Each social network has a phenomenon and each identity a community: that happens on Instagram with bookstagrammers, passionate readers who share book reviews, images or scenes that expand the literary universe and are part of the gear to communicate editorial novelties, under the certainty that what is imposed by the logic of fashion and individuality is a need to share the pleasure of reading with others.
There are influencers for different orders of life, who go from sharing tips for a healthy life to delivering encouraging speeches about human contradictions, there are disruptive influencers on topics such as maternity, masculinities, parenting, arts, food, astrology influencers , pastry, medicine, physics and psychology. There are also influencers out of the blue, those who display themselves in artificial settings and achieve “grammer” status thanks to the purchase of followers. How do those who share readings enter there, how do they manage to turn an apparently solitary experience into the desire of others?
Because if each social network has a phenomenon, the one that now dominates the relationship between reading and social networks is that of the so-called bookstagrammers. Although in a while the support will not matter, there will be other platforms where these "books" display their passion, as they did at first with the extensive reviews on blogs, which later in audiovisual version gave rise to the appearance of booktubers. Now, as bookstagrammers expand to different generations, the youngest migrate to TikTok to become booktokers.
“All social networks have an expiration date, however for many, having found a group of people with whom to share literature is not a trend,” says Rocío Colabianchi, creator of the account @eltiempoentrelecturas, followed by more than 12,000 Instagram users.
With entrenched communities, the bookstagram accounts in Argentina are in good health and there is something for all tastes, ages and profiles, and although those who manage these spaces do not usually consider what they do as a job, their publications affect the new ways of communicate news and in the editorial gear. As Santiago Satz, Grupo Planeta's press manager, says: "Influencers occupy a very prominent place when it comes to communicating and disseminating one or more publications, they are part of the ecosystem in the communication strategy that we implement in each release.”
“It is an alternative broadcast channel that reaches a well-defined target audience that perhaps we cannot reach with traditional media. They are readers, passionate about books, they are critical and listened to by their followers”, says the communication manager of one of the main publishing conglomerates, who warns that in the case of Planeta they do not pay any kind of fee and insists on one idea: “They are 'critical', they don't 'pat' you on the back to look good”.
In this sharing there is also a pedagogical potential because in each content there is not only a review-reflection in text or video format. What is promoted is a comprehensive reading experience in which the comments and books are shown with the cult of visual aesthetics: framed images in monochrome scales, natural environments, cups of coffee; scenes that recreate a pause, libraries sacralized in their order and their composition of colors according to the spines of the books, or through reels, that resource that IG popularized from very short videos.
The Tell me what you read project, developed and managed by Brenda Algozino, includes various platforms that match the jargon that each social network requires. Through @dimequelees, on Instagram, the influencer recommends books but also displays a playful experience that invites reading activity. “The focus is on reading as a habit and on the possibility of adding more reading to our daily lives. To do this, I simply share my day to day in relation to reading and try to reach a wider audience, not just the most regular readers. That is quite a challenge”, says Algozino, with more than 28.9 thousand followers.
For Georgina Dritsos, a specialist in press and social media strategies who has been following these trends for many years, what exists is “a phenomenon of reading in the community, both online and in clubs Reading. This includes from adolescents to older adults, it is something very horizontal that seduces all of us who love to read ”, she says about this practice marked by the tone of each platform, since “the different networks mean many differences for the dissemination of books ” .
“For example, bookstagram, which is how comments, reviews and dissemination of books are known on Instagram, is a very visual platform where on the one hand we have the photos of books, highlighted and seasoned with some element that is attractive readers", he explains and notes that now there are reels, "a direct competition for YouTube's jugular where the person uploads different videos showing books, their collections, their libraries, sometimes they do what is called bookhaul with the books to review or books that are given to them”.
Perhaps this need to share expresses the sustained growth of bookstagrammers, whose origins come from egotistical exhibitionism or economic revenue -many of these experiences led to other projects but were not the origin- and is sustained by the gesture to read and exchange. That happened to Algozino: “Tell me what you read arose from the need to find people who like to read as much as I do, people to chat about the impressions of the books. books I was reading."
Something similar is described by Colabianchi, whose virtual space was born from the desire to “share my greatest passion, which is reading with someone, since there weren't even any readers in my inner circle. And when I went to Instagram I met other people who were experiencing the same thing as me”, he says and confides: “My academic training is in the area of health, so I wouldn't say that what I do is literary criticism. I give my completely personal opinion of each book and my followers know it because I clarified it many times. I talk about how it made me feel, if it moved me, if I enjoyed the style, the pen of the author or the author. I give my opinion based on the experience that I have had a lifetime as a reader”.
Álvaro Garat, from @alvinbooks, is studying Literature and, like his colleagues, was driven by “the need to share opinions with readers” and although “ Obviously I contemplated this collective exchange of opinions from the beginning, I never imagined creating spaces and projects full of camaraderie and incredible friendships, added to opportunities for personal and professional growth”.
Agustina de Diego, also from Literature, is the person behind the Instagram account @agusrecomienda, which consolidated a community of more than 20,000 followers. “I was very curious to express myself about literature outside of the academic sphere and in a more relaxed and less technical way. I also wanted to create a space that would invite me to read more contemporary authors and that the network would become the ideal place to exchange with others. I thought it was just going to be that, sharing a photo and a comment from time to time, but little by little it became something more, reading workshops, talks, interviews with authors, until I got to release an edition of Un Virginia Woolf's own room, edited by Fera,” she says.
At the age of 30, the bookstagrammer conceives her project “as an outreach work” where she shares “the sensations that reading aroused in me and in this way arrive from a more pleasant place for readers. I seek to recommend texts that awaken something in my body, that shock me, make me uncomfortable, or talk about what I cannot express. I consider that I am putting together a map of who I am, of what I think, and I invite others to do the same, to find themselves in the books they read”.
In all these influencers there is an almost generalized conviction that social networks have allowed voices to be amplified and democratized access so that anyone can express their passion, “without intermediaries”. “When she was a girl, she believed that the only possible space to talk about books or do interviews was the more traditional media. Thanks to Instagram I was able to build my own place from which to speak and it continues to nourish me”, reflects Algozino. Among the referrals that Dime que Les includes, there is a store with “Diarios de Lecturas”, “Cuadernos” and she is also co-coordinator of the Waldhuter book club.
For his part, Garat finds in his community "a certain kind of codification of trust" and it is from this place that "one establishes himself on these platforms as a communicator, as well as a content creator: news, novelties, information about authors and launches of adaptations are disseminated”, says the bookstagrammer who a few weeks ago launched the Re Club experience together with other well-known “book” accounts.
"Over time, what I did without receiving money in return became profitable thanks to the workshops, collaborations in magazines, talks and publications", reviews the instagramer and celebrates the participation that networks enable "to people of all kinds through get involved to disseminate literature" and not "of a few": "Anyone who elaborates a sincere and analytical commentary on a reading, edits a video or a photo, thinks of strategies on how to communicate it and dedicates several hours of his day to that space that Armó on social networks moves away from the hobby space and approaches the work space”.
Source: Telam
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