Social media marketing continues to be a catch-22 for business professionals. Many have embraced the importance of incorporating social media marketing into their campaigns, but struggle in finding time to participate. If you are left feeling overwhelmed at the growing rate of social media channels (i.e. blogs, wikis, etc.) and are seeking shortcuts that will enable you to efficiently make use of your time without neglecting your audience, then you will benefit from Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day by Dave Evans.
Regardless of what stage you are in your social media marketing endeavors you will find the information Evans provides is practical and relatively easy to implement. This book is written in a style similar to that of a college textbook and requires you to do some homework. The book is divided into the following four parts:
- The Foundation of Social Media
- Prepare for Social Marketing
- Social Media Channels
- Complete Your Plan
Even though I believe that this book was written for those who specifically work in the marketing field, the concepts and techniques can be implemented by others. I was surprised that Evans not only encourages, but helps his readers figure out which part(s) of the book they should skip based upon how familiar they are with social media. This impressed me because many books tend to force their readers to sit through the history or various theories of social media before sharing the information that their readers are seeking to gain.
Each part of the book consists of chapters that represent each week in your goal to create a social media marketing plan. This book takes readers on a three month journey that will enable them to have a social media marketing plan provided they complete the exercises that are assigned to them at the end of each chapter. These exercises are designed to take less than an hour and you will without a doubt come across some that will have you so engrossed that you lose track of time!
This is a rather lengthy book full of information that can be immediately applied to your business. Due to time constraints, my guess is many readers who are familiar with social media will end up skipping to Part III: Social Media Channels. This was the most interesting part of the book because he goes into detail in how to “…quantify the relationship between promise and delivery and feedback.” He assists his readers in being able to accomplish this task by having them create a “social feedback cycle.” This shows you “…the “path” that potential customers take and the media that they currently encounter as they learn about and evaluate your product or service.”
Measuring the impact of a social media campaign is often cited as a difficult task. However, Evans discusses a variety of attributes and metrics you can use to determine how successful their campaign is by being able to “…draw conclusions about who is participating…then look for ways to make that content more useful to them.” He goes into detail helping readers create content, build dashboards, report cards and tools to track the progress of your campaign. You are probably using the platforms that Evans mentions in the book, but I am confident that you will learn a new approach in how to use them.
This book offers a lot of relevant information, but at times I felt like it was almost information overload. There are tips and case studies in gray boxes throughout the book to reinforce his point (it is great advice), but I suspect that many will be more interested in getting to the exercises that will help them create their social media plans. Business professionals, especially those that are self-employed, want to get straight to the point and I found the amount of references to be somewhat distracting because it causes the reader to break their concentration from the current topic.
I enjoyed this book but find the title of this book to be a bit misleading. If you’re truly getting into the exercises you may find yourself taking longer than an hour to complete the assignments. Completing these assignments will definitely prepare you to successfully execute your campaign.
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.
This book was published in 2008 and contains 432 pages. The price of this book is $29.99 and can be purchased on Amazon.
Click here to buy this book!
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BOOK REVIEW - Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day
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