The world has changed substantially since the birth of social media and the upgraded technology that came with it. Most of its benefits are better communication abilities and unlimited and free access to the web and, most importantly, social media allows companies to reach out to their target audiences.
You probably don't realize how much books are benefited by this tactic as well. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Goodreads allow readers to post their reviews (good or bad). This can elevate the level of love these books get and place small, new, or popular authors on The New York Times Bestseller list. Personally, I know that most, if not all, of the titles on my To Be Read list (TBR) come from "BookTok." "BookTok" is a community of TikTok users who review and discuss their suggested or new books.
Many authors promote their new books on "BookTok" to reach their type of readers. Social media has given a huge helping hand to bringing books back into the world and creating online-style book clubs from audiences all over the world. Readers now share their favorite quotes and characters and even create playlists for their favorite novels.
Without social media, communities like this would not have existed where we bring paper to the digital world. This is just briefly touching on one benefit of social networks listed in Chapter 1 of our Introduction to Social Media textbook.
I completely agree with you on this. Although I love reading paper books the use of technology and social media to find new books that may interest me helps tremendously when searching or new books to read. I love being able to follow various different book pages on instagram and hearing about new books from so many different authors that i have not heard about. Social media has undoubtedly brought a new era to books finding.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of how you relate BookTok to the revival of reading books. As videos and TikTok started having more influence, it brought down everyone's liking of reading. It's a much more interesting conundrum with how TikTok and apps similar to it brought the downfall of reading, but BookTok is an interesting sub-community of TikTok which has led to a massive amount of new reads. In all, I think you did a really good job!
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