Trends Are Your Friends

We can embrace the trends in book marketing without embracing the trends in book writing.

Although tiktok trends can seem silly and unsophisticated, writers and publishers should not be overlooking them when building out a marketing campaign for an upcoming book. For anyone not on tiktok, I’ve provided examples of some current tiktok trends:

• “Morning / Night  Routine trend” people make videos showcasing their morning or night rituals from skincare, to what they eat, to how they get motivated for the day/ unwind etc..
• “Oh my goodness I love this question”  people post videos where they name a conversation topic or, (you guessed it), a question that they love being prompted with. Some examples, “when my wife asks me what I want for dinner,” “when my friend asks me the meaning behind the most recent Taylor Swift album,” etc..
• “Girl Dinner” girls on tiktok have coined the term “girl dinner” to refer to a thrown together combination of random foods that they have in their pantries to serve as their dinner

Lit. Industry Trend Hesitation

When it comes to trends in general, author’s are weary about implementing them into their work. Trend-forecasting on tiktok for the content of an author’s next book would be a misstep as trends are fleeting; by the time their book is finished, the trend that inspired it will likely have passed. In this blog post, I am not pushing back on that logic. Rather, I am encouraging the literary industry to consider joining in on the tiktok trends as a marketing tool to be used in the post-writing stage. Meaning, I am not advocating for  “Girl Dinner” to be the subject of the next great American novel (although, I would be curious..).

The Multiplier Effect

When a user jumps in on a viral Tiktok sound trend, the user’s video automatically goes into a collection of the other videos using the same sound. The videos in this collection end up receiving tons of views from people who are into the trend and want to see all the interpretations of it. Therefore, authors’ and their teams’ can get their book content in front of exponentially more eyes by way of these viral sound collections.

Topic Inclusivity and Viewer Diversity

Conveniently, the application and interpretations of the various trends are typically broad. Meaning, people apply the trend prompts to a vast range of topics; “Oh my goodness I love this question” is used for videos about food, art, wellness, anything! The broadness allows for an author to join in on the trends while still putting out authentic, pertinent book content, rather than stretching the trends to apply to their book unnaturally. Given that, the people influenced to look more into an author’s book based on their trend content would not be dissuaded from buying it based on an author’s other content. Or, those that buy an author’s book after seeing their trend content won’t feel misled when they actually read the book.

Importantly, the people who are interested in trends are not one-dimensional. In fact, by definition, these “viral” trends draw in so many people that the odds of reaching people that would connect with an author’s book are likely. That being said, before selecting a trend to join in on, authors can browse through the other videos in the trends to see the primary demographics they are drawing in.

Also, from the users’ perspective, if an author wrote a book and has the capacity to understand current trends and join in on them, a fan of that trend will know definitively that they share one thing in common with the author (one more thing than most people feel towards authors before reading their books). This connection can propel a user to buy a book under the notion that they share a sense of humor or a shared interest in a viral tiktok trend to the author. 

Example Viral Trend Marketing Plan:

Don Miguel Luiz The Four Agreements

1. A member of the authors’ team could make a morning routine video where they incorporate reading the book for 15 minutes before starting the day as a way to “center” themselves
2. The author could do the “oh my goodness I love this question” trend and make the caption: “when someone asks me why I shouldn’t personalize it when someone insults me out of the blue” (If you haven’t read this book, first, read it, two, one of the chapters divulges this question)
3. And then finally, the author could apply their “always do your best” tip to the “Girl Dinner” trend by having someone on their team make a video discussing how its not ideal for their budget to spend money on dinner, and show the “Girl Dinner” they’ve thrown together in an effort to “do their best” and stick to the budget they set forth.

If you understood all the tiktok references in this blog post, congratulations you’ve mastered Tiktok! So now it’s time to scroll less and read more! 🙂