Social Media Books

Review by A. S. Johnson:

This book is a good way to get familiar with online social tools. The author covers ways to use email, social networking tools and publishing tools. He has good information about establishing some goals and determining a strategy for meeting the goals. He also has a lot of useful references if you want to get more familiar with a particular topic.

I only gave it three stars for the following reasons:

– Too much coverage of the history of the internet, email, and web pages. If I was interested in that, I’d get a book on the history of the internet, email, and web pages.

– Misinformation on some tools, and missing information about other tools. For instance, the author mentions Joomla, a content management system that can be used to create websites and blogs. He mentions it in a way that may mislead people as to its uses when he states that it can pair with any number of applications. It might work with other applications, but that may require coding skills or money to pay someone to make them work together. He also ignores the multitude of other open source content management systems that are out there.

– A serious amount of repetition in sections one and two. A lot of what is stated in the second section is already in the first, so it added a few hundred pages without saying a whole lot.

This is a good book. It’s less complete than the title suggests.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

Great book! Loved it! It’s huge and heavy and not particularly pricey. I found it to be well organized and well written. And it was certainly packed to the gills with content. There are 43 chapters split into three different sections: (1) Background basics & tactics, (2) Tools, & (3) Strategy. The chapters in the first part provide an introduction and framework regarding the book. The numerous chapters in the second part cover 100+ social media tools. And the last five or six chapters in the third part can help you do an audit of the social media marketing your company does (or doesn’t do).

The book is comprehensive. I haven’t seen a book that covers so much and in such depth on the topic of social media marketing (or Internet Marketing). There were a ton of “Expert Insights” sprinkled throughout the text that really made the book shine. And each chapter ended with three summaries: (1) Commandments, (2) Conclusion, & (3) Readings & Resources. Each were well done. In particular the Readings & Resources for each chapter were better than most books have at the end of an entire book. 6 stars!

PS. To see the chapter titles and how the book is specifically organized I encourage you to peek at the Search Inside feature Amazon offers for this book. With 43 chapters there are a lot of chapter titles to read.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved this book. Over the past year or so I have read quite a number of tomes regarding social media and social media marketing, but none until this one have been written in a planner or workbook format. This one is well written, well organized, and full of content. It has 14 chapters split into the following four parts or sections:

I. The Foundation of Social Media

II. Month 1: Prepare for Social Marketing

III. Month 2: Social Media Channels

IV. Month 3: Complete Your Plan

Two books similar to this one on how to put together a business plan are: “16 Weeks to Your Dream Business” (ISBN: 9780071588362, and “Self Employment: From Dream to Reality” (ISBN: 1563709228). And a book similar to this one on how to put together a fundraising plan is: “The Fundraising Planner” (ISBN: 0787944351). The instant book being reviewed touches on the marketing issues of social media, and then devises a systematic approach to putting together a social media marketing plan customized to your small business.

Each of the 14 chapters ended with a summary section. I found it very easy to cruise through this book by first reading the summary sections and then tackling the rest of the book after having a pretty good idea of what was being covered.

After reading this book you will have devised a social media marketing plan that addresses (1) platform, (2) content, and (3) interaction. You will have decided whether to use Technorati, MySpace, Socialvibe, Flickr, Facebook, Friendster, Linkedin, and/or YouTube. Technorati is the tunnel through which to learn more about the blog or blogs you will create.

So if you want to tap into the power of the Social Web through connected networks and consumer-oriented media, then I recommend this book as one of the tomes you seek out and read in order to build your company’s social media marketing plan. 5 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside feature at Amazon for this book. There you can access the book’s Table of Contents and see exactly what is covered.

Review by Robert G. Johnson:

I had been on the waiting list of Amazon.com for over 3 months waiting for this book to be released and it is exactly what I hoped for. I’m actually only 108 pages through it now as I “peeked” at all the self help guides that the author has in the appendix. I want to jump right in and get it going but Dave’s advice to take your time and learn the hows and whys is so important.

I was not looking for a social commentary on social media but wanted to know the ins and out, nuts and bolts, on how to implement a successful marketable strategy and this book does it.

