Building Your Dream Bookish Community

How to Create Your Dream Bookish Community (Transcript)

Let's talk about how to create your dream bookish community online. If you don't know me, my name is Sarah and I'm at Sarah the Book Fairy on TikTok and Instagram. And over the last year, I've been able to create a community of over 200,000 people between those two platforms. And I also have my own membership community that I've created through Mighty Networks, which has over 5,000 members in it. So let's talk a little bit about what you can do to create a thriving bookish community on Book Talk or Bookstagram or just anywhere online.

First things first, and this might be a little controversial, but I truly feel like the most important thing, even more important than what you're posting about, is who you are posting for. So I want you to ask yourself, who do I want to be talking to? What kind of people do I wanna attract into this community? Who do I wanna be connecting with? And most likely, if you're creating a bookish community, it's gonna be some version of yourself. So for example, I really enjoy creating content for the girlies who love to read romantic books, the girlies who are Swifties, the girl’s girls. Most of my content is speaking directly to that audience. So, for example, if you really want to create an audience of sports romance readers who maybe were athletes in high school and college, you might be talking about those types of books. You might also be talking about your experience as an athlete. You might be talking about what it's like after, you know, being part of those sports programs and you're probably not going to be posting things like interior design or you know stuff that kind of has nothing to do with that niche or that audience. 

So first things first, that's the most important thing to be focused on is every time you create a piece of content, you wanna make sure that you're talking to a specific person and you wanna get really, really clear on who that is and a great way to do this is to just describe yourself if that's the kind of person that you want to attract, people that you can connect with, people that you can resonate with and then direct all of your content towards that person, the way that you're talking, the verbiage that you're using, it's gonna help align an audience that's gonna resonate with you. 

Second thing I want to talk about is what your content actually looks like. So you want to have some kind of consistency through all of your content and the thing that's gonna tie it all together is your authentic expression you have to be the same person in your content and on camera as you are in real life, otherwise, it's just not going to work. You have to show up authentically because that's going to be the thing that ties all of your content together talking about the same thing in every video, you know, the same niche, the same topics, and that's important too, is to keep consistency in what you're talking about, even if it's a few different content pillars or all within the realm of kind of the same world like Bookstagram or Booktalk for example. But the thing that's going to really be the bread and butter of your content, of your community building is going to be you. People are going to want to get to know you. So you have to be authentic, you have to be consistent in that authenticity. So ask yourself, what unique energy do I bring? Who am I when I'm at my best? What is my authentic expression? And make sure that you're bringing that to the forefront of all of your content. 

Next up is we wanna talk about the vibe, the energy that you are creating within your community. And this is not necessarily aesthetic. The aesthetic, the idea of perfect aesthetics is kind of dying off in social media. We like to see more transparency nowadays, but when I say the vibe, what I mean is the energy around your community. So ask yourself, how do I want people to feel as part of this community? What goals do I have? What do I want the energy to be like inside this community? For example, I have tried to create a community where I feel like when people see my videos, we're on FaceTime, we're friends. It's very laid back. It's very relaxed. It's very casual. It feels like one big slumber party. You bringing your authenticity into your content is you have to do what is authentic for you. Do not go and watch other people's content and try and copy what they're doing because you see that it's working for them because it's not gonna work for you. It's gonna flop and that's because it's not natural and authentic to who you are. Don't even waste your time doing that. I promise it's going to be a massive waste of time. You're not going to see results and even if you do see results, it'll be sporadic and inconsistent and you're not gonna draw in the right people.

If there is one thing you take away from this, it's that you have to be yourself consistently. A really great way to do this and to help people get to know your energy and have people attracted to who you are as a person is by doing talking head videos. Get in front of the camera and just talk like I'm doing right now, very casually, very authentically, and that's going to help people really get to know you. This is something that really pops off on TikTok. It's something that's becoming more popular on Instagram. But if it's something that makes you a little bit nervous right now, that's okay. Just go into your camera roll and practice. Practice talking to the camera. You don't necessarily have to post it, but the more you practice, the more confident you are going to get and you're going to get more and more comfortable being your full self on camera, which is just really the key to everything. Next I want to talk to you about making sure that you have goals for your content. Where do you want to see yourself in a year? Where do you want to see your community in a year? What kind of energy do you want to be in that space? You can focus content around those kinds of things. So for example, I wanted a really big group of girlies. I wanted to help drive a lot of people into the book club that I have to expand that community. So I make content talking about the book club. I make content talking directly to the girlies and I make sure that everything that I'm doing aligns with those goals and is consistent. Consistency is really key here. If someone comes to your page and they see that it's kind of all over the place, maybe the type, the formats of the content aren't really consistent, maybe the way that you're talking isn't consistent, or the things that you're talking about aren't consistent, it's kind of all over the place and it's like random trends and cap cut things and it's kind of, you're just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall, that person is not going to follow you because they don't know what they're getting from you. So your page is really like your storefront kind of, or like a little trailer for what people are going to get, so you want to make sure it reflects what they're going to get content and where your content is going so they can see themselves growing with you in that community. 

And finally, and I know that this is kind of cliche, but have fun! This is supposed to be fun. Remind yourself of why you're doing it. Don't get bogged down in the vanity metrics like the likes and the follows and all of that. Focus on the actual people who are part of your community and remind yourself why you even wanted to do this in the first place. If content starts to get really stressful, if you feel like your brain is hurting from trying to think of ideas, take a break. Go for a walk, read a book, you know? Make one of your favorite dinners, do some breath work, step away because if your creativity is forced, it's not going to work out well. It has to come naturally. Like yes, you can brainstorm and things like that, but if it's getting to a place where you feel totally creatively depleted, don't try to force it. Give yourself a break, replenish your inner well, and then start from there. I hope these tips are helpful for you and I wish you so much luck in creating your bookish community.

These tips were brought to you by Sarah Lockwood | @sarahthebookfairy