specificity and clarity that it draws in readers who, at a time during the pandemic, wanted to escape their current situation. 

On top of this, where the publishing industry has suffered in a world dominated by the audio-visual, TikTok has a unique ability to bring books to life through images, videos, and music.

BookTok creators are all about aesthetic. A trend familiar to those in the community is when a creator takes a novel and beautifully illustrates it in a series of seamless images accompanied by an expressive soundtrack. These videos, often 15 seconds or less, have revolutionised the way books are marketed to readers as when viewers are able to picture the aesthetic of a book, there is no marketing quite as captivating. 

Ultimately, BookTok is able to sell books because it’s an authentic community with playful origins that has an unrivalled capacity to enact an emotional response from viewers. 

So what can those looking to promote podcasts on TikTok learn from BookTok? 

First of all, virality is hard to manufacture. BookTok flourishes when impromptu book recommendations happen to get picked up by the algorithm and are then fed on to the ‘For You’ page of thousands of people who begin to make similar videos praising the book. This collectivity and widespread circulation of content makes books go viral, but which books this happens to is up to chance. 

Podcast discoverability is a challenging problem for podcast publishers who feel like they simply cannot reach the right audience for their podcast.

One of the main obstacles that stops audiences from tuning into podcasts is the overwhelming sea of choice that listeners are faced with. According to Ofcom’s Podcast Survey 2022, and Adam Bowie’s superb interpretation of the data, when those who stopped listening to podcasts were asked why they did so, 34% said “I can’t find any podcasts that interest me”.

When confronted with so many options, the easiest decision to make is to not make one at all. 

But interestingly, book publishers found themselves in a very similar position to this pre-BookTok. 

The emotional and visual aspect of BookTok recommendations set it apart from traditional methods of book marketing and allowed for audiences to find books that fit their specific interests in a way never achieved before. And currently, when looking at podcast recommendations on TikTok, it is the ability to effectively convey the value of a podcast to one’s life that generates the most attention from audiences. 

In a BookTok inspired influencer marketing strategy, one could select micro-influencers on TikTok whose videos and interests align with the themes of the podcast and create short and snappy promotional videos that demonstrate how this specific podcast is beneficial to one’s life and what change its made in the routine of the specific influencer. 

By tapping into an influencer’s specific interests, the podcast is promoted to the right audience, providing potential podcast listeners with a podcast that they are more likely to enjoy. 

Micro-influencers, or even nano-influencers with less than 10K followers, are specifically more effective for this type of podcast promotion as choosing influencers with dedicated and engaged followers is the best way to ensure that viewers will actually tune into the podcast.

As demonstrated by BookTok, book sales boomed due to authenticity, trust, and relatability. By selecting micro-influencers with audiences who trust them, the conversion rate will be much higher and ultimately grow the podcast more effectively than if the strategy were to prioritise visibility to vast audiences.

And yet, it is hard to ignore that it is naturally hard to cultivate authenticity in a post that is sponsored. 

Despite BookTok significantly bolstering the publishing industry, it remains extremely difficult for publishers to co-opt the community in their favour as maintaining the authenticity that drives the sales of the books is distinctly challenging.

Nevertheless, publishers have been able to find their way into BookTok through diligent selection of influencers whose content harmoniously aligns with the book they intend to promote. Audiences can be aware that a post is sponsored and still believe that the creator genuinely enjoys the book. For podcasts, this technique is vital to the success of an influencer marketing campaign on TikTok. 

As it was found that 6 in 10 podcast consumers now say they prefer podcasts with video, TikTok presents itself as an effective marketing technique for podcast publishers to take on via a podcast’s own brand accounts. 

The growth in interest in video podcasts has made it essential for podcasts to have a video format, with YouTube as the main platform for this, particularly due to its appeal to younger audiences. 

Image: Popular video podcasts. Right: Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO. Screengrab from @steven on TikTok. Centre: Hosts of NearlyWeds podcast Sophie Habbo, left, and Jamie Laing, right. Screengrab from @nearlyweds on TikTok. Right: Grace, aka gkbarry, host of the Saving Grace podcast. Screengrab from @savinggracepod on TikTok.

TikTok presents itself as the perfect platform to help market video podcasts as TikTok videos can be effectively used to target a subculture with specific interests in short, concise, and memorable ways.   

Looking at the most viral podcast clips on TikTok, a lot can be learnt and reproduced by podcasts that are looking to grow.

Accounts who upload basic video clips of their podcast to TikTok can see some success however it is in implementing specific formatting which invites the most triumph on the TikTok algorithm. Formatting podcast clips specific to TikTok dimensions, i.e vertical as opposed to traditional horizontal framing, can increase the success of the clips in the algorithm by a huge margin, with vertical videos having an average 25% higher six-second watch-through rate. 

Since the TikTok algorithm works by registering the most popular videos and pushing out content most similar to it, replicating the key features of the most successful videos is a potential route to cultivating a more widespread reach for a podcast. Other notable features of the most popular podcast clips are the use of bold subtitles, fast-paced editing, high quality video, split screen, superimposed images and unobtrusive background music. 

As it is with most promotion techniques, using these features in a TikTok video isn’t necessarily a silver bullet - finding a place in the algorithm is notoriously difficult, but consistency in the quality and frequency of this content will increase the chances of it being picked up by the algorithm and subsequently have an impact on the growth of the podcast. 

The one thing we know for sure about TikTok is that it is unpredictable and ever-changing. As with BookTok, we may see a TikTok podcast revolution that cannot be foreseen or manufactured by anyone.