Only this morning I actually went to the blog and sent an email to the author, Dave, and was surprised that within a few minutes he had responded . Talk about getting more than a book!!

What is so engaging is the author is energetic, evangelistic in his zeal to help others, and willing to share to make this journey easier for others to follow. It’s a step by step guide for an emerging dynamic field which is affecting us now and will do so far into the future.

I’m glad this book exists and is so affordable and even happier the author is willing and able to help us along.

Bob Johnson

Review by David M. Freedman:

Qualman insightfully advises companies to patiently build relationships with customers through social media, rather than instantly getting a customer’s name and e-mail address into its database. “Good businesses realize that it’s not all about the instant win of getting someone into a database,” he says. “Rather it is cultivating that relationship via social media. If it’s done correctly, you will have a relationship that lasts a lifetime.” Throughout the book he tries, but doesn’t quite succeed, to show how to “correctly” cultivate such relationships.

Another insight: He says on page 111 that marketers will need to create content (news, entertainment, and how-to information, for example) for their websites, not just advertising messages.

Unfortunately, insights like those are few and far between.

Qualman’s platitudinous premise is stated in the introduction, and again in the conclusion:

“It’s all about the economy, stupid. No, it’s all about a people-driven economy, stupid. If anything, I hope that you have learned this from reading this book.”

(In the introduction, Qualman explained that the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” was coined in 1992 by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager. Qualman merely “adjusted” that phrase to create the book’s alleged premise.)

After reading the book, I still don’t have the slightest idea how the “people-driven economy” differs from “the economy.” Or what the adjusted phrase means.

This book is full of superficial anecdotes and miniscule case studies, platitudes and generalizations, unsupported opinions, idle speculation, specious claims, inconsistent style, imprecise language, typos, and bad punctuation.

In some of Qualman’s examples, I couldn’t tell whether the facts were real or hypothetical. In many of the micro-case studies, he shows how a company accomplished a certain objective through social media, but does not establish that the objectives could not have been accomplished more cost-effectively through other marketing channels.

He describes the case of Dancing Matt–about Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing around the world and put his videos on YouTube. The videos were hugely popular, so Stride Gum sponsored his further travels and video production. Stride exercised restraint and placed its logo discreetly at the end of the video (in the post roll). Qualman claims Stride earned “millions of dollars in brand equity,” but does not support that claim with any data or sources. Is it his own guesstimate, or did the company tell him it earned “millions”? No clue.

He claims that social media activities “connect parents to their kids like never before.” He offers no source, data, or study to support that statement, and he is clearly not qualified to offer that opinion.

Regarding microblogging, he says, “What once took place only periodically around the watercooler [sic] is now happening in real time.” Huh? What can be more real-time than water cooler conversations?

He says (on page 52) that micro-blogging functions as a kind of log that you can look back on–at the end of a day or week or month–and review your posts and updates. “It’s extremely enlightening because it shows you how you are spending what precious time you have.” Ah, yes, it’s not only improving the way parents relate to their kids, it’s therapeutic as well.

As a downside of social media, he says, Generation Y and Z [are having] difficulty with face-to-face conversations.” No support for that claim. Is that his personal observation? He’s a marketer, not a sociologist.

He says that staying connected, through social media, to the people who elected Obama president will be the “key to his success as president.” The key!

He says social media “allows for a government to be more in tune with the country and to truly run as a democracy by stripping away the politics and getting to the core of what matters.” Uh huh.

He recites marketing platitudes that have been true for decades or centuries, but treats them as though social media makes them especially true. An example: “Companies that produce great products and services…will be winners in the socialnomic world.”

Here is an example of idle speculation. Qualman uses an example involving NBC’s failure to put its 2008 Olympics coverage online in certain circumstances. “Most likely, NBC and their advertisers…were judging themselves using old metrics…” Sorry, you can’t prove a point with a “most likely.” Qualman could have contacted NBC’s marketing department and asked them why they didn’t. But that would have required real journalism.

Regarding the concept of network neutrality (although he doesn’t use that phrase), Qualman says that if Internet service providers start charging for usage (”per stream”) rather than a fixed monthly fee, that would be “malicious.”

