Immune by Philipp Dettmer
Seven years in, Tandem has run thousands of Readalongs and campaigns on Instagram and TikTok, cementing our place in the Bookstagram and BookTok communities. When we were approached in early 2022 by Hodder Books UK about facilitating YouTube activity for a nonfiction science book, it required us to take our tried and true methods of activation on Instagram and TikTok and figure out how to reconfigure them to work in the BookTube community.
YouTube was a strategic platform for this particular book, Immune by Philipp Dettmer, as Dettmer is also the founder of science YouTube channel Kurzgesagt (In a Nutshell), which boasts a formidable 21.6 million subscribers to date. Immune, Dettmerโs debut title featuring glorious designs in the same vein as those in his YouTube videos, had the potential to gain traction by working with bookish creators on the same platform as Kurzgesagtโs 21 million subscribers.
For Tandemโs first major campaign with YouTube creators, we began by making sure we adhered to the core values and strategies inherent in all of our activities. Firstly, rather than working with 1 or 2 macro-creators, we sought out multiple emerging and micro-creators on YouTube, focusing on their collective subscriber count and impact rather than that of each individual. The final collective subscriber count of the creators that took part in our Immune Readalong was 14.3K with their collective video views reaching over 462K.
Because Immune was such a niche genre and topic, we manually sourced BookTube creators who we identified as having a genuine interest in science and nonfiction, and who all posted regular content on their YouTube channels. We also asked those who signed on for referrals of creators they knew who would be interested in Immune, gaining several participants this way. Four creators were chosen as โVIPs'' and were expected to create 2 pre-filmed videos as well as host a live โReading Sprint.โ Their first pre-filmed video was an announcement about their participation in the Readalong and their assigned day to host their Immune Reading Sprint. The YouTube Readalong took place over December 2022 and January 2023, making it a particularly relevant time to be discussing the immune system. We took advantage of this by including items with the book to help them through cold season (branded tissue packs, teas, cough drops, etc.), which tied in perfectly with Immune! We also included personalised Immune cards for each VIP creator with prompts to guide them on their first video and the relevant tags and hashtags for the Readalong. All of the VIPs showed off the contents of their โImmune Care Packagesโ in their announcement videos, and also gave their viewers a preview of the gorgeous illustrations as they flipped through the book for the first time.
Each of the VIPs were assigned a date during the Readalong to host a Reading Sprint, a popular live format for BookTubers where they invite subscribers to tune and read with them live, with live comments that enable them to interact with viewers.
All participants were then asked to create a review of the book with the option of completing Creative Challenges. We were very aware that YouTube content functions differently to Instagram and TikTok content, and would have to make adjustments to the types of content prompts we included. The majority of YouTube content is long-form, averaging 12 minutes, as opposed to Instagram and TikTokโs short-form formats, averaging 26 seconds. In addition, YouTube videos (excluding YouTube Shorts) tend to be of a higher video quality than other platforms, with vigorous, detailed editing. Therefore, we needed to structure the Readalong around a smaller quantity of content than we would for an Instagram or TikTok Readalong, but wherein each piece of content would be longer and more comprehensive compared to content on those platforms. As a result, we gave creators a Reading Schedule (standard practice in all of our Readalongs), and digital Creative Challenge cards with different activities they could complete in their review video for Immune. Since YouTube does not have a direct message function, we created a Discord Server for the Readalong to post reminders, but most importantly to allow the creators to discuss the book as they simultaneously followed the reading schedule. This was our first use of Discord for a campaign, and we found it extremely helpful to have a hub where all logistical information could be posted as well as comments, questions, and feedback from the participants.
We wanted to come up with creative challenges which would be fun, could be carried out with the creators on film, and directly related to the very scientific material of Immune. For these challenges, we played on how Dettmer personifies immune cells in his writing to convey the intricate workings of the immune system, as well as the impressive graphics in Kurzgesagtโs signature artistic style. We wrote a โBuzzfeed styleโ quiz called โWhich Immune Cell Are You?,โ which asked creators personality questions that designated them as one of five types of immune cells (โYou are a Macrophage!โ). We also challenged them to create a timelapse of them drawing one of the illustrative metaphors Dettmer uses in the text to describe immune system functions, and share their reactions as they watched their choice of video from Kurzgesagtโs YouTube channel. The two final challenges were to list their top 3 โdinner party factsโ they learned from reading Immune, and share who they would gift the book. Most of the creators incorporated multiple challenges into their final videos for Immune, showing how creative content can engage viewers even for the most scientific of books! Thus, we were able to shift our normal practice of encouraging multiple short posts for a Readalong to 1 long-form video chock-full of engaging content. In this way, we accounted for the fact that most YouTubers donโt post more than once per week, and that they need to spend substantial time editing each video.
While the VIPs were only expected to create 2 videos and host a live, and all other creators were only asked to create 1 video, most participants posted far more than what was required, both on their YouTube channels and on their Instagram. Because some of the participants joined the campaign due to referrals, there were even a few live Reading Sprints planned between them and co-hosted which featured multiple copies of Immune! YouTube had just begun rolling out the YouTube Shorts section of their platform, so we saw some of our creators experimenting with this new format via reading updates of Immune. Now that YouTube Shorts have become a staple part of the platform, it will be exciting to see how Tandem can creatively incorporate the format into future YouTube Readalongs and campaigns. Tandem also posted regular content on Instagram throughout the campaign encouraging our wider community to join the live Reading Sprints and try out the Creative Challenges, as well as sharing links to creator content on Instagram and YouTube. In place of the Highlights created on Tandemโs Instagram profile for every Readalong, we added all Immune YouTube content from creators to a designated playlist on Tandemโs YouTube channel.
At the conclusion of the Readalong, our 12 participants had posted a total of 29 videos and 9 Shorts about Immune, which accrued 213 watch hours, 1094 likes and comments, and 7237 views. Our overall engagement rate was 7.59%, well over the average YouTube engagement rate of 2% (for accounts with less than 5,000 subscribers). The creators expressed their enthusiasm about the book and the Readalong process throughout, in their Discord discussions, and in their videos, all of them conveying their desire to be part of future Tandem YouTube campaigns. In the end, we were able to convert Tandemโs tried-and-true Readalong formula into a new format for YouTube, effectively engaging with the BookTube community, and producing a plethora of creative content to successfully promote a nonfiction science title.
