ADVISORY PANEL ALAN LEVY, CEO, BlogTalkRadio EVO TERRA, author of Podcasting For Dummies KEVIN MARKS, Technology Advocate, Google OpenSocial STEPHANIE BRYANT, author Videoblogging For Dummies KRISTA CANFIELD, P.R. Manager, LinkedIn MARC CANTER, CEO Broadband Mechanics (Founder Macromedia) BENJ ARRIOLA, 2007 SEO World Champion DAVID NOUR, author Relationship Economics AMANDA VEGA, author PR In A Jar, about Comment Marketing VINT CERF, Inventor of the Internet MATT MULLENWEG, Founder of WordPress JACK HERRICK, CEO of WikiHow ERIC GROVES, Vice President of Constant Contact CHRIS HEUER, Found of The Social Media Clubs International DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT, author The New Rules of Marketing & P.R. ROBERT SCOBLE, Famous Blogger and author of Naked Conversations JOHN BLOSSOM, Founder of Content Nation JOHN POLLARD, CEO of Jott MARK KINGDON, CEO of SecondLife and growing every day... TACTICS, TOOLS, & STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS LON SAFKO & DAVID BRAKE
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: How To Use This Book The Impact of Social Media on Your Business How To Use This Book The Introduction will briefly introduce the main ideas of the book and discuss how the book is designed to help those in business understand the tools and tactics of social media as well develop a custom strategy for your organization. Part I The Social Media Ecosystem: Categories and Tactics The social media ecosystem is a vast and daunting world of technologies, applications, and tactics, some of which you already may be familiar with or using. In Part I we have organized this ecosystem into 15 categories that make it easier to understand what they are, how they work, and most importantly how they can be used to make your business more successful. Part I is not intended to teach you how to become an expert with these tools, but rather we want you to have a basic knowledge of how these tools are used. In some cases we give you the opportunity to test drive a tool and gain some valuable tactical experience for yourself. So, whether you are a social media newcomer or social media savvy, Part I is the functional knowledge foundation upon which the rest of the book is built. This will serve as an effective introduction to tactics now in common use or gaining popularity within the social media ecosystem. Chapter 1: What Is Social Media? A Conversation with Stakeholders The Social Media Ecosystem Categorizing the Ecosystem: 15 Categories that Work The Four Functions of Social Media An introduction to the concept of Social Media and Web 2.0, viewed from an ecosystem perspective. We will introduce a simple classification system that takes the mystery out of this sometimes hard to understand menagerie of tools and applications. This is followed by an overview of the four functions of social media: 1) to communicate; 2) to collaborate; 3) to educate; and, 4) to entertain. Chapter 2: The History of Social Media So Easy that Cavemen Did It Where There s Dialogue There are Dollars Aligned with Basic Principles of Human Behavior Social Media as a term is so new that most people still can t comfortably define it, yet the basic principles underlying social media have more to do with human behavior and the history of commerce than the new technologies that drive it. This chapter helps the reader see that social media should be viewed as a very natural evolution of human interaction combined with the historical strategies for monetizing these interactions. Chapter 3: Say Hello to Social Networking Where Shall We Meet: MySpace, FaceBook or LinkedIn? How to Get In on the Conversation Introducing Your Brand to Some New Friends Social networking is not new. Your local chamber of commerce or Rotary Club has been doing it for years, but doing it on the web with a celebrated notion of transparency and intimacy is fraught with consequences, good and bad. It s possible to give your business its own persona on MySpace or FaceBook, but do it with caution. People don t join today s social networks to be sold to. Still, if you understand the unwritten rules of behavior on these networks its possible to give yourself, your business, or your brand a comfortable position where people congregate and share their thoughts, feelings and personal desires every marketer s dream!