Qualman devotes almost five pages (perhaps the longest case study in the book) to the Scrabulous case, where the Agarwalla brothers created an online game similar to Scrabble, which they called Scrabulous and which attracted 500,000 daily users at its peak. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble brand, issued a cease-and-desist letter and pushed Scrabulous off the web. Qualman excoriates Hasbro for being heavy-handed in the case, and he quotes several other marketing professionals who likewise criticize Hasbro for being short-sighted. Yet Qualman presents not a single quote or statement from Hasbro, nor does he speculate as to why Hasbro’s believed its legal action was necessary.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Review by Marylene Delbourg-Delphis:

It took about ten years for Brick-and-Mortars to figure out how they could best exist within the Web 1.0. They will have far less time to understand that marketing is turning into a completely new social and linguistic genre. Erik Qualman’s book, Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business is an effective wake-up call for corporations and marketers, and is written by a sincere and authentic practitioner.

Amazon, Qualman reminds us, did a stellar job when it introduced the concept of affinity marketing, but as efficient as it was, it had its shortcomings, especially if buying My Little Pony for your niece was a one-time thing. Going a step further, Amazon started to showcase other books that people who bought the same book as the one you are looking at, also bought. The social media approach is a next era and shows that in the “people-driven economy,” effective affinity marketing is a contagious recommendation process operating within affinity groups. Instead of being told what people in general are interested in, we want to know what people in our network, people we appreciate, would advise based on their experience – an experience to which we tend to pay attention because we generally trust our friends. “People referring products and services via social media are the new king. It is the world’s largest referral program in history.” This is a new world that Qualman calls “the world of socialnomics.”

A few years ago, the very notion of “socialnomics” would have sounded like an odd linguistic construct, and, in the end, simply meant “management/rules of what is social,” just as economics originally designates the management/rules of a household. In many respects, the term “socionomics,” coined by Prechter in 1999, could have also been used, as it is the “study of social mood and its results in social actions.” However, through the word “socialnomics,” Qualman wants to emphasize the idea of an economy governed – I should say “mediated” — by social media as it leads to the creation of innumerable communities and tribes. This “social-media mediation” is perceived by individuals as a form of disintermediation and deliverance, shielding them from the marketing litanies imposed upon them by impersonal marketing machines. What we hear in our social media world comes from people we have chosen to listen to. The intermediaries are not mercenary message-carriers (or so we hope), they are peers of sorts and therefore, are not perceived as middlemen (even when there can be a bit of a sandwich man about them). This is why the world of “socialnomics” is not felt as yet another form of social pressure. We have the freedom to select the circles to which we belong, ensure that they mirror our needs and tastes, exchange points of views and ask questions with the hope of getting a candid response.

The eight chapters of the books analyze the new challenges and opportunities that the social media re-segmentation and restructuring of the market will present to businesses. Are customers going to reduce their reliance on the results they get from search engines? It is most likely. “I care more about what my neighbor thinks than what Google thinks,” if I want to buy a baby seat. It is also obvious that customers expect companies to converse with them in “open, two-way conversations” and that customer “services” are poised to become the customers’ voice and, consequently, a central part of marketing departments. Therefore, “businesses need to fully transform to properly address the impact and demands of social media.” And companies that fear to venture into the open, display their customers in the social media fora, will atrophy much faster than they think. Installed bases are joining the “Glass House Generation” at a fast pace, and follow its lifestyle — hang out anywhere and at all times in public view. Qualman indicates that “by 2012, eMarketer projects that more than 800 million users worldwide will participate in social networks via their mobile device, up from 82 million in 2007.” Meeting these new challenges as well as leveraging these new opportunities will definitely require new skills and new tools!

Review by Kristen:

I really enjoyed this book and found it both extremely thought provoking and practical. It has some smart insights, introduces a clear framework for understanding and approaching social media marketing and then explains the specifics of how to market on each of the social media platforms while recognizing that this is part of the marketing puzzle and not the whole one. It really seems like a one stop shop in terms of covering the basics, the more strategic concepts (including mobile social media) and the practicalities of what you can “buy” and “earn” across the social web. I definitely recommend this book to read. Its thoughtful, specific and actionable and not hype driven. The author obviously has a lot of experience in this space and it shows.

