A sharper conversation: book publishers’ use of social media marketing in the age of the algorithm

Abstract

This article explores developments in book publishers’ use of social media (SM) as a marketing tool, particularly the rise of customer-focused marketing. Surveying the literature about publishers’ engagement with SM marketing (SMM), we argue that discourse modes of publishers’ SM practice, and the larger marketing ecologies of which this practice forms a part, have been transformed by contextual changes in the mediascape wherein publishing professionals are implicated through their sustained SMM activities. These changes include the rise of algorithmic filtering and paid-for content on Facebook and Twitter, industry’s embrace of data analytics, and the connection between them. The article explores the growing divide between small and large publishers in terms of their financial and cultural investment in data analytics, and concludes that the notion of SM as an equal-opportunity marketing tool in book publishing has proven demonstrably false because of this divide. The authors offer further avenues for much-needed research in this field.