Customer Reviews

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book. Over the past year or so I have read quite a number of tomes regarding social media and social media marketing, but none until this one have been written in a planner or workbook format. This one is well written, well organized, and full of content. It has 14 chapters split into the following four parts or sections:

I. The Foundation of Social Media
II. Month 1: Prepare for Social Marketing
III. Month 2: Social Media Channels
IV. Month 3: Complete Your Plan

Two books similar to this one on how to put together a business plan are: "16 Weeks to Your Dream Business" (ISBN: 9780071588362, and "Self Employment: From Dream to Reality" (ISBN: 1563709228). And a book similar to this one on how to put together a fundraising plan is: "The Fundraising Planner" (ISBN: 0787944351). The instant book being reviewed touches on the marketing issues of social media, and then devises a systematic approach to putting together a social media marketing plan customized to your small business.

Each of the 14 chapters ended with a summary section. I found it very easy to cruise through this book by first reading the summary sections and then tackling the rest of the book after having a pretty good idea of what was being covered.

After reading this book you will have devised a social media marketing plan that addresses (1) platform, (2) content, and (3) interaction. You will have decided whether to use Technorati, MySpace, Socialvibe, Flickr, Facebook, Friendster, Linkedin, and/or YouTube. Technorati is the tunnel through which to learn more about the blog or blogs you will create.

So if you want to tap into the power of the Social Web through connected networks and consumer-oriented media, then I recommend this book as one of the tomes you seek out and read in order to build your company's social media marketing plan. 5 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside feature at Amazon for this book. There you can access the book's Table of Contents and see exactly what is covered.

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

Dave Evans specializes in social media, word-of-mouth marketing, operations and marketing consulting. He has a passion for solving difficult problems that are worth solving. He is experienced in the marketing world with experience including the launch of [...] in 2005, and he confounded Digitial Voodoo in 1994, a marketing technology consultancy. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and mathematics from the State University of New York/College at Brockport. His Book, "Social Media Marketing: An Hour A Day," tries to ultimately answer the questions, "If I couldn't interrupt you, how would I reach you?" He gives a step by step guide:

Part I: The Foundation of Social Media
1. Backlash
2. The Marketer's Dilemma
3. What Is Social Media

Part II: Month 1: Prepare for Social Marketing
4. Week 1: Web: 2.0: The Social Web
5. Week 2: The Social Feedback cycle
6. Week 3: Touchpoint Analysis
7. Week 4: Influence and Measurement

Part III: Month 2: Social Media Channels
8. Week 1: Build a Social Media Campaign
9. Week 2: Social Platforms
10. Week 3: Social Content: Multimedia
11. Week 4: Social Content: Reviews, Ratings, and Recommendations
12. Week 5: Social Interactions

Part IV: Month 3: Complete Your Plan
13. Week 1: Objectives, Metrics, and ROI
14. Week 2: Present Your Social Media Plan

These sections and chapters build off of each other in an interactive approach to eventually build a social media plan.

The book teaches marketers the new world of the social media marketing and steers them away from traditional marketing habits and tendencies. It provides the important trends of the Social Web through building participation and influence and encourages marketers to consider their options and formulate a plan.

There are many ways to use this book, Dave even says so himself. This book can be helpful for people that are new to marketing, it can be for a seasoned marketer that is transitioning into the Social Web, or it can be for a marketer that needs to reevaluate their social media plan. Readers can start from the beginning and read cover to cover and understand the basics of social media. Some may skip over the exercises, and not come up with a final plan. It is encourage that people should use this book in whatever way it will bring the greatest benefit.

This book is a helpful guide to developing a social media plan because of its day-to-day exercises that are available at the end of each chapter. Evans clearly is passionate in reaching out to other marketers by encouraging them to transition to the new style of marketing.

I would give this book a 3/5 stars labeling it as "It's Ok." I did not hold my attention very long because of its repetitiveness. Social media was defined and explained countless times. It was effective in that it had helpful hints throughout and each chapter summarized main the main points. This book would be most useful for someone that is completely new to the marketing and Social Web world.

I had been on the waiting list of Amazon.com for over 3 months waiting for this book to be released and it is exactly what I hoped for. I'm actually only 108 pages through it now as I "peeked" at all the self help guides that the author has in the appendix. I want to jump right in and get it going but Dave's advice to take your time and learn the hows and whys is so important.

I was not looking for a social commentary on social media but wanted to know the ins and out, nuts and bolts, on how to implement a successful marketable strategy and this book does it.

Only this morning I actually went to the blog and sent an email to the author, Dave, and was surprised that within a few minutes he had responded . Talk about getting more than a book!!

What is so engaging is the author is energetic, evangelistic in his zeal to help others, and willing to share to make this journey easier for others to follow. It's a step by step guide for an emerging dynamic field which is affecting us now and will do so far into the future.

I'm glad this book exists and is so affordable and even happier the author is willing and able to help us along.

Bob Johnson

Even though I am not a fan of the step-by-step kind of things, I really like and recommend this book.

It is complete, practical, clear and well divided. It is based on solid theoretical concepts, useful explicative examples and clear exercises. I highly recommend doing the work the author suggest in order to take the best of the book.

It is useful for people that have never had contact with social media and also for those who have had some kind of contact with it but want to explore more and get some high-quality tips.

Evans present basic techniques and give excellent tools and measurements to succeed building a social media campaign. Starting from the business objectives following with the campaign goals, the social media channels (social platforms, content -multimedia, reviews, ratings and recommendations- and interactions) and finishing with the metrics.