Review by Andrea Harrison:

Great resource for marketers looking to incorporate social strategies and tactics but not sure where to begin. Covers a wide variety of topics which makes it helpful for anyone needing best practices and tips regardless of industry or market size. Well done Shiv!

Review by Sharon O’Dell:

This book is exceptional. It will not only tell you how to use new marketing and PR techniques to get noticed, it will help you understand how to apply what you learn and provide examples along the way. It was provided to me by the college I enrolled in for my very first course, Introduction to Internet Marketing. It set the tone for the next 24 months of my education, and did a great job in doing that. I have been involved in Internet Marketing for ten years, yet I learned a lot I didn’t know!

This is a necessary book for EVERY entrepreneur, business of any size, and even job seekers! Reach your customers (or your future employer) and know how to speak to them, engage them and convert them!

Make sure it’s at the top of your reading list for 2010!

Review by Gregory Wallace:

This book is great and I think it should be required reading for every outbound-facing person, not just marketing, but sales, bus dev, product management, and senior executives.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved it. What a book. These days there are many books on the market that address the basics or the theory regarding online marketiing and the Social Web. At this point I have trouble giving them super high review ratings because they don’t bring much new to the table. One such book I recently reviewed was e-Riches 2.0: Next-Generation Marketing Strategies for Making Millions Online. As a result of my less than glowing review (even though I gave it 4 stars) I got hit with 5 neggies. Anyway, the instant book does not go too heavy on the basics or theory. It is a practical book for the do-it-yourselfer who wants to be lead by the hand on how set up their online presence using social media and Web 2.0 tools. It is well organized and well written and includes an introduction, 15 chapters, and 4 appendices as follows:

0. Introduction

1. Creating your social media strategy

2. Preparation

3. RSS feeds & blogs

4. Building a Wordpress powered Web site

5. Podcasting, vidcasting, & Webcasting

6. Social networking & micro-blogging

7. Social bookmarking & crowd-sourcing

8. Media communities

9. Widgets & badges

10. Social media newsrooms

11. More social tools

12. Pulling it all together

13. Looking to the future

14. Measuring your success

15. Conclusion

A. Installing Wordpress

B. Creating your own RSS feed

C. Building your own widget

D. Wordpress 2.7

Clearly the author is partial to Wordpress-dot-com. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Wordpress offers great tools and it is a very nice service provider. Chapter 4 talks about Wordpress. Appendix A describes the process for setting up Wordpress. And Appendix D is kind of a supplemental blurb to Appendix A. I found the Introduction to be great. Chapter 1 on strategy was great, and chapters 12 through 15 were wonderful, too. Chapters 2-11 did a good job of providing tools and tactics to be used in building your online presence.

Building a meaningful and productive online presence is all about (1) interactivity, (2) sharing, & (3) collaboration. This book will tell you what you need to know to get involved online, build your presence, and interact, share and collaborate. 5 stars!

Review by C. A. Lajos:

With the development of the constantly evolving Internet and its new technologies, more individuals and businesses are realizing that success on the Internet requires maximizing their presences in the Social Web. Here Hay (graduate education in computer science, applied mathematics, and psychology; principal owner, Dalton Publishing, and Social Media Power; founder, PlumbSocial.com; regular contributor to many journals and online news sites), an author, programmer, publisher, social media consultant, Web 2.0 developer, and dynamic presenter, provides an outstanding guide to social media and Web 2.0 optimization. Writing for authors, business owners, entrepreneurs, public relations specialists, marketing professionals, publishers, students, and others, she shows readers how to apply and integrate social media tools not limited to blogs, RSS feeds, content management systems, podcasts, videocasts, webcasts, social networks, microblogs, social bookmarks, crowd-sourcing technologies, media communities, widgets, badges, and social media newsrooms. By means of various chapters that are filled with numerous real-world examples and step-by-step screenshots, the author covers the aforementioned nuts-and-bolts technologies of the new, open-source Internet, but she also goes well beyond the basics. Setting forth proven strategies and tactics, future technologies, measurement tools, and more, Hay provides more in depth guidance from a business perspective. While her book can be read from cover-to-cover, it also can be consulted on an as-needed, chapter-by-chapter basis. It includes many useful, value-added features such as detailed appendices and a companion CD with bibliographies, directories, forms, links to other resources, and worksheets. Easy-to-read, but not a beginner’s guide, this expertly-presented, comprehensive, extensive publication will best serve readers who have some background knowledge of the social web and its tools. A significant, worthwhile resource, it belongs in many large public library collections. Highly recommended.