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 4: Everyone s a Publisher Got Content? Go Ahead, Make Your Day! What s Garbage to Some is Gold to Others It s never been easier to broadcast your message and thoughts across multiple platforms or channels. From blogs to wikis to e-zines, there are several effective ways to reach your audience. But there s also a tremendous amount of channel noise competing with your content. As such, if you aren t currently thinking of yourself as a publisher, after reading this comprehensive chapter, you will be. Chapter 4 also serves as a fitting introduction to the other chapters in the Publishing section. Chapter 5: Email Email For Effective Communicating WII-FM (What s In It For Me) The Five Things You Need To Know About Email Marketing The 1.54 Second Subject Rule Content Really Is King Getting Through SPAM Filters Segmenting To Maximize Conversion Day Parting Will Get It Read 10 Minute Email The Value Of Email Marketing With Social Media and some state-of-the-art tricks, email can be used as a powerful, practically free and very effective publishing and marketing tool. We will discuss the five most important things you can do to guarantee a successful email campaign by using Social Media. We will explore the importance of the 1.54 second subject line, and the five-second opening sentence to communicate to your reader the what s in it for me value proposition. Chapter 6: Web Pages Defining The Web Page Your Home Page Is The Worst Thing You Can Do How To Use Rich Media Content Is Still King The What s In It - For Me (WII-FM) Using Social Media On Your Web Page Have It Ready For When Your Customers Arrive You may thinking been there, done that. But, if your current web pages are flat and brochure-like you may be killing your business without realizing it. If nothing else, think of this as a bonus that s well worth the price of the book alone. We ll discuss everything from poor content, to low keyword density, to the common mistake of only focusing on your home page. We also discuss the 10 things you never do with your web page as well as the 15 things you always needs to do to your web pages to have them effective and successful. Chapter 7: The Internet Forum How Forums Can Make Or Break Your Company Why Chat Rooms The Social Value Of Chat Rooms This module explains the evolution of the forum from the first chat rooms and Internet forums to setting the segue to today s blogs. We discuss the power of like-minds and the marketing advantage of locating your product or services at community watering holes. We ll show you how Internet forums can make or break your company and the importance of treating forums as a serious publishing endeavor. Chapter 8: The Ubiquitous Blog Defining The Blog Why You Need A Blog How To Start Your Own Blog We introduce the concept of web log publishing and build upon the concept of the Internet Forum. We discuss how blogs influence popular opinion, are interlinked, and can circulate worldwide in an instant, with good or bad consequences for you, your company, or your products. An angry employee or customer tells up to 20 other people about a bad experience. A satisfied customer shares good experiences with 9-12 people, and it costs 5 times as much to acquire a customer as it does to keep one. Chapter 9: The Wisdom of the Wiki We explore the concept of wiki and will introduce you to UGC (User Generated Content). It will explore how individuals can influence public opinion and how one individual can compete, confront, or control previously untouchable corporations. We will also explore the concept of Wikipedia and similar content web sites that are changing the way publishers look at publishing, the media at conventional media, and power of Crowd Sourcing, Smart Mob, and Crown Wisdom. Chapter 10: A Picture s Worth a Thousand Words Photo sharing programs have made it possible for people with common interests and expertise to visually catalog their world, and it s not just for hobbyists. Major companies and small businesses are discovering how to aggregate and share information and experiences with tools such as FlickR, Slide, and Picasa. This chapter gives you an overview of this category, expert insights and an opportunity to try it for yourself. Chapter 11: Got Audio (Sharing and Downloads) An important part of social networking has been the ability to recommend and even share music and other audio programs. This download phenomenon has completely changed the music industry, and its impact
