The world of literature has sought to encourage reading as a habit for people of all ages. To this end, literary influencers have emerged, who in addition to being promoters of reading, are also key to the marketing strategies of publishers, bookstores and companies in the same field. Its content is aimed primarily at teenagers, who spend more time on social networks and who are looking for people in the literary community with the same tastes.
The social network where these influencers were born was Youtube, where they were known as Booktubers, who were mostly from the United States, with the passage of time this phenomenon reached the Spanish-speaking community, mainly in Spain and Mexico. Between 2012 and 2014 Mexican booktubers emerged with their respective channels such as Raiza Revelles with her channel with the same name, and Fa Orozco’s Las palabras de Fa, who were among the first booktubers to upload content about books to the platform. Later, other channels emerged, such as Clau Reads Books by Claudia Ramirez and Abriendo Libros by Alberto Villareal. The Spanish community includes writer Javier Ruescas with his channel of the same name, El coleccionista de mundos by Sebastián García, Andreo Rowling by Andrea Izquierdo and Raquel Bookish by Raquel Brune, among others.
How do literary influencers work?
Literary influencers on their YouTube channels are responsible for uploading videos providing criticisms and reviews of the books they read, generally have very clear their content marketing strategy by providing variety in topics for their videos such as:
- Book hauls: which consist of showing the books they have purchased or received as gifts from external parties such as publishers.
- Literary challenges such as:
- Book tags: where at the end of the video they usually challenge other booktubers to perform it.
- Wrap ups: in which they give summaries of books they read in a certain period of time, usually monthly and yearly.
- Bookshelf: basically giving a tour of your bookshelf full of books.
Given the growth of social networks, they also count on Twitter and Instagram as communication channels, which in addition to talking about books, let people know a little more about them, as well as their tastes. Some influencers such as Claudia Ramirez, in her Instagram account usually perform activities with her followers, every certain time she performs joint readings lasting 24 hours, in her insta stories she documents how many books she is reading in that time, the number of pages she has been reading, her drink while reading, among other data, inviting her community of fans to share their experience in stories of their own readings.
Currently with the success and increase of Tiktok users, the so-called booktokers have emerged, who also talk about books in their accounts on this social network, making short videos applying audios and challenges that are trending, among the best known are @saragbooks, @bookscrm, @relispereza, @victoriacomelibros.
The literary and publishing industry has not only stayed in the traditional media, they have managed to apply and complement digital marketing strategies and content for social networks, which also achieves a greater reach in the community that enjoys reading books of different tastes and genres. Proof of this are the ebook, audio books or kindles as alternatives that can be found electronically to be able to access easily and at all times from an electronic device. Also with the emergence of literary influencers, known in different ways depending on the platform they are on, they have managed to generate a community of followers who identify with their groups and preferences for reading lovers.
Are you already a part of the literary community? Would you like to be part of it?
by Alondra Aguilando.
