Customer Reviews

Facebook Marketing: Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I liked this book. I thought it was well written and well outlined. I'm not sure I would have included on the cover the following: "Leverage social media to grow your business." But the book provides a "rough guide" to Facebook. And I think it does a pretty good job.

Over the past year some leaders in the social media marketing realm have been materializing. Besides blogs of all kinds, it seems fair to me to say these leaders include MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I've read and reviewed the following books on some of these platforms:

YouTube for Business (ISBN: 9780789737977)

The Rough Guide to MySpace (ISBN: 9781843538424)

Amp Your MySpace Page (ISBN: 9780071490726)

I'm on LinkedIn, Now What? (ISBN: 9781600050695)

Until I read the instant book being reviewed I had not read any on Facebook. I am aware of "I'm on Facebook, Now What?" (ISBN: 9781600050954). But I haven't seen or read it. If it is anything like the book its author wrote on LinkedIn, then it is probably a good book. However, I think "Facebook Marketing" does a better job covering Facebook than the LinkedIn book did regarding LinkedIn.

This book is NOT about social media marketing per se. It is not going to tell you how to leverage social media in order to grow your business. You will have to read other books on that subject. And the coverage on that topic is expanding and changing as I write this review. What this book is about is the Facebook platform that can be used as a marketer's tool when practicing social media marketing. It tells us about User Profiles, Facebook Groups, how to create Web pages within Facebook, hosting events on Facebook, and other things that one can take advantage of at Facebook.

It's the "other things" that take up half the book that may be nice to know about. But I doubt they are practical for growing a business. But the first half of the book is worth its weight in gold for anyone who wants to use Facebook in a big way to practice social media marketing. 5 stars!

PS. Examine the Search Inside feature offered by Amazon on this book. It provides a detailed Table of Contents for you to examine and see for yourself what is included in this book.

I am glad I got this book from the library and didn't pay money for it. It is little more than a rehash of the menus. I am always disappointed in computer books that just list and describe menu items. There are maybe ten pages of worthwhile material. To make matters worse, all the screen shots are based on outdated formats. Save your money and search the internet for more useful and current information. Sorry to be so negative, but that's the way I see it.

This is just a "how to" use facebook. How to create Groups, Pages, Ads m but disguise as a marketing book. In some chapters, it has "cut and paste" information from Facebook. I was looking for case studies or examples but instead all the examples were the author's trying to rent out his town house. Not worth it!

I was expecting a guide to leveraging the power of Facebook from a marketing perspective. What I got was a manual for someone who doesn't know how to create a basic profile. There is very little marketing information in this book. I would only recommend it for someone who has a very hard time with computers and needs a manual for absolute beginners. For most people, just signing up for a free account on Facebook and clicking around until they figure out what is going on is cheaper, more interesting, and more effective.

Very dissappointed in the book considering the title. This book should have been sold and marketed as a beginners how-to guide versus a book that "leverages" social media. I was expecting a stategy for marketing on the site but was dissappointed to see a rehash of Facebook's help menus.

The blurb above says the author has written 112 books, and the blurb in this 2009 book says 108, I am surprised it is not higher as 'writing a book' seems to be mostly copying and pasting screenshots and rephrasing the help text from Facebook. To be fair he has also asked a few pundits to share 'secrets' with him. None of them seem to be that qualified to do so and mostly it is the same pundit. What is really disappointing about this book though, beyond the lack of content and poor style is that it is totally missold. The book spends nearly all its time taking the reader through making a page and other basic features of being a Facebook *user*. Little if any time is devoted to *marketing* in Facebook. Where are the case studies of organisations and campaigns that have been successful? Where is the analysis? Where are the trends? What should one bear in mind (beyond the chillingly obvious, 'don't spam')? There is a great book to be written about social media and marketing. This is so very not it.

Sure enough, you need to know how to use Facebook to be able to leverage it as a platform for marketing purposes. However, there are much better books for that purpose, such as Facebook For Dummies. Still, this title gives a fair introduction to most Facebook features that can be used to help you market your band, your band, your product/service, etc.

Where the book falls short is in going beyond mere tactics: it doesn't provide any kind cohesive strategy to make the most of Facebook (or social media at large) as part of your marketing plan. The sad reality is that, as of the date of this review, I haven't found anything better focused exclusively on Facebook.