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS is being felt in other industries as well. In this chapter we explore how audio sharing and downloads can have an impact on your business and how you can make these tools work for you. Chapter 12: Talking About The Pod Cast Defining The Pod Cast The Value Of Pod Casting How To Create Your Own Pod Cast Examples Of Pod casts: PodBean, Grid7, & PodCast.com Chapter 12 builds upon the building blocks of Social Networking and user Generated Content (UGC). Here, we will discuss how the use can create a quality pod cast that evangelizes your products, services, and point of view that can be distributed free of charge around the world. We also will provide the user with free web sites, examples and step-by-step instructions on how to create your own pod casts. Chapter 13: Got Video (Sharing and Downloads) In a very short period of time YouTube has become a household word not to mention an incredible repository of commercial and organic video content. It s a powerful medium that can be used to entertain as well as educate. Several businesses are now employing the power of video to connect with their customers and drive their messages. In this chapter we ll show you how you can harness video to enrich your business. Chapter 14: Watch out for Vlogs Defining The Vlog How To Create Your Own Vlog The Value Of Vlogging Examples of Vlog Web Sites: PodTech Chapter 14 shows the user the added value of video information. We ll discuss how video is more communicative to their customers and how easy a video log (Vlog), is to produce and distribute. This chapter will build on the concept that visual communication accounts for 55% of the communication comes from body language, 38% from voice, and only, 7% from the words. Chapter 15: Thumbs Up for Microblogging Twitter is a social media tool that allows you to express yourself in 140-word blasts of information. For some people it s a way to text message your friends or the world to let them what you re doing. Tools like Twitter have already saved lives and expedited the delivery of news from far away places as citizen journalists inform the world of riots, earthquakes or celebrity sightings. The tools can be used by businesses, however, to communicate and collaborate. This chapter introduces this technology and shows you how to use it. Chapter 16: Live from Anywhere It s Livecasting Defining Internet Radio and Livecasting How To Create Your Own Show The Value Of Your Own Show Examples Of Livecasting: BlogTalkRadio & ContactTalkRadio Chapter 16, will explain how anyone with a topic can create their own live Internet radio program. Live radio is also referred to as Livecasting. And, like most Social Media tools, Livecasting is absolutely free. As we have learned with game shows and the soaps, any topic can be sponsored by a product or service. Chapter 17: Virtual Worlds, Real Impact Understanding The Impact Of Virtual Worlds Playing With The Thought Of Gaming Examples: Second Life, World Of Warcraft & Evolution 4x4 Chapter 17 discusses the psychological affects of interacting in a large social network using your Ego to mediate your Super Ego all the while satisfying your Id. Really, it s about how, when there are few social consequences we interact differently and how virtual worlds satisfy the pleasure center of our brains. It s also about taking our business from First Life into Second Life and creating real profits in a virtual world and understanding the crossover. Chapter 18: Gaming the System Online games have captured the hearts and minds of millions and function as a unique kind of social network or gathering place as multiple players interact, collaborate, and communicate with each other. And where there s conversation...when people gather...there s the chance to monetize the moment. This chapter gives you the background and insights to understand this different but economically valuable gaming category. Chapter 19: Productive and Profitable Applications The idea of software being installed on your computer s hard drive may be headed for the history books. Cloud computing is coming on strong. In this chapter we introduce you to a range of interdependent work and life applications that can make your business more productive and profitable. Chapter 20: Aggregators The Digital Salad Bar Aggregators can simplify your life by brining only the content you want to a single page online where you can view the things that are important to you. Understanding how aggregators work and how and why people use them can be an advantage to your business. This chapter provides a brief introduction to the technology as well as a hands-on opportunity to put some appetizing things on your plate by selecting syndicated web content and giving the technology a test drive.
