Last month, we were joined by Ariel Hudnall, managing director of Serif, a literary marketing agency specializing in book publicity and advertising, author platform development, and storytelling strategy.
During this session Ariel shared with us key insights and factors to consider when building our digital marketing strategies. She reinforces the uniqueness of marketing books, the challenges that come with it, and the constant evolution of digital marketing spaces.
To learn more about these spaces, the disruptions to them, and the best practices when it comes to using them watch the recent session called Managing disruption: Online book marketing in a volatile age.
For a brief look at some of what was discussed, keep reading!
Using social media as a tool
To start, Ariel shares some key numbers from the Digital 2026 Global Overview Report. This report helps to better understand where social media stands and how people interact with it.
Key numbers
Two of three people in the world now use social media.
In Canada and the United States, this saturation of social media is around 93%.
Most adults use more than one social media platform in their daily life with an average of almost seven different channels per person.
Facebook continues to be number one, with 57% of social media use taking place on the platform.
YouTube is the only platform with a more unique user base. Over 1% of their users are not on any other platform.
Why we use social media
It's incredibly helpful to be aware of the users' expectations and the primary reason they visit these channels. What are they hoping for when they visit Facebook, for example? And how might that hope or goal change when they switch to Instagram?
Ariel points out that while there are many reasons, the top reasons one might visit each of these could be:
| Channel | Label |
|---|---|
| Human connection | |
| Visual experiences, videos with a sprinkle of some of that influencer cult mentality. | |
| TikTok | Entertainment and memes and reels, trendy dances, etc. |
| Staying informed either professionally or with current events, etc. | |
| X |
Age Distribution
The next thing Ariel suggests, is to consider the age distribution. To properly utilize social media channels, you have to know how various age groups interact with it. This will then help you identify which channels the majority of your audience might be on.
| Age Range | Primary Channel | Secondary Channel |
|---|---|---|
| 16 to 34 | Social media ads (this includes paid and organic) | Search (Google and ChatGPT) |
| 35 to 44 | Search (Google and ChatGPT) | Social media ads (this includes paid and organic) |
| 45 to 64 | Search (Google and ChatGPT) | TV ads (today, this translates to YouTube, Amazon Prime TV, or Amazon business ads) |
| 65 and up | TV ads (today, this translates to YouTube, Amazon Prime TV, or Amazon business ads) | Word of mouth |
Your social media/marketing strategy will depend on where your primary audience is. Based on this, you can allocate resources accordingly.
More importantly however, Ariel explains that social media is only a distribution channel. She encourages us to think of it like an RSS feed and not get swept up by the ever-changing nature of the newest trend.
Diversity & decentralization
Echoing some of the previous statements, Ariel reaffirms the importance of decentralization as a whole. This pertains both to social media as well as digital ads. It's important to remember that data shouldn’t be single stream.
She suggests considering results across from channels across the board and to review these processes regularly to see what is working for your audiences particularly, to identify any gaps in how you’re trying to reach them and any channels you might be neglecting that deserve more attention. She recommends looking at Google results and assessing metrics for Meta, social media metrics, web traffic, MailChimp, and sales conversions.
This is true in the case of paid ads as well. It's important to not only think of building diversity in your advertising approach to reach new customers but also to retain them. It's important to review whether we're selling the right product in ads, directing people to the right places, and ensuring that your audience remembers you.
Influencer marketing
For audiences you don’t have direct access to, Ariel recommends influencer marketing. This method of marketing is best used in cases of deviations to target audiences. Therefore, if you, a children’s publisher with an established online platform catering to that audience, decide to release an adult fiction novel, you're going to be trying to reach an audience you don’t have direct access to. Releasing this novel to your current audience will not only be ineffective, but also confusing for your audience. This is where influencers can help you bridge that gap, acting as a medium to help your book reach the right people.
To understand more about how influencer marketing can be utilized in the publishing industry, watch the session and listen to (or read the transcript of) our interview with Naomi Bacon, the founder of Tandem Collective in our March podcast episode.
Book descriptions
Writing copy is a vital step in digital marketing to make sure we maximize discoverability. In the case of publishing, as book descriptions start to become more and more hidden, both physically and in online marketplaces, it falls to marketing to write impactful book descriptions. Ariel encourages publishers to load these descriptions with keywords, with the goal of attempting to answer the questions we can predict a customer might be asking.
When writing book descriptions it's important to make them metadata-heavy and add as much context as you can. This is to accommodate how the process of searching has changed through AI. This also expands into social media because it is considered SEO-rich and therefore can show up in those AI suggested results.
This context goes beyond book descriptions too. Keywords and good metadata can position you on the internet in a way that will be useful as well. If you're a bookseller, for example, consider: do you have a page on your website that talks about your curation, who you are, and how important you are to your community?
When deciding on what keywords to use, it’s important to choose them based on data. Google’s Keyword Planner and predictive text in search fields can help you figure out if keywords are real or not. Another important factor and equally important aspect is alt text on images. While it's incredibly important for accessibility, good alt text can also help images appear in image search.
To lean more about best practices when writing alt text, read this blog post.
Data-driven decision making
When the time comes to start assessing metrics and measuring success, Ariel explains that choosing your baseline data carefully is incredibly important. Baseline data refers to a 90-day window of functionally the same data. For these 90 days, you track that data, get your averages, and from there, you start experimenting. This helps establish a frame of reference to better understand the effectiveness of your experiments.
So, what does it mean to not consider outlier data when making decisions? This means ignoring periods where data experienced spikes or falls outside of what might be considered regular and predictable patterns. For example, if one of your posts went super viral during the month of February, comparing that month’s data to March is going to show you an inevitable and sudden drop in your engagement unless you have another viral post. March’s numbers will look negative if you’re comparing to February. So instead you should compare March to January or March to March of the previous year. So, when making decisions based on data, be sure to consider your baseline data very carefully to ensure accuracy.
So, what comes next? Considering the factors discussed above, what do publishers and booksellers need to do to execute these strategies? Watch the session to hear Ariel explain this in detail. She outlines what data-driven strategy looks like in practice, what values-driven harmonization looks like, practical tips on how to put these concepts into practice, and she answers some of the burning questions the attendees shared.
Learn even more about marketing through these select blog posts or our most recent podcast episode on influencer marketing. BookNet has also released our yearly report about the Canadian book industry in 2025, purchase your copy of The Canadian Book Market 2025.
In addition, we'll be releasing two additional reports on reader and consumer behaviour this spring: the Canadian Leisure and Reading Study 2025 and the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2025. If you want to be among the first to get notified about these releases, sign up for our weekly newsletter!
Ariel Hudnall, managing director of Serif, shares key insights into developing digital marketing strategies for the publishing industry.