Publishing houses navigate a tricky blend of professionalism and authenticity when using influencers and first-person pronouns.
Why work with influencers?
Many businesses, including Ring Central, recognize that influencer collaboration is essential in modern social media marketing. Big book publishers like Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins have collaborated with influencers on Instagram to boost engagement and reach more people organically. However, influencers typically have an established social media presence and “brand voice” that doesn’t match the voice of their partner companies.
How to work with influencers
I tested how partnering with influencers changes the posting strategies of book publishers’ social media. Specifically, I focused on pronoun usage in influencer collaboration posts versus in non-influencer posts. I analyzed five posts each from the Instagram accounts of six book publishers (30 posts total analyzed):
- Random House
- Penguin Books
- Chronicle Books
- HarperCollins
- Simon & Schuster
- Hachette Book Group
I chose the posts at random and then sorted them into influencer (13 posts) and non-influencer posts (17 posts). I then coded each post according to which pronouns were used: First-person singular (I, me), first-person plural (we), or a removed narrator (no first-person pronouns).
Out of the 17 posts made without influencer collaboration, 13 removed the narrator. According to this test, the current publishing social media trend is to “remove the narrator” in posts without influencer collaboration by removing first-person pronouns. This can have the effect of making a post sound more general and decreasing the word count. However, this tactic risks making book publishers seem impersonal and aloof.
Alternatively, 10 out of the 13 posts that had influencer collaboration used first-person pronouns, the majority using plural. This voice change caused by influencer collaboration can bring book publishers down to a more human level. However, it conflicts with the established brand voice.
So, the simple answer is this: if you are a book publisher, use a professional voice without a narrator for your regular posts, and use first-person pronouns when posting with influencer collaboration.
So, what should you do?
Many social media advisors, such as Sprout Social, emphasize maintaining a consistent brand voice. This means using the same tone, syntax, and point of view when creating written content for social media. Regardless of the voice you choose for your social media presence, it needs to be consistent to increase your authenticity.
Influencer collaboration on book publishing social media posts, specifically on Instagram, often changes the brand voice. One way to counteract this voice change is to label influencer posts as “other” using aesthetic changes such as a different color palette. Another way is to exclusively quote influencers to avoid mingling their voice with the publisher’s social media voice.
For any book publisher, it is essential to learn how to balance a consistent voice with matching social media trends. Just remember, be authentic to your brand and find what works for you!