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 21: Really Simple Syndication Simplified Chapter 21 explains what an RSS Feed is and how this works in favor of the content generator, the consolidated web page owner, the media, and the end reader. We also explain how easy it is to create your own syndicated column, radio or television show and how to use FeedBurner to syndicate all of your media. Chapter 22: Spotlight on Search (SEO & SEM) Organic verses Paid; Which or Both Spiders / Bots / Robots And Other Crawlers Calculating the Algorithm The Key to Keywords Successful SEO Keyword Density Content Freshness External Reputable Links Some Tips On Successful SEM Chapter 22 explores the age-old question; SEO or SEM and talks about what is needed on everyone s web site to maximize conversion when all of their efforts in Social Media pay off and their web sites are inundated with traffic of pre-qualified customers. We discuss Organic verses paid, some other technical issues to assist the reader in understanding the terminology, and the top do s and don ts in creating and maintaining effective web pages. Chapter 25: Achieving Social Media Synergy How Each Technology Drives the Other The Social Media Community How to be a Player Chapter 25 introduces the concept of pulling all of the above technology together and really defining the word synergy. This chapter will show the interaction between all of the different digital technologies and how they can be used, in most cases for free to drive sales, marketing, public relations, and internal company behaviors. Part II Social Media Tools Using the same 15 categories introduced in Part I, Part II of this book introduces you to some of the most popular tools (and the companies behind them) in the social media ecosystem. These profiles will consist of a brief background of the company and founder, a definition of that technology, the technology s features & benefits, and case studies anecdotes of how people are actually using this the technology to benefit them and their business. We will not attempt to cover ALL of the social media tools this would prove impossible. Rather, we will select those companies and players who have been widely adopted, discussed, or anticipated. Many of these same companies and players will appear within marginal asides (under one of our icons) in Parts I and III of the book. Finally, to insure that the book is ever-fresh we will direct readers/users to www.thesocialmediabible. com where they will find a section with additional information about these companies and players as well as information about emerging stars. The site will allow user/community contributions to facilitate revisions to the 2010 edition of The Social Media Bible. Chapter 23: Mobile The Formidable Fourth Screen Chapter 23 continues to build on the concept of Social Networking by explaining how the mobile phone has changed the way communicate from digital photography, to ring tones, to itunes, to video, and Jott and Twitter blog updates. We also speak about how the mobile telephone, the Personal Desktop Assistant (PDA), and the Laptop are morphing into one versatile portable piece of technology. Of course we ll also talk about the iphone. Chapter 24: Interpersonal Let the Conversation Begin This chapter introduces the reader to a category of tools that enable one-to-one and small group communication. These tools can be used for internal company collaboration or as a means of getting closer to your customer. We conclude the chapter by providing the reader with hands-on opportunities to try some of these tools. Chapter 26: Social Networks Chapter 27: Publish Chapter 28: Photo Chapter 29: Audio
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 30: Video Chapter 31: Microblogging Chapter 32: Livecasting Chapter 33: Virtual Worlds Chapter 34: Gaming Chapter 38: Search Chapter 39: Mobile Chapter 40: Interpersonal Part III Making Social Media Work For You: Strategies and Tactics These chapters were the most highly rated in our recent Market Opportunity Analysis (MOA) review. In other words, over 100 reviewers indicated that the chapters in Part III would be reason for them to buy and/or recommend this book. Chapters 40 thru 47 will provide the reader with the means to develop custom strategies for assessing an organization s current social media potency and potential via a specially-designed SWOT analysis. From there, we will provide information (including helpful templates) to allow the reader to implement and manage a social media strategy for their enterprise. Chapter 35: Application Chapter 36: Aggregator Chapter 37: RSS Really Simple Syndication Chapter 41: The Four Pillars of Social Media Strategy In order to succeed with social media you need to ENGAGE your customer, your prospect, or your employee. Engagement means that you must move them toward a desired action: to buy something, to recommend something or, in the case of employees to be more productive, efficient, and thus profitable. There are four basic ways to engage people with social media: 1. Communicate 2. Collaborate 3. Educate 4. Entertain This chapter provides an overview of these four pillars of social media and introduces you to companies and individuals who are using these strategies in conjunction with the tactics and tools you got to know in Part I and Part II. This chapter also serves as a springboard to the other chapters in Part III.