Review by Manny Hernandez:

I just finished reading Dan Zarrella’s book and I am very impressed. If you are new to the world of social media or wondering how to make it fit your marketing strategy, this book is a perfect starting point. Dan lays out all the dimensions of social media in an easy-to-understand way, outlining the do’s and don’t’s for each of them. It doesn’t pretend to be a Bible of the topic: for in-depth tactics for each leg of your social media marketing strategy, you will need to pick up other titles. But it gives you a very complete feel for what lies ahead, should you want to market your brand through social media, something that you will soon realize not to be an option but a must.

Review by David J. Perdue:

In the increasingly complex world of social media, how do you begin to successfully engage in social media marketing for your business? Dan Zarrella has responded to that question with “The Social Media Marketing Book.” It’s a quick read. But the small book is packed with useful information for those itching to jump into the social media marketing fray.

The book’s organization is quite user-friendly and begins with a brief introduction to social media. The bulk of the book then focuses on presenting a concise history, definition, and description of the various types of social media: blogging, Twitter/microblogging, social networking, media sharing, social news and bookmarking, ratings and reviews, forums, and virtual worlds. I found each section both helpful and interesting, especially appreciating the author’s conciseness.

The final two chapters–one on strategy, another on measurement–are some of the most important. As I went through the strategy chapter, I was highlighting different bits of advice and enjoyed his discussion of “call to action” (CTA) in which you, the marketer, try to engage visitors on your website. The measurement chapter stresses the importance of goals and describes several tools you can use to measure return on investment and engagement as a result of your social media marketing efforts.

Overall, I found Zarrella’s guide a helpful resource on understanding and applying social media for business. Note that the book is an introductory guide, so don’t expect to find profound social media strategies if you’re already an experienced social media marketer. Nevertheless, I appreciated the nuggets of wisdom throughout this survey of social media marketing.

Review by Bhavana Musuluri:

I’m stealing one of the often used words in the book to define the book itself – remarkable. This book is fantastic and easy to read. As you read each chapter, the authors take you through each step in successfully marketing your products. This book is not filled with theories, but it rather cleverly explains each winning strategy which is relevant in this day and age, and then sums up each chapter with a list of things to do to implement the strategy. The best part is that anybody who is willing to invest time and brains can use this book as a reference and start creating value to their company immediately and of course build on it overtime. The book shows new techniques that doesn’t require an old-school marketing guru with tens of years of experience. In fact, a person with a little bit of creativity can use this book to REALLY get customers and sell their products.

Couple of other things that I liked about the book are the particular examples (other organizations/blog articles/etc) that were provided and the cartoons – who doesn’t enjoy a chuckle every few pages?

Absolute bang for your buck and once you pick up the book, you will finish it!

Review by E. Loessi:

The question that first grabbed me in this book was ‘Who moved my customers”.

The authors have hit the nail on the head and throughout the rest of the book proceed to tell us how to go out and find those customers again on the Internet. Like many of the best business books this book is really a reference source you can pick chapters at random and gain new insights on blogging, search, marketing and lead nurturing. It is clear that inbound marketing is changing the playing field and this book is the players manual for how to compete.

Ed Loessi

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Review by Ann Paris:

This is the third Twitter book I have read and this one was the best by far. In my reading and marking pages, I found at least 50 specific marketing strategies I can use right now. Being an author of 20 books myself, I am a tough critic of these kinds of books. I would give this one my highest recommendation for anyone wanting to learn about Twitter or online marketing in general.

