The Future of Gaining New Readers May Lead to ONE Road…TikTok.
Finding new readers and subscribes may lead to TikTok (for better or worse).
I was scrolling through X.com (formerly Twitter) and landed up on this tweet by @boringmarketer:
5.7 million searches per minute!
What that means is that GenZ is searching for food recommendations, hairstyles, fashion, and everything else you can think of needing advice for on TikTok.
So how can writers leverage this rising (and here to stay) behavior?
Answer: I don’t know yet; but I DO KNOW that we can’t ignore it.
As the pandemic was coming near to an end, I found myself taking the kids to local Barnes & Noble a couple of times a week. I noticed two things while there:
- The Manga section was the busiest with young adults perusing like they were in the “comic rooms” of Korea where you had to pay an entrance fee to read as many manga comic books.
- I also noticed a book table called “BookTok.”
#BookTok: What is it?
Apparently, during the pandemic, kids would review books on TikTok and hashtag these reviews with #BookTok. Some of these books that were mentioned would often see a surge in sales.
“According to BookScan data, per the New York Times, BookTok helped authors sell 20 million printed books in 2021 and again in 2022, with sales rising another 50 percent.” — Today.com
The figures may be inflated due to half the world being stuck in their homes during COVID, but it has changed search behavior.
And now that we know that GenZ is looking at TikTok as a tool for search, how can online writers leverage TikTok to gain more readers?
Like I mentioned, I’m not entirely sure. It’s not like we have a book to sell. We just write posts.
The only way to find out is to experiment. One Redditor mentioned that they would do a voice over (reading their post) and combine it with a stock video. (This is sorta like the inspiration YouTube shorts — e.g., take quotes from inspirational leaders, with some Christopher Nolan-type soundtrack, and stock video footage.)
I’ll start this experiment soon and update here and my Substack: https://mylifeagain.substack.com/
Peace.
