Does the rule of thirds that governs social media marketing really correspond with a publishing house's follower count?
Book publishing is an ever-growing and expanding industry that has begun to leverage social media marketing. One of the traditional best practices for social media marketing is the rule of thirds, as mentioned on Aerio and IngramSpark.
The rule of thirds states that a business on social media should post these ratios of content:
1/3 promotional content
1/3 shared content
1/3 business-to-consumer interaction
Does the rule of thirds correspond with the follower count on a business’s Instagram account?
This is what I set out to answer through my own analysis of some major names in book publishing. The businesses I analyzed were Thomson Reuters (Canada), Springer Nature Group (Germany), Harper Collins (New York), and Penguin Books (US and Britain).
I went to the official Instagram accounts of each of these businesses, looked at the first 12 posts, and placed each post into one of three categories: promotional content, shared content, and business-to-consumer interactions.
| Publisher | 1/3 (promotional: promoting a specific book, lecture, or product) | 2/3 (shared content: content from another person, business, author, etc.) | 3/3 (Business-to-consumer interaction: attempts by the business to appear “human,” includes humanitarian aid or social activism) | Followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thomson Reuters | 0 | 2 | 10 | 29600 |
| Springer Nature Group | 9 | 1 | 2 | 10000 |
| Harper Collins | 6 | 4 | 2 | 475000 |
| Penguin Books | 11 | 1 | 0 | 619000 |
Notably, the follower count has little correlation to whether a publisher follows the rule of thirds. I found that none of these major publishers follow the Rule of Thirds on their Instagram accounts. The ideal division would be 4/12, 4/12, and 4/12.
Harper Collins was the closest at 6/12, 4/12, and 2/12, but it doesn’t have the most followers. Penguin books has the most followers, and its ratios aren’t at all close to the ideal at 11/12, 1/12, and 0/12. Therefore, it seems that there is little evidence here of the Rule of Thirds correlating with publishers’ follower count on Instagram.
However, you might still try it! Maybe a strategy that includes the rule of thirds will improve your company’s engagement. The important thing is doing more research and finding what works for your brand!