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Review by M. Susoev:

I was disappointed with Twitter Power, especially after reading the many reviews that claimed this book would reveal many techniques for both beginners and pros alike. For anyone that has been using Twitter for more than a couple weeks, this book is really 101. It seems to be geared towards people that have never heard of Twitter or are just getting started. If that’s the case, this book will help you get your feet wet, but it doesn’t shed light on anything you can’t pick up on your own simply by using Twitter for a few days.

Twitter is real time with instant response in most cases, and you’ll find out what works for you and what doesn’t almost immediately. You can also pay attention to the power players and note their approach. The book just points you to the top users on Twitter anyways. Save your money and do a little homework.

I’ve given an extra star because 10% of author proceeds go towards sustainable long term water solutions in developing areas of the globe.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I liked this book very much. I read the author’s first book on this subject back in July, 2007. And now he has a second great book out on the subject. It includes the following 16 chapters:

1. Making the case

2. Making choices

3. Ear to the ground

4. Courting online influencers

5. Corporate soapboxes

6. Customer conversations

7. The social network gorillas

8. Niche innovations

9. Learning from conversations

10. Basics of social media content

11. Picking your spot

12. Telling stories with words and images

13. Engagement through interaction

14. Promote thyself

15. Measuring results

16. Celebrating change

The book was very easy to read. It is full of great content. And it is very well researched. I found each of the chapters to be packed full of cites to Web sites that are critical players in the social media marketing realm of things. And I’ve read quite a few books on this subject. I can tell you this book is not simple fluff or something merely written in order to capitalize on the current popularity of the subject matter.

There are real world examples cited throughout the text. And I found them to be very good additions to the points being made in the main body of the book’s content. So the numerous cites to Web sites and the inclusion of real world examples makes this book a goldmine of information for anyone hungry to learn about social media marketing. I had one problem with the book – its organization. When I completed it and sat down to write this review I said to myself: “There are 16 chapters in this book. How can they be broken down into three or four “parts?” I had hoped it would be easy for me to eyeball the parts. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Below is how I think the book probably should have been organized to be a little more easily digestible. 5 stars!

[I] WHY PRACTICE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

1. Making the case

14. Promote thyself

8. Niche innovations

[II] HOW DOES SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WORK?

10. Basics of social media content

12. Telling stories with words and images

5. Corporate soapboxes

4. Courting online influencers

6. Customer conversations

13. Engagement through interaction

3. Ear to the ground

9. Learning from conversations

16. Celebrating change

15. Measuring results

[III] SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING OPTIONS

2. Making choices

11. Picking your spot

7. The social network gorillas

Review by Brad Shorr:

This is a comprehensive overview of social media marketing, with enough detail to make it useful for marketing practitioners, yet not having so much detail as to confuse or overwhelm. It’s an excellent starting point for small business owners and leaders, corporate executives, traditional media marketers and advertisers, SEO and SEM service providers, and public relations specialists.

Using case studies, bios of power users, and drawing on his own experience as a tech sector journalist, Gillin makes a strong case for why – and how – social media works. He explains social networking etiquette, which tools to use and for what purpose, how to develop online relationships that support corporate objectives, how to effectively write, promote, and engage on the social Web, and significantly, how to measure results of social media activity. I found his detailed advice on podcasting, video, and image (photo) creation especially helpful, since there’s comparatively little written on these topics.

If you are trying to figure out what all the fuss is about blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, this book is for you. If you’re ready to launch your own social media program, this book will tell you how. Gillin gets into the nitty gritty, explaining such things as how bookmarking sites work, how to use YouTube for business, how to promote your blog, why blogs improve search engine visibility, and why talking to customers increases customer loyalty, attracts business, and accelerates new product/service development.

Like all books on social media, it’s best to read this one now. A year from now, a good bit of the information is likely to be out of date, as Gillin himself points out.

In his closing chapter, Gillin points out that the social Web is not just for marketers. Employees at every level in a business will be directly engaging customers online – it’s already happening. And already, customers are talking about companies on Twitter, Facebook, and the like, whether companies participate in the conversations or not. Gillin’s conclusion – social media is not a fad, it’s a permanent sea change in how business communication takes place. Nobody in management can afford to be in the dark about these developments, which is why I think “Secrets” is a genuinely important book.