KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 #booktok how bookish girls are driving culture on a massive scale

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Booktok is a juggernaut There are 38.3 million videos tagged #booktok on TikTok right now. These generated 310 billion views. #booktok is averaging about 9 billion views per month.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Key themes 0 75000 150000 225000 300000 Bookish Recom m endations Booktoker BooktokFYP TBR Bookclub Trope 31% of people in the search are also using bookish as a self descriptor Recommendations accounted for 25% 14% of people posting over the last 4 months globally consider themselves ‘booktoker’s TBR is an ever present threat, according to 7% of the mentions analysed Despite the perceived obsession with tropes, fewer than 2% of posts analysed talked about them

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Booktok top genres Classics 2% Thrillers 5% Spicy 15% Horror 15% Fantasy 22% Romance 41% When I talk about romance and fantasy dominating Booktok I’m not exaggerating. I analysed data from June until now and tagged all mentions with appropriate genres, and romance and fantasy accounted for over 60% of the conversation. I included romantasy in both searches as it’s what unites the genres.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 First we need to understand HOW booktok is driving all this cultural change. Booktok is primarily the worlds biggest user led recommendation engine. Over the last 2 weeks, globally, 12% of the posts tagged #booktok were also tagged #bookrecommendation. Booktok is where people go to fi nd out what they should be reading, which in turn influences so many other things. The word cloud above shows the most commonly used keywords, hashtags and emoji Booktok drives recommendations on a HUGE scale

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Reclaiming bookish 18% of all booktok content posted in the last fortnight globally was also tagged ‘#bookish’ It wasn’t so many years ago that being seen as bookish was a negative, sometimes insulting way to describe someone. Now, in the same way that TikTok has reclaimed ‘girlie’ (#marketinggirlies #corporategirlies etc) #bookish has been reclaimed by a massive part of the booktok community as a self descriptor. These are (primarily) women who are proud of what they’re reading, and proud to be classi fi ed as a reader.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Booktok is made up of hundreds of micro-niches COSPLAY BOOKTOK COMMUNITIES ROMANTASY BOOKTOK COMMUNITIES Booktok is like Los Angeles: it’s massive, and although from the outside it looks like a cohesive city it’s actually made of multiple smaller neighbourhoods, each with their own vibe/rules/reason for being there. You can use ViralMoment to understand which communities are most active within your areas of interest.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Booktokers are older than you think… 60 45-59 35-44 25-34 18-24 <18 0 1750 3500 5250 7000 Male Female Much like the rest of TikTok that is widely reported as being Gen-Z/Gen-A, during all the analysis that I’ve done across booktok over the last few years, the largest segment demographically is always younger millennials. TikTok audience data should always be taken with a pinch of salt, and only able to access insights for a small percentage of the accounts posting, but look through booktok yourself (outside of the FYP!) and see what you fi nd.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 It’s not all positive Book blurbs have been turned into Ao3 tags and tropes. Self published authors can sometimes lack in the editorial department. Booktok can be pre tt y toxic and make demands of authors, the way that any fandom can. There are complaints that Booktok is making publishing a ‘fast fashion’ industry. The TBR/bookhauls are being increasingly linked to overconsumption.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Beyond booktok

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Searching for booktok The keyword "booktok" shows irregular seasonality, but the highest interest occurs in the summer months, especially in June and July. A sharp drop in a tt ention occurs in autumn, with the trend becoming signi fi cantly negative in September and October, indicating less relevance or popularity of the term during these months. The trend reverses somewhat in December, marking a minor resurgence in interest. Overall, the data suggests booktok might be tied to vacations, such as the summer and winter holidays. (This data runs contrary to what we see on TikTok, where October marks an uptick.)

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 What about the other book communities? #booktok ate them up Due to the API limitations of social data via Instagram and YouTube and the inability to do like for like comparisons, we’re looking at Google searches for each of the big three book communities. Around 2021 searches for booktok started to overtake the others, and by January 1st 2022 they completely dominated and have continued on a steep upward trajectory.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Trending searches in books and reading So people are searching for booktok. What does that actually mean? When I looked up the ‘books & reading’ category in trending topics using Glimpse, four of the biggest breakout categories with steep yet stable upward trends are directly booktok based. This shows us that booktok is directly impacting Google searches around speci fi c genres of books, not just the titles. Also each of these genres is a booktok niche in itself.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Booktok × Publishing

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Book to Screen

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Romance is being legitimised (even a24 are into it!) Not since the glory days of Norah Ephron have we seen romance on our screens in such a big way. From the historical fantasy romance of Bridgerton, through the abusive romance of It Ends With Us. The problematic romance of Twilight to the healthy and inclusive relationships spawned from YA and NA booktok. Romance is making it’s way to our screens via adaptations, but also more broadly in using the tropes and themes readers are craving more of in their narratives. Queer/healthy/enemies to lovers etc

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 It’s Called Fashion, Baby

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 The niche to mainstream timeline While it’s easy to understand how booktok influences movies and TV (books have always been adapted by studios) understanding the way it influences fashion is mildly more convoluted in that there are three steps, not two. 1. Community 2. Indie brands 3. Mainstream

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Community = cosplay/outfit inspo We start our journey with good old fashioned cosplay. From full on Romantasy/historical character cosplaying to out fi ts that embody a characters vibe. This also works for cosmetics/hair brands too.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Indie brands = targeted collabs & official merch Indie brands who are typically quicker o ff the mark and understand their audiences be tt er will sometimes launch o ff icial collections. Examples: Snag tights in the UK created an o ff icial ACOTAR collection playing to the Romantasy crowd. Olive & June went more clean girl reader with a Colleen Hoover collab.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Broader culture = general aesthetic vibe Co tt agecore/Fantasy Booktok Historic fi ction Booktok (Bridgerton) ROMANTIC DRESSES Finally we see the shi ft into the mainstream. Milkmaid dresses being everywhere this Summer is the converging point in a story that started with two booktok trends and grew from there.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 How we live

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Books as a lifestyle: Home Libraries, BookNooks & Bookshelf Wealth We’ve also begun to see the influence of booktok in the way that we’re designing our homes. There’s been a surge of interest in home libraries and this trend is predicted to grow. Booknooks are the cra ft tok/booktok crossover you didn’t know you needed (currently has 995 million views on TT) Finally, #bookshelfwealth is a non-trend that home stylists have been talking about all year, and features books and bookshelves as aspirational rather than for reading.

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 How can publishers & brands leverage this?

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Many bigger brands don’t ‘get’ booktok In the same way that we’re seeing TikTok massively disrupt the fashion and cosmetics industries, with more established brands losing out to smaller indies who are able to take cues from their communities and turnaround their products in time with trends cycles. We’re seeing some of the larger publishers struggle with the pace of #Booktok and how to engage with these new hyper-enthused audiences. INDIE CREATORS AND FANS HAVE CREATED A MASSIVE MERCH INDUSTRY AROUND BOOKTOK

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 1. Get a good social listening tool (like ViralMoment). Do not rely on what you’re seeing on your FYP! Keep track of what’s trending up and down over time. 2. Hire a consultant who can identify opportunities that feel authentic to your brand, and that the community will want to be a part of. 3. Follow the people in your community, and take your cues from them NOT other brands! 4. Always check search data (both Google and TikTok) to understand if the topic/trend you’re tracking is commercially viable/it’s already peaked. 5. Work as a smallest most agile team that you cab. Less red tape and more room for creative flex. Five tips for making the most of #booktok

KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2024 Thanks!