30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business [Paperback]

Susan Gunelius (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2010

BIG PRESENCE isn't just for BIG COMPANIES anymore! A social media marketing handbook for small business owners on the go

Social media has opened the door to anyone who wants to promote themselves--including small businesses. Designed specifically for busy small business owners, this book puts you on the fast track to maximizing your business's visibility and generating profits—regardless of the size of your marketing budget or the time you have to devote to it.

30-Minute Social Media Marketing provides 22 short chapters packed with real-world examples, templates, sample marketing procedures, and screen shots taking you step-by-step through the essentials. With little time and effort, you will master the arts of:

• Blogging and microblogging
• Social networking and bookmarking
• Audio and video
• E-books and webinars
• Direct and indirect marketing
• Brand and relationship building
• Word-of-mouth marketing
• Expanding your reach and establishing your position
• Integrating with traditional marketing
• Evaluating results

By the end of the book, you will have completed a social-media marketing plan that produces real results and created a strategy for future marketing plans--all in just 30 minutes a day.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Susan Gunelius is president and CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a full-service marketing communications company, and is the author of more than half a dozen books. For more information, including ways to connect with Susan on the social Web, go to www.SusanGunelius.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (October 25, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071743812
• ISBN-13: 978-0071743815
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Gunelius is President and CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications provider offering content marketing, branding, copywriting, social media marketing services. Her clients include Citibank, Cox Communications, About.com (a New York Times company), and a variety of large and small organizations around the world.

Several of Susan's books are used in university classrooms. As a professional speaker, Susan lectures professionals and students across the globe about marketing, social media, branding and more. She has also been interviewed by a wide variety of television, radio, print, and online media organizations about marketing-related topics.

Susan is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, BusinessWeek.com, and many more.

With 20 years of marketing, branding, and copywriting experience, Susan is a seasoned corporate professional having spent much or her career developing and executing marketing programs for global and national organizations, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC.

SUSAN GUNELIUS' WEBSITES, BLOGS AND PROFILES:
www.KeySplashCreative.com
www.WomenOnBusiness.com
www.SusanGunelius.com
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/susangunelius
Friend me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/susangunelius
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/susangunelius

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Understand and Use Guide November 17, 2010

By Georgia

Format:Paperback

I have "Blogging All-in-One for Dummies" by Susan Gunelius and loved it, so when this book came out about social media marketing I wanted to get it right away. I'm amazed by all of the information in this book. It includes links to tools, sample plans, and examples from small business owners rather than just big name brands that other books include. The best part for me is that this focuses on strategy. I'm not a marketing professional, so understanding WHY I might want to do one thing or another to promote my business through social media really makes this book worth every cent. Of course, it was less than $12, so I think I got way more than my money's worth. If you're trying to promote your business or your blog or yourself (or anything else frankly) online then you really need to read this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book to Supplement Other Web Marketing Books October 16, 2011

By Compay TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've developed several hundred websites over the last decade, marketed them for Google, and helped my clients make a great deal of money. But I'm always looking for new social media promotion books for fresh ideas.

If you're new to internet promotion, this book will serve as a helpful primer. What's interesting is that not only will the tips offered help you connect with potential customers, but they can also improve your Google ranking.

Although the author isn't the first to cover the subject, she hits the nail on the head when it comes to creating useful content (articles, video and audio). She teaches the reader how to create content that your target audience would like, what mistakes to avoid, and how to make it personal. Even for experienced web marketers, the chapter on Social Media Marketing Tools is an excellent resource on where to promote your content.

The author follows that with an equally strong chapter on blogging, with a terrific list titled "20 Easy Business Post Blog Ideas." She also includes some excellent suggestions for Wordpress Blog plugins, several of which I immediately installed on client blogs. Even as an experienced blogger, I picked up some great new ideas from this chapter.

The book's chapter on Microblogging (Twitter) is worth its weight in gold. It teaches you what to Tweet about, how often to Tweet, and details 17 awesome Twitter apps to make promotion easier. And kudos to the author for stating the truth about Quality vs Quantity when it comes to Twitter followers.

Where the book falls a little short is the chapter on Facebook promotion. It left a lot to be desired if you were already familiar with Facebook, but an excellent supplement is "Likeable Social Media" by Dave Kerpen.

Throughout the book, the author only makes one small reference to the connection between original content and Search Engine Optimization. So I'll stress something she doesn't. Adding original articles to your website is a great way to pick up new visitors via Google, especially if you write about very specific topics. Otherwise, any helpful content (be it a video or article) on your site can serve as good bait for links from other websites, and that's what can help you rank better on search engines.

Overall, this is a great primer for people at the beginning or intermediate stages of web marketing. Even if you're an advanced internet marketer, I promise that there are still a few resources and tips that make this book a must-buy. Bottom line: if you want to connect with customers and make more money, add this book to your shopping cart.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Social Media Resource March 30, 2011

By Rebecca

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

First things first, let me explain where I'm coming from: I'm a writer who is paid to blog for others as well as consult and advise professionals on their social media endeavors. I bought this book - along with several others - in hopes that I could find several reference works for my clients to use. Fine - and me, too. I'm busy, and social media is such a time eater that I'm not nearly as involved as I used to be. Maybe one of these books could help me (along with my clients) maximize social media efforts in a minimum time frame.

True to its promise, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing really does provide the reader with several excellent examples of implementing a social media strategy on a daily basis in a relatively short time commitment. Read the book, and you've got the ground rules - along with lots of links to check out, tips to try, and tricks to streamline things.

The 80/20 Rule is great. The Quick Tips throughout the text are good.

This is a good book for those willing to invest long-term in a social media marketing plan, and I've recommended it to others who are just getting their feet wet at Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Particularly at its Kindle price, it's worth your purchase.

However, IMHO, there are limitations here. These keep me at the 4 star rating instead of the 5 star that I would like to give.

First of all, times are changing so fast that some of the information is already dated. Of course, this isn't the writer's fault, but it does limit the usefulness of the book.

Second, I question some of the times within the schedules here - particularly for newbies to social media. For example, ten minutes for a blog post doesn't allow for much of a post - and that's just considering word count, it's not even reaching the issue of SEO (search engine optimization).

For beginners, the 30 minute schedules seem, well, optimistic. (For instance, see Chapter 22's sample 30 Minute Marketing Plans where, for example, in one plan a mere 5 minutes is allotted to write a post which includes an image.) Five minutes to tweet (start to finish) seems reasonable - write the tweet, gather your hashtags, shorten the URL, edit as needed to meet that 140 character limit - but a quality blog post? I dunno about that. Hasn't been my experience with my clientele - or with me.

For these reasons, I have rated this book 4 out of 5 stars.

I recommend this book.

- Reba Kennedy