30 Days to Social Media Success - Book Review

The Bottom Line

If you are new to social media, or at least new to using it for business, then you should read this book. If you have some experience using Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as a business promotion tool, much of what’s covered will not be overly useful. However, you should still buy the book. Read why.

Pros

• The book actually covers social media for business, just like it promises
• Learn both the tools and their application

Cons

• The theme of “30” is carried through the book, but is used unrealistically. See more below.

Description

• Written by Gail Z. Martin
• Published by Career Press
• Marketed as “the 30 day results guide to making the most of Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook”.

Guide Review – 30 Days to Social Media Success

So you want to “get into” social media? You know that if only you could start tweeting, posting, friending and liking then your business would go somewhere.

Author Gail Martin resists the temptation that many other authors fall prey to. She doesn’t succumb to the popular, albeit incorrect, thinking that social media is the way to success for every business. She acknowledges its benefits and its limitations. In a chart on page 58 she breaks down “What social media can do” and “what social media can’t do”.

Here are two things that social media can’t do, as identified in the book:

1. Sell a product that is of poor quality, or poorly positioned in the marketplace
2. Make you an overnight millionaire

The book covers four more reality-check styled points. It is surprising how many authors and consultants will try to get you to believe that you can sell anything to anyone just using social media - as if it itself is a kind of blindfold and stupefying pill combination.

Martin offers a realistic outlook on what the tools can actually do. She then goes on to teach how to use each one.

In following with the title 30 Days to Social Media Success, Martin carries the theme of 30 throughout the book. For example:

The Rule of 30?

30 minutes a day for 30 days – this is her recipe for social media success. While this sounds good, notice what you are asked to:

1. Setup a Twitter account and invite 30 friends every day to be your follower
2. Blog 30 minutes, twice a week
3. Post 30 forum messages over 30 days

Now if you’ve spent any amount of time on any social network you know that just the first suggestion would take more than 30 minutes a day. And there are 25 more of these suggestions. It just isn’t possible to conquer this in just 30 days.

Learning Tools

There is a section at the end of each main chapter with three boxes. These learning tools include:

1. Results Reminder
2. The Rule of 30
3. Exercises

These three boxes breakdown the main points from the preceding chapter and make it easy to implement each of the suggestions. As you read the book, you will emerge with a clear purpose and direction.

Despite the time miscalculations in the Rule of 30, this book contains the roadmap for getting started in social media for your business. If you’re just starting go buy this book today. (Compare Prices) If you have experience in social media marketing, it will be less useful to you, but still contains a number of valuable suggestions and approaches.

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