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 42: Auditing Internal Company Needs Inside your own company you ll find people who are social media savvy, but they may not be using these skills on the job. You ll also find areas of your company where productivity could be greatly improved with the introduction of specific tools to help your employees communicate and collaborate. Taking it a step further the ability to educate and even entertain your employees can have tangible benefits to your bottom line. We ll show you how to audit your internal environment to identify expertise and opportunities. Chapter 43: Assessing Your Customers and Prospects The goal of any business is to sell more products or services to more customers. Social Media will radically change the way your customers view your company, use or recommend your product, and experience your brand. In this chapter we ll show you how to survey and assess your customers and prospects, how to create customer personas that will be the basis of your social media strategies. The chapter includes helpful assessments and templates to help you facilitate these activities. Chapter 44: Your Social Media SWOT Analysis Chapter 44 introduces you to our Social Media SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Once you ve audited your internal company needs and assessed your customers and prospects, you re ready to conduct a comprehensive social media SWOT analysis that will be the foundation of your company s new strategy. Chapter 45: Evaluate and Organize Existing Resources With your SWOT analysis complete you ll need to determine what existing resources can play a role in executing your strategy. You may need additional or outside resources. This chapter helps you put your strategic puzzle pieces on the table to see how complete a picture you can create, a critical step before you move toward an implementation plan. Chapter 46: Your Step-by-Step Implementation Plan This may be the most critical chapter in the book. This is where we guide you through a process for developing and launching an initial social media strategy for your organization. We include a check list and things to look out for as you roll out your strategy. This chapter also includes two abridged social media plans, one for a large company and one for a small company, to help you visualize how plans of attack can differ. We ll help the reader to understand the value of success metrics, and how to design them, build them into the plan, learn from them, and use what they learn to incrementally and continually increase their success. Chapter 47: Next Steps and Beyond This chapter is about your future. The book and its companion website can be an ongoing reference for you as you move further into the social media ecosystem with initiatives and campaigns that are innovative, measurable, and repeatable. We ll focus on ways to use social media itself to keep your knowledge-base fresh and up-to-date as you face what promises to be an amazing future. Appendix I. Resources & References II. Glossary of Terms III. Templates, Forms, and Examples TACTICS, TOOLS, & STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS LON SAFKO & DAVID BRAKE
SAMPLE FEEDBACK FROM AN ONLINE SURVEY OF 5,000 PEOPLE IN BUSINESS TARGET MARKET QUOTES: Lon s work is critical to understanding the game-changing way we will be communicate, market, compete and perform climb aboard, and learn about, the rocket ship that will take you to the way future business and society will be working Steven Strasler, Ph.D. Clinical Professor, Global Entrepreneurship Thunderbird School of Global Management Lon Safko s new book on Social Media could not come at a better time. Social media sites are the new superstars of the Internet, and the Internet is the new superstar of marketing. Understanding the potential for this new type of marketing, and how to integrate social media marketing strategies into an overall marketing plan are critical new skills for businesses. Based on Lon s background, experience, and his extraordinary performances as a guest lecturer in my University marketing classes, I am confident that his new book will not only be a must read for business owners and marketing directors, but as a text in colleges and Universities nationwide. I m ready to use it as soon as it is published! Gary Witt, Ph.D. Chairman, Marketing Western International University Phoenix, AZ Social Media has already transformed the way people interact with Government and Business, and it in all its various forms will continue to have a net positive impact. Blogs, wikis, and forums may suffer from having zero barriers to entry, but they overwhelmingly make up for it by offering an immediacy, tenacity, and breadth of sources that traditional media can t match. John Pollard, Founder and CEO Jott Networks Inc. All software is about people. As the world of giant centralize databases of people migrates to a more distributed, meshed world of inter-connected pieces of the whole - watch for social features being brought to ALL software. Maps will know where your friends live. Search engines will know what your friends are searching for. Productivity software will connect you to your customers and employees/ colleagues. What we think of as new and different today - will be as common as Open., Save As or email. Marc Cantor, Founder & Developer Macromedia / Flash
