Objective

Books have never been cooler. The rise of #BookTok “triggered a books revolution” (The Guardian) in the wake of the Covid pandemic that reshaped the publishing industry. And the growth has not slowed down, with Barnes and Noble opening 15 new US stores in 2022 (Axios) increasing to a massive opening of 60 brick-and-mortar stores in 2023. Popular titles thrived in sales, as  #BookTok favorite “Onyx Storm” became the fastest-selling book in 20 years (The New York Times). 

But where were the audiobooks in all this? While audiobook listeners have also increased in parallel with physical book readers, listening had not found the cultural zeitgeist that reading enjoyed in social spaces. On Twitter, TikTok and Reddit, regular debates continue to break out questioning the validity of listening to a book over reading it. 

Vocal audiobook fans were there under the surface. We wanted to uplift them and show the masses why listening is just as cool. We decided to become a part of the momentum and make listening central to the story.

By harnessing the power of #Booktok, Audible aimed to 1) grow TikTok followers, 2) increase quality touchpoints with fans across platforms, and 3) grow brand love.

Strategy

Audible is a leader in curating recommendations for listeners, both as a product priority through easy discovery tools and a key tenet of the brand’s social strategy. But with #BookTok, this landscape changed. Creators were already running the show, cultivating massive audiences of fandoms on their own. Importantly, these creators also became the global authority on book curation, shaping the tastes of readers worldwide.  

With this grassroots movement running the show in popularizing books, Audible couldn’t simply join the party and follow the playbook of those creators. Valuing authenticity and genuine audience connections, Audible set out to craft and hone a role the brand could play from within this community, rather than outside of it. 

This moment required a new kind of brand persona. Not a publisher or purveyor of books… but a true fan.

Audible took to the comment section to prove our place as a real #BookTok fan — with an increased focus on proactive community management and replying to videos without Audible references. Within the proactive community management approach, the brand joined conversations; started conversations; and nurtured conversations to be a part of culture. In addition, Audible continued to raise the bar with inbound community management efforts, responding to incoming messages tagging or referencing the brand to nurture relationships with our existing subscribers and social followers. 

The key here was to identify popular TikTok videos both within #BookTok and outside of it. Within the books community, Audible prioritized engaging with micro- and macro-influencer creators like any fan of their content might, commenting with Easter eggs and inside jokes that only the biggest fans would know. 

While the #BookTok community was a powerful driver of resonance, Audible also focused on engaging with popular and trending content that lets the brand drive real personality with macroculture. 

Key examples include: 

• Creator @jakewcornell (389K followers) shared that he witnessed a man drinking a bottle of cold brew concentrate on the streets of New York and was concerned for his caffeine intake. The video had 1.7M likes and 17K comments. Audible’s reply earned 61K likes. The message highlighted its listening speed feature, which users regularly tout as a favorite app feature on social: “If we hear of anyone trying to listen to every book in our library at 50x speed, we’ll know what happened.” 
• Creator @reesamtessa (3.5M followers) published a 50-part series called “Who TF Did I Marry?” that became a worldwide obsession, with viewers poring over the details of this shocking and upsetting marriage through brilliant storytelling. The creator explained that she wanted viewers to think of the series as an audiobook they could press play and pause on. Audible earned more than 10K likes replying to the video, encouraging the creator to get involved with ACX, Audible’s publishing marketplace for creators: “We could listen to this all day… in fact, have you heard of ACX at Audible? We’d love to help you tell your story! DM us.”  

Results

Beginning in January 2024, we saw our community grow. The brand’s TikTok handle saw a 51% year over year increase in followers from November 2023 to November 2024. The consistent, long-term community management efforts paid off significantly, nearly doubling the volume of messages from Audible to fans across all platforms —  a 99% increase — by the end of 2024. 

There was even media coverage of this approach in Marketing Brew, with Audible cited among brands “using the comments sections to drive results” in June 2024. 

Brand love saw major success, both on and off TikTok. Within the platform, the brand regularly reached tens of thousands of likes on replies, often becoming the top comment on videos with millions of views. Creators started posting about how exciting it was to receive replies from Audible. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this,” the creator @unhingedbooktalk said in an April 2024 video. “But Audible keeps commenting on my videos.” 

Examples of other positive responses to the brand’s TikTok engagements include: 

• “booktok is better with Audible!!” 
• “I’m in love with Audible she doesn’t know it though…” 
• “This is how you own social media marketing.” 
• “Hands down will laugh about this for years… thank you” 

Users also highlighted how the brand’s TikTok approach helped retain or start their subscription: 

• “Audible just gained my business” 
• “that’s it, I’m keeping my subscription after my free trial ends” 
• “I’m resubscribing because of this comment” 

Media