References

Kawasaki, Guy The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users BookID 113990316 ISBN 1591848075 (see LibraryThing.com card)

Description (from Amazon)

"By now it's clear that whether you're promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what determines your success or failure.

And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you.

But there's no one quite like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and one of the pioneers of business blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Tumbling, and much, much more.

Now Guy has teamed up with Peg Fitzpatrick, who he says is the best social-media person he's ever met, to offer The Art of Social Media-the one essential guide you need to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money.

With over one hundred practical tips, tricks, and insights, Guy and Peg present a bottom-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms.

They guide you through steps to build your foundation, amass your digital assets, optimize your profile, attract more followers, and effectively integrate social media and blogging.

For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game, The Art of Social Media is full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world. Or as Guy puts it, "great stuff, no fluff.""

My review: 3.5/5

Most of my more focused colleagues (i.e. working only on social media, or self-appointed "experts") will probably reply that it is "trivial", "nothing is really new".

If you have been attending events online and offline around Europe over the last, say, 7 years, you will recognize most of the tips.

Anyway, I still attend way too many events (online and offline), and visit way too many websites (to say nothing about reading proposals for new websites) where most of those tips were simply ignored, that just listing them within the book make it worthwhile reading, as a "pre-flight" checklist (or in-flight rerouting).

It is a short book that could be more aptly described as a "meta-book", as it is actually useful more as a quick practical guide to make up your own "to do" list in managing (or working with those that will manage) your own personal brand.

Moreover, due to its structure, there are chances that, with minor changes related to the high mortality rate of new media and "trendy social networks", the key concepts will survive (i.e. the book is the foundation, but each chapter links to specific blog posts that will be kept up-to-date, a trick that other authors, including myself, use, but most business communication material posted on website doesn't- being "static": a missed opportunity to keep the conversation with your own audience going).

The authors state that prior knowledge and experience of social media is required- but, frankly, while skipping the details, a "digital immigrant" with business experience might understand what is needed- and use the book not as an operational guide, but as a tool to understand if those offering their services as "experts" are offering what (s)he or her/his organization needs.

An additional point (not relevant maybe to you, but to others like me): coming from a cultural/organizational/technological change perspective, I think that it could actually serve as an "induction training guidebook", maybe to be embedded within corporate material and given to participants as a required reading.

Why? Because most of your new employees or collaborators will certainly join your team with some experience in using social media that is closer to what could be named a "Power User" than a "newly hired"- and it is self-delusional to ask them to disappear or assemble a Stasi-like monitoring operation while giving no coaching.

In the future, probably your employees and their personal network will become part of the "outreach" of your company, and therefore it is better to start thinking in constructive terms, the old "win-win": you help them in improving their online presence and visibility (if they want to have one), and you will probably get a smoother transition of communication (including negative communication) between you, your employees, and their and your audience.

Disclosure: I received this book while looking around for material to update my experience-based articles and books series on online+offline social media and communication within politics and business, as I saw an announce via my Linkedin profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertolofaro that they were looking for reviewers

The reason why I asked to review this book? Because I bought and read the Kindle edition of his book "APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book" https://www.librarything.com/work/13283256/book/96334401, and it influenced (hopefully improved) my own publication activities with Amazon+Kindle (I added also Slideshare in read-only, but that is another story)

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