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The zen of social media marketing : an easier way to build credibility, generate buzz, and increase revenue (2nd ed.)
Kabani S., Benbella Books, Dallas, TX, 2013. 216 pp. Type: Book (978-1-936661-63-3)
Date Reviewed: Jun 14 2013

When you ask people about their social media presence, you will likely get responses focusing on the number of followers, friends, and connections they have. Much to her credit, the author of this book successfully dispels the numerical fallacy (that more connections are better) based on her first-hand empirical evidence that social media users use their profiles for self-actualization, as a vanity plate of sorts, and not to connect to as many people as possible.

Viewing participation in social media as an exercise in self-actualization has ramifications for the marketing activities of companies in social media and the dynamics of social media interaction and commerce. Besides these revelatory observations, the author succeeds in establishing mantras for online marketing that translate well into the social sphere. Her ACT mantra, “attract, convert, transform” (p. 14), is relevant for website marketing and social media marketing, and illustrates commonly valuable principles. The same is true for what she calls “Website 911-EMS”: your site must educate, market, and sell (p. 20).

Rather than merely lecturing on the topic, she makes it come alive with creative guidelines, illustrated and reinforced by pertinent examples. Moreover, established guidelines and themes are reiterated throughout the book in the appropriate contexts. The author also includes a much-appreciated cautionary note that you should always drive your community outward from social media to your website, because “if Facebook ever decides to ban your account ... you don’t want to be stranded” (p. 98). These not-so-obvious facts, hidden gotchas, and facets of solid advice clearly show that the book was written by an analytical practitioner and keen observer of the use and rapid growth of social media marketing. Incidentally, she wrote her thesis on the use of Twitter.

The book’s 13 chapters cover topics from online marketing, websites, and blogging, to social media marketing, with separate chapters for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Social advertising on sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial and Facebook ads are discussed in separate chapters. The standout chapter in the first part of the book is chapter 3 on search engine optimization (SEO). For anyone wanting to really understand SEO, this chapter is worth the price of the book. Other chapters offer detailed discussions of the use of video, creating a social media policy, and how to use tools such as social bookmarking, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Delicious, to drive business to your website.

As a worthwhile ending to this social media marketing tour de force, the author concludes with a question-and-answer session with her blog readers on the topic at hand, followed by a number of use cases, and, finally, some 25 discussion questions to be considered for further study. The appropriate audience for the book includes the nontechnical neophyte and the intermediate practitioner, but excludes people looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.

It is rare that a book on social media can be at the same time interesting, enlightening, and even entertaining. It is a page-turner for those people seriously wanting to learn about social media from the ground up. The subtitle shows the perfect progression for successful social media marketing: you need a foundation to build credibility, which creates buzz and ultimately leads to revenue generation. Even though the screen shots in the book are at times hard to read, this book is done to perfection.

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Reviewer:  Klaus K. Obermeier Review #: CR141286 (1309-0784)
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