A fictional li'l old lady joins Instagram

Back in the day, book nerds would wait for the latest Harry Potter to drop, and eagerly read it while staying up all night. Now time has passed. Authors have fallen from grace. Said book nerds have gotten old, and have embraced a new and much more mellow fiction series that releases books on the regular.

Welcome to the Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, a series about a crime-solving gang of septuagenarians in an old-age home. The books themselves are kind of adorable with fun mysteries, extremely silly old-people jokes, and slightly alarming crime escapades. It's extremely cute and full of heart, and every book leaves me with a warm glow inside.

One of the protagonists is Joyce Meadowcroft. She's ditzy, she's amiable, and in Book 1 she sets up an Instagram account. When she finally understands how to work it, she starts posting inane everyday things with inane everyday captions. And because she's a cutie who doesn't understand why the handle @greatjoy69 is a no-no, that's what her handle is.

When I read this bit in the book, I went to Instagram to look up the account and hello - there it was. Joyce is on Instagram in our world, and she's posting about her daily life in stereotypical old-lady style, and it's full of silly throwaways from the mysteries she's solving while she's puttering about baking cookies and knitting.

A classic first-post-on-Insta

She adopts a dog. The dog then starts appearing on her feed. She goes to a suspect's house to look for clues, and posts about the cake that she is served there. She complains about traffic and the weather. It's delightful, and very true to her character in the books.

Hi buffalo

Joyce has a grand total of 30 posts on her feed, and 40,000 followers. Whenever she posts, it pops up and I start wondering if a new book in the series is coming out. Then I go look it up and start feeling impatient about why it isn't releasing sooner. The comments are full of people talking to Joyce as if they know her, and are her friends/fans. It's all very wholesome.

So... Is there a marketing takeaway from all this?

The first is ROI. At first glance, it might not seem like much, with just 40k followers. But the thing with ROI... Is it depends on the I, na? This is such low-effort stuff tailor-made for a niche audience that it just works. Much better than bland, idiot-proofed messaging that's inevitable when reaching a larger number.

The second takeaway is about doing something for your niche of "true fans". Kevin Kelly spoke about 1000 true fans and how everything should be done for them. Firstly, Richard Osman has a hell of a lot more than 1000 true fans (hi consistent bestseller guy), but this instagram thing was clearly deliberately not done for just any fan, just those who would actively seek out the account after seeing it mentioned in the book and giggle at the silly posts. A parallel for brands or marketers may be doing something that is so clearly tailored for your most active users/ early adopters/social media reply guys/your equivalent of 1000 true fans, that it leads to a disproportionate amount of brand love, even if from a small section of your audience.

Finally.. the authenticity.

(pause to take shot for the mandatory A-word mention for every blog/LinkedIn post about content).

This Instagram page was very clearly done by the author himself. The way Joyce talks on Instagram is just how you'd expect her to, after knowing her for four books. There clearly wasn't a savvy social media team designing creatives and slick captions here. That would kill it. A further proof of authenticity is the clear lack of any marketing material - down to no link in bio, mention of book. I expect this annoyed a few marketing folks at Osman's publishing house, which makes me love it all the more.

And clearly, given how the audience is resonating, this is working, whetting up appetites for the fifth book. Perhaps brands looking to truly build "community" could take a leaf from Joyce's (hehe) book. After all, humans do connect with other humans. Even fictional ones.

See you soon Joyce. Can't wait for Book 5.