If you are a knowledgeable Facebook user, I would recommend simply Googling "Facebook Marketing" and read every blog you can find on the topic. You will probably find as much information as you are likely to learn from this book and you will save yourself a few bucks.

Steven Holzner's book is a great guide for any beginner to Facebook. He allows his readers to become familiar with many features on Facebook, providing an opportunity for marketing along the way. As a Facebook user, you will learn everything you need to know on how to make and utilize:

* Profiles

* Facebook Groups

* Facebook Pages

* Facebook Events

In addition you will learn about how to:

* Advertise on Facebook

* Monitor our advertising

* Use the Marketplace

* Use Polls and Networks to your advantage

* Use, add, and make applications for your profile and pages

These are the most used features Facebook offers and this book will be your guide on learning all you need to become a Facebook expert. Steven Holzner's step by step guide includes Facebook menu images which allow readers to easily follow along on their own Facebook account to perform the tasks each chapter discusses. In addition to Steven's step by step guide to all the important Facebook features, he also explains how to use these features as marketing strategies for your brand or product. He clearly explains the Do's and Don'ts of marketing through Facebook and gives helpful hints to businesses both large and small.

I think that this is a great book for any beginner to Facebook. You are able to start from scratch on Facebook and work along with the book using Steven's step by step guide. He will walk you through everything you need to know in a clear and concise manner. Anyone who is just joining in on the Facebook bandwagon will see this is a helpful book to get started. As for the marketing aspects of the book, they were a little sparse; it was good information, but the marketing tools were few and far between. What I did like about the marketing tools discussed was that the author clearly states what will help you and what will hurt you while marketing on Facebook. I think these things are helpful to marketers because marking on Facebook is much different than traditional marketing techniques and Steven wants his readers to realize that. In addition, he gave some insightful thoughts about how to gain consumer awareness using the different Facebook features, but by the end of the book it got a little repetitive. The other aspect of the book was helpful in regards to marketing were the Facebook advise boxes placed throughout the book. These boxes provide suggestions on marketing strategies by professionals who use Facebook to market their own product or brand. Some I felt were very repetitive, however they did back up the author's ideas on marketing techniques. I really liked these suggestions because they confirmed that the techniques Steven teaches are actually used by established companies, and therefore are an accurate model for success.

As stated previously, this book is great for beginners to Facebook, and quite possibly beginners to marketing online; as it does give some good insights to market through Facebook. On the other hand, for users who are comfortable with Facebook and use it quite frequently will probably not gain a lot of knowledge through this book. This is simply because it gives way too much information on how to use Facebook, and not enough on marketing strategies. Only a small section (1-2 pages) of each chapter is dedicated to using features of Facebook to market your product or brand. The title of this book Facebook Marketing: Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business" is a little misleading. Before reading this book, I was expecting to get a lot of insight about marketing on Facebook. However, what I got was a little about marketing and a lot about the general uses of Facebook. I did find some of the marketing strategies useful in how to gain consumer awareness, why to use content marketing, how to perform marketing research and why not to spam Facebook users. Although this was good information to share with readers, it only took up a fraction of the book. I feel like much more could have been said about social media marketing, thus if really understanding Facebook marketing is what you want, this book is probably not for you.

Facebook can be a great way to interact with your target audience and this book takes you through many possible ways of gaining consumer awareness, growing virally and even conducting some marketing research. These are very beneficial tactics for any business, and should be discussed in any Facebook marketing book. In my opinion however, there just wasn't enough marketing "stuff" discussed in the book. Over half of the book was just a guide on how to get started and use Facebook features, with some hints here and there on how to market your brand or product. For intermediate Facebook users, this book might not be very helpful, but is a must read for any beginner to Facebook. It is informing, easy to read and will walk you through all the steps you need in order to be an expert Facebook user.

I question whether or not Facebook is a good place to do business. I hear so many stories of accounts being suspended or closed that it may not be the best place to invest time or resources.

That said, the author does a good job of making the case for using social media in business. It's worth a read.

We (a team of developers working on facebook plugins, and I) found this book very helpful in explaining all of the different functionality of Facebook. While it didn't dive into all of the technical details, it was filled with lots of helpful information that you don't get in researching the technical details of writing a facebook plugin. This book would have benefited us more had we read it before beginning the plugin development process.