Also something that really made me happy of reading this book was the relation he made between marketing and operations inside a company. This important relationship that have been so frequently forgotten when talking about marketing and that is central for customer experience and social media.

Some more good characteristics of the book:
* Everything is related and well organized.
* At the end of the book you can find the worksheets for the practical parts and a list of social media resources I found really valuable.
* The real business world is all the time presented confirming that this is not a fairly tale.

This book is for people with a marketing background (not me), who are new to the world of social media (me).
The first part of the book is a tour of various social networking sites like facebook, linkedin, and twitter. The focus is on trying them out and figuring out the advantages of each. The "hour a day" refers to the time it takes to explore the sites and develop your plan.
As the book progressed, I found that the marketing concepts were too advanced for me. Several sections were based on "touchpoints", which I wasn't familiar with. I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to build a marketing plan from this book.
Nonetheless, the book gave me a high level of understanding of how social media marketing is evolving, and how many types of businesses are using it. I know the types of marketing I want to try, and some of the advantages and pitfalls of each.

My lukewarm review could be a result of my inaccurate expectations. However, I was looking for more of a how-to guide and this book is a strong textbook. What that means is that instead of being a step by step, hour a day program to run a social media marketing campaign, this book describes the process, shows you what is out there, gives you some good questions to ask yourself about your marketing program . . . and then you are on your own. If you are looking for a guided tour of the social media environment and the concepts and philsophy behind setting up a program of your own, this is a good guide. It is well written. In fact, the opening chapter is an outstanding overview of the evolution of media from the newspaper, radio and TV eras to the social media era (perhaps worth the price of the book, alone). The hour a day, I guess, refers to the homework time you'll need to devote to answering the questions - because the substance, as it relates to your own campaign, is answered by you and implemented by you. If you are looking for a ready-to-use, hour a day program for actually building and implementing your social medis campaign, this is not the book for you.

I was very satisfied with the nuts and bolts details in this book.The action steps led to measurable results for me and I could see them just as described in the promo for the book. It was everything I expected and had bonus resiurces and historical background as well. This book is a must for any web professional or if you just want to learn about social networking.

My first impression on thumbing through "Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day" is that Dave Evans has not just crafted a well-written, practical marketing book but a textbook. I have no doubt you could take this material straight into a college classroom and use it to teach a course. (And I hope someone does just that.)

I've had the privilege of meeting the author through Social Media Club Austin, and I can assure readers that over the course of many conversations with Dave I have found that he is not someone who has recently jumped on the social media "buzzwagon" but is someone who thoroughly knows his subject and can explain it in an understandable fashion.

Give Dave Evans an hour of your day, and in three months you'll have created a complete social media marketing plan. I'd say that's well worth the price of the book!

The book begins with a crash course in various types of social media websites. Unless you're already a social media maven, doing the first week's optional exercises will likely teach you something you didn't know about the kinds of user-generated content people are willing to create.

From there, Evans introduces basic social media concepts and techniques. He warns against jumping in before you've thought through how to integrate your social media strategy with your other marketing efforts. You may be chomping at the bit to skip to the middle third of the book, where he walks you through nitty-gritty implementation and measurement methodologies, but it's worthwhile to read the earlier chapters to prepare for successfully engaging your audiences in a public conversation.

His discussion in Chapter 7, about influence and measurement, is particularly good. He steers you through a straw-man market research program to determine whether your customers would recommend you to a friend. He also reminds us that one key to success on the social web is knowing ahead of time how many of your customers will evangelize or detract from your brand.

What's not in this book is how nonprofit organizations could adapt the main concepts to promote causes or raise awareness. If you fall into this category of marketing, be aware that this book is geared towards influencing prospects to make a purchase decision. While mapping the strategic use of social media to the sales funnel is an excellent exercise for profit-driven organizations, it is less so for cause marketers. That said, someone with a strong sense of their audience and existing marketing framework could certainly tweak the process to their specific marketing situation.

Out of all the books on Social Media Marketing, I purchased this one because its title seemed the most practical. I was not disappointed.

Dave Evans takes the overwhelming, ever-evolving world of social media and breaks it into small, digestible pieces. The layout of the book enables marketers to set realistic, achievable goals in terms of learning the content and applying it to their own organizations.

Evans provides a clear timeline to achieve these goals by dividing the book's chapters into weeks and suggesting daily exercises, which are relatively easy and truly add value to the learning experience. Worksheets for these exercises are available at the end of the book, making it very difficult for readers NOT to participate.

The book also takes into consideration different social media experience levels. From novices to social media experts, Evans guides readers to specific sections of the book based on their knowledge.

As a novice myself, I started at the beginning, which provided a detailed but interesting history on the origins of social media. The next section covered social media marketing best practices, giving excellent examples of businesses that successfully implemented different platforms (Home Depot, Hallmark, & Starbucks), and those that were not so successful ("Wal-marting Across America").

My only complaint is that Evans does not mention many nonprofits in these examples, nor in the book in general. The lessons revolved around building social media marketing campaigns for businesses selling products, not for charities providing services. As a nonprofit marketer, I sometimes had a difficult time applying some of Evans' theories--such as those behind his Profit Funnel model--to my own organization.

Despite this minor fault, the rest of the book gives readers a solid overview of the different types of social platforms, and, most importantly, provides ways to measure these platforms. Marketers are also given several suggestions on how to identify the appropriate metrics based on their business objectives, and how to integrate these metrics into their plans.

Overall, Evans does an excellent job providing marketers with methods to join conversations, engage audiences, and measure this interaction. The book is a very good source for those looking for clearly defined steps towards developing a social media plan.