There is no question that Social Media is all the rage in marketing at the moment and there seems to be someone offering you their ‘blow-your socks off‘ services around every corner. Undoubtedly Social Media has a great deal to offer the SME marketer but, I feel we are better making informed decisions as to what is right for our business rather than simply taking the pitch of the social media company salesman as an ideal solution. My normal approach: If in doubt, read a book
…. After a fair bit of research, I came across: the Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani (she’s American but we’re none of us perfect!) If you want a practical review of the 3 leading social networking sites for business marketing Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, I recommend you take a look. As well as working in the context of practical business marketing (always good from my point of view) Shama is hands on with details of how to lay out your profiles and what to include (or not!) Most important, the book is written with the interests of the marketer/ business owner in mind. Shama talks about how you integrate Social Media into your wider marketing communication plan and focus on attracting more business. The book is available in many different formats. I read it as an e-book on my iPad where you get the added benefit of some integrated videos. As with any social media book, there’s always the concern that the book will be dated before the ink is dry. Shama has addressed that by creating the Zen of Social Media site where readers of the book can access updated information regularly. Whether you’re just getting started, or you already have a Twitter account and Facebook fan page for your business, you’ll learn a lot by picking up a copy of The Zen of Social Media Marketing.
