PLATFORM
I purchased the iPad version of this book, not the Kindle or paper version from Amazon. In case anyone is wondering, the reader experience on that platform in terms of managing bookmarks, highlights, notes and general readability, is outstanding.
CONTENT
Overall I would say this book is a worthwhile purchase for the following groups of people:
1) Folks in their 20s who are starting a business and don't have a lot of academic background in the world of marketing or public relations.
2) Seasoned business people who until now have ignored "social media" like Twitter or Facebook.
3) People who have been trying to do "social media" by the seat of their pants / without much research up front.
If you're in one of those three groups you are likely to pick up on several important points and tips for doing things the right way online, as you represent yourself and your business. If you already have read works by people like Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk (who she mentions often in the book), I think you will find that this book is largely a collection of familiar tips and anecdotes. In short, it's "the same thing you heard before, told by a different person with a slightly different perspective." IMHO all of the marketing gurus basically work from the same playbook and create "variations on a recipe" with each book. Very lucrative and hey, more power to them! Seth Godin in particular seems to be a master at this, creating 12 or however many books he has now, with what probably amounts to 2 or 3 books worth of completely original material / ideas.
Basically, the book can be distilled down to three or four major points:
1) Do your homework - watch how other companies successfully employ the technology (Zappos is often cited as an example).
2) If you're going through the motions of social media and not genuinely caring about the people that follow or "fan" your pages, it won't work. Like all marketing books, this one takes chapters of touchy-feely language to reinforce a very simple idea: treat people kindly and be visibly responsible in how you respond to requests and complaints. Don't hide stuff and don't ignore problems.
3) Try to strike a balance between doing all your networking and communication online, and doing some in person every month. Tech only won't work for most people.
Beyond that there is quite a bit of filler that falls into the realm of what I call "new age marketing philosophy". Surround yourself with successful people, do everything you can to get facetime with people you're "enchanted by", etc etc. I can boil that down to a sentence for you also: carefully pick some role models in your industry who are not only successful but good people, and try to emulate them and even find ways to meet them if you can.
CONS AND OTHER POINTS
One major con of this book is that it is not well organized IMO. There are many lists and recurring topics that probably could've been expanded upon on more direct ways, and consolidated in more direct ways respectively. For example, you'll have spots where a list of points lead not to a list of corresponding larger descriptions and actions, but another list. This is less the author's mistake than the editor's. But again if you don't have any background in these areas, you can still glean some useful tips for your social media strategy.
After reading books like this one though, I am reminded that I should write my own book... focused on the critique of modern marketing and the mastery of repurposing the same stuff over and over, so the same small collection of marketing gurus can continually make money off it, and from each other by constantly name dropping and patting each other on the back in their books. But hey, that's what marketing and PR is. Less about substance than it is about making us feel good about people or products. ;-)
