This post provides a quick overview of Shama Hyder Kabani’s book, the Zen of Social Media Marketing. But if you don’t want to read the full review, here’s the short version: Buy this book!
Quick Specs
· Author is Shama Hyder Kabani (@Shama on Twitter)
· 185 pages in length
· Copyright date 2010
The Zen of Social Media Marketing: Vicki’s Take
Aside from the name, which as a social media yogi in the making I most certainly resonate with, I found this book to be an excellent resource on the topic at hand. In general I would say that it is aimed mostly at sole proprietors and small business owners and managers. However, the information provided could also benefit those leading (or who want to lead) a social media program for larger companies, particularly if you are fairly new to the process of building a corporate social media marketing strategy.
Shama expertly sets the stage for a social media strategy by explaining what you need to have in place before you can launch a successful social media program. She uses a clear, acronym-based description of her marketing methodology (who doesn’t love a memorable, impactful acronym!?). There are also easy to follow checklists, steps, bullet lists, and additional acronyms to illustrate important strategy concepts. I really enjoyed the callout boxes throughout the book highlighting insights from other experts or successful social media users.
Everything you need to get started with social media marketing are all here: basics of online marketing and web essentials, specific tips on using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and a chapter on creating a social media policy are well addressed. In addition, there is a superbly informative chapter by guest author Dave Kaminski on using Video for your social media program.
What’s Not Covered?
There aren’t many specifics regarding how to manage your daily workflow to incorporate social media into your marketing strategy, but there are hints and tips throughout the book. Shama does recommend that you start with what you’re comfortable taking on, such as focusing only on Twitter and LinkedIn. No matter what approach you take, time management is essential and you would certainly need to devote more time during your initial learning and social media program development phases.
A couple of other areas that aren’t covered with much depth are documenting your social media program and tracking your efforts. While Shama provides some simple recommendations around social media metrics, you might want to read up on other options and experiment with creating scorecards and key performance indicators against which to track your efforts. However, the suggestions provided are good ones for starters.
Think before you leap:
A free login service is mentioned in the book. The service enables you to store login details for several key social media sites (like Facebook and Twitter) and then you just login to the service in order to send out updates and statuses to multiple social media sites simultaneously without having to login to each one separately. Sounds enticing, but please think carefully about how much of your control you want to place in the hands of a free service – passing out your passwords can create a serious point of exposure. Have a contingency plan in the event that the login service provider experiences a security breech and your social media logins are compromised.
In Summary…
I found Shama’s book to be an informative read with a great deal of advice that can be quickly applied to your business. I give it a social-media-yogi bow of appreciation – thanks Shama!
Best,
Vicki, A Social Media Yogi in the Making
