My Advice for Starting a Bookstagram

 

So You're Thinking of Starting a Bookish Account?

    Starting a public social media account can be daunting in many ways, after all you are a small fish in a vast ocean of accounts. Between, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, X (formally Twitter) there are so many places you can post book content. I feel most start with instagram, as it provides a place to post pictures, reviews as well as reels. the book community has coined bookstagram as a way to easily find and share their reviews, post favorite books and find new books to add to our never ending TBRs.  As of 2025, #bookstagram has been used on over 100 million posts and that number is still counting as I type this. TikTok is also growing in popularity with the bookish community, giving people a place to post their bookish videos, rants and raves over their favorite books. Currently #booktok has over 60K posts.

  With all of that being said here is some advice that I would give someone who is eating to or is just starting a Bookish account. 

Don't Obsess:

    Now I know this one is a hard one to stay away from. From follower counts, to views, likes and shares. It is easy to get caught up in the rush of wanting to go "viral" and become a popular account. I know I am guilty of going through periods of watching my follower count like a hawk especially when I'm close to a personal goal (ie: 4.5K followers). While some ARC opportunities do have follower/interaction requirements, I have learned that follower counts do not matter much in the grand scheme of things. It is just a number and if an author likes my content enough to grant the opportunity for an ARC copy, that's great, if not there's always next time!

    Also I have found that there are many people who will mass follow accounts just to unfollow soon as they receive a follow back. Easy way to find these accounts are ones with massive differences in followers vs following numbers. I have found quite a few of these types of profiles, and tend to just stay away.

     I also have quit following every single person back that follows me. I only follow back if I genuinely like their content or the aesthetic of their profile. This way Instagram should continue to recommend profiles and content that I am actually interested in. And at the end of the day? If they are genuinely interested in my content they will hang around, my follow back should not matter. 

Post what you want, not what you think people want to see:

    This is something I have struggled with a lot. My content is a mix of reviews, pictures, and reels. And on the odd chance that I have had reels gain traction (560K views/ 68K likes), I caught myself trying to chase that high over and over. This quickly lead to burn out and I began dreading creating content for my page. Finally I got the drive back and began posting about books I wanted to post about, not ones that were popular. While these posts defiantly didn't do as well, I was so much happier. 

Don't take it personal when others copy your content: 

    For the longest when I saw that people were taking my reels and just using a different caption without giving me credit it used to drive me mad. Did I ever ask for credit? No. Because you could see that the original audio linked back to my video and honestly that was enough for me. I did end up restricting one profile that kept doing it to every single reel that I would post. 

   But if this is something that would bother you, you can turn off remixing in your settings which will prevent anyone from using your content. 

Have fun!

    The biggest piece of advice I have? Just have fun! You are posting for you, enjoy it, talk about your favorite books, or whatever interests you! I know my content is primarily books, but when I have a Ghost concert? You best believe I'm going to share a few photos and talk about what a great time it was. Your account should be an outlet, not a second job. Post what you want, when you want and how you want. Want to only post photos? Great! want to have a vlog style account? Go for it! Want to be a completely faceless account? Do it! However you want your account to be, just go for it and have fun!

 — From the shadows with love, MorallyGrayGhoulette