Social Media 101 Book Review
After reading Trust Agents, and liking it, I had a certain level of expectation from Social Media 101, and I was afraid it would be just another book about social media, like so many others out there on the shelf. You know what I mean! How to use Tweetdeck and how to sign up for a Facebook account. And although you will find some of that in this book, overall Social Media 101 is a good purchase.
Buy Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online
Buy Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
What I think this book is.
Part of the book title reads “Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business”, and that’s exactly what this book is. It’s like a reference of ideas – online marketing ideas. The very ideas most of us have thought or heard from others but might have forgotten in our normal everyday race.
Example, in the section called “50 Blog Topics For Marketers” there are 50 blog topics that most bloggers have likely thought of (or variations of) but didn’t get around to writing because of our daily distractions. But I think of this book as a reference back to those blog topic ideas, in fact I’m already writing blog posts based on some of the topic suggestions in this book and I know a few others are too.
And then there is a section called ”100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media” with tips on listening, creating your homebase and personal brand, and developing your personal content using tools like WordPress, Google Reader, Technorati, Digg, RSS Feeds, Flickr, and StumbleUpon. An experienced Internet marketer might think this stuff is basic, and it is basic, but there is a ton of information in this book, and like I said, it’s something to point us back to the things we intended to do but didn’t do for one reason or another. My example, I’m redoing my homebase because I know it doesn’t accurately reflect what I do as an Internet marketer or in other areas of my life.
Who should have this book? Anyone who is involved in any aspect of online marketing, and in today’s world I think that means nearly anyone involved in nearly any type of marketing.
- Social Media Marketers
- E-commerce Managers
- Affiliate Marketers
- Affiliate Managers
- Consultants / Advisors / Marketing Strategiest
- Business Developers
- Marketing Directors
- SEOs – there is information here that could assist in optimization
- PR Professionals
- Small business owners / diy marketers
- Inexperienced marketers – this could be a great reference for college students or recent grads
- Old school marketers – I know plenty of them who could benefit from this book
Things I don’t like about Social Media 101.
- Too many references to Problogger, Copyblogger and Gary Vaynerchuk. We all know they are great people in social media but let’s hear more mentions of regular people who have used Social Media to their greatest advantage. Maybe in Chris Brogan’s next book he can mention people who have put “Trust Agents” and “Social Media 101″ to good use.
- Seemed to get a little off topic and wobbly towards the end with mentions of link building, Website headers, hotel social networks and realtors. Those topics could be another book unto themselves.
FYI – I don’t know Chris Brogan and I’m certainly not recommending this book as a favor to him, as many people would do. I’m just telling you this book is worth the purchase. And my Amazon links are affiliate links.
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