Book Review: Social Media Marketing for Dummies

By on December 11th, 2009 In Best Practices, Weekend Reading

The only problem with reading this book is that I feel inclined to hide the cover when I’m reading it on a plane.     Newly written by Shiv Singh, the book has a bunch of tips you’ll find helpful for applying social media to your marketing strategies.   Some insights:

  • Nearly 260 million people use the Web on a regular basis in the U.S. alone – so the Internet has become a mainstream social activity.
  • As your potential customer makes a purchasing decision, he’s influenced by various circles of people through the conversations that he has with them online.
  • Social influence plays a bigger role in “high consideration purchases” (such as car buying) than low consideration purchases (such as which toothpaste to buy).
  • More and more customers are going online seeking advice and guidance to make product purchasing decisions. They would rather go online than look at a flyer that arrived in the mail.

Singh calls it SIM, social influence marketing, and among the “Ten SIM Best Practices” are:

1) Open up your brand to your consumers, and let them evolve it

2) Respond to everything, even if it means you’re up all night

3) Focus not just on social media but on social influencers

4) Structure your marketing department for this social world

5) Conduct many small tests frequently and build on each one

The book describes the various types of social media influencers there are, how to research them, and very important, how to measure the effectiveness of different types of social influence marketing.   Most of us are beyond the “what is social media” stage and want practical advice about how to apply it in marketing successfully.   If you also want good advice and direction on which research tools to use, this is the book.   At the end, he lists the 10 SIM-related “must-read” blogs.

Note:  from time to time, publicity agents for publishing houses offer to send me books to review.   If I like the book topic, I’ll read it and blog about it as an uncompensated reader.   

Comments

Ryan La Rosa Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

Maybe it should be called “Social media for 1.3% of the conversation” instead. I’m sure there’s some value that can be found in this book when it comes to social media but I certainly hope people keep perspective and realize there’s WAY WAY more to starting conversations and building relationships than this.

In fact, in terms of brand conversations social media is barely a factor – http://ryanlarosa.com/?p=187

Linda VandeVrede Says:
December 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am

Yup. Like most of the good books on social media now, this one advises how to incorporate the new marketing with the “traditional.” Haven’t found a book yet that completely eradicates the “old” ways. I’m sure there’s one out there, however.

Linda Says:
January 12th, 2010 at 9:33 pm

Thank you for the positive review. I’m glad you liked the book. I’ve gotten a few people say that they wish they could hide the cover. Made me wonder whether I should distribute book jackets with the book!

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