QUOTES : Social Media has leveled the playing field in the news media arena. A person running their blog out of their garage can now compete with conglomerates such as CNN. People want information and content from peers with similar interest or within your community. Mainstream news media is limited on what they can produce either because of time constraints or other advertiser influences. When you watch the news on TV or read it in the newspaper, only a fraction of the information is relevant to you and your interest. Social Media tools allow you to filter out the noise and receive only information and content that you requested for. With Social Media, anyone can now create podcasts and become a radio station; create news videos with their own camera and become a news station; blog and become an online newspaper. Once you obtain the eyeballs, advertisers will come knocking. Linh Tang, Author Launching Your Yahoo! Store and Succeeding At Your Yahoo! Store If you are responsible for public relations, communications, marketing or sales, then you need to know how social media will affect you. Social media is a story worth telling and Lon tells the story well. Pat Sullivan, President (Inventor of ACT - Customer Management System) Social media began affecting me in 1997, when my husband died and I was grieving. I couldn t sleep at night, so I went to the computer and surfed the Internet. Somehow I found a site called Widownet, which was a primitive social network of people who had also lost their spouses and spent their sleepless nights supporting one another. In the year I visited the site, I derived much solace and made many friends. Ten years later, Facebook and Twitter have introduced me to many MORE friends, all over the world, and are the same sort of emotional and intellectual support for me. For someone who lives alone, social media is a Godsend. And it can only get better. Francine Hardaway, Ph.D., President / C.E.O. Stealthmode Partners The next dramatic change in how people interact with each other is upon us with the dawning of Social Media. This will transform the way we work, the way we make and find friends, and the way we live our lives on a regular basis. Whether we are on YouTube, Face Book, LinkedIn, My Space, Twitter, or any of the hundreds of other new web 2.0 sites, we are looking at the world differently then we ever have before. One of the pioneers in the ways we are understanding this brave new world is Lon Safko, whose radical new approaches to business just might change the way you look at how it will impact your business and your life. We are constantly scanning the horizon for the hot, new trends and ideas as part of our job. In order for us to be of most benefit to our clients, we need to be ready for it. We re preparing our company to shift gears and embrace how social media will help us grow in the coming years. Steve Gardner, President Five Star Speakers
QUESTIONS: 1. Based upon what you have seen so far, how useful do you feel this book would be for you personally? 64.3% responded with Extremely Useful or Very Useful Here are some specific comments: I am excited about this book. It looks like a one-stop-shopping for all my social media possibilities. It looks like it will have ample info on all related subjects. It looks like it will be laid out for easy understanding and application so that I will not only understnad but be able to take knowledgeable action. This is the type of information one needs. I run a business and don t have time to search around on the internet to find out what I should do to take full advantage of social marketing. This is a much needed resource. This is a great book...very useful. There are areas mentioned that I m currently working on, and some I haven t yet ventured into e.g. vlogs, viral marketing but know it s something I need to do. Having it all in one reference will be very helpful to me. I work in Social Media and have a tough time deciding what works (and what doesn t) for each client. I also help people learn about Social Media, and a book like this would help me explain it to my clients better. I feel that I need every advantage possible. The seminar marketer s have outpriced me in their tuitions for this type info. This is more cutting edge than they are. I believe the world needs to read this book, and I am certain the social network is the place to get exposure. I need to learn FAST! My business in small and needs every trick to expand and to keep in business. This book has the potential to boost social media use by making it more accessible to everyone and that is very exciting. As a business owner of a service business, I realize the value of marketing via the internet. That has been my advertising dollar focus for the coming year. I am not very internet savvy so this is of particular interest to me. This is really a how to guide and bible all in one, it seems like everything you could possibly need to know is included, a great resource. I really like the way that it s broken down into 3 parts. The basics, the knowledge and the tools. I like to keep myself relatively informed and have thus far managed to keep myself ignorant of this overwhelming topic. This book looks like it puts it all together in a readable, comprehensive format. I work in PR and am interested in being able to provide more insight into the steps clients can take to improve their presence in social media. shoring up my social media vocabulary will be most helpful, as will the case studies showing how various social media tools helped companies I live, work and play in a world where virtual behavior and social network footprints are every bit as critical as those of our traditional physical world. This book will afford me additional insight, best practices, and new members to my network. I can see such a book as helping to develop, champion, sell, implement and manage an expanded and more future-oriented digital communication strategy. We are always looking to improve and stay ahead of the competition. This book looks like it would give us an edge.
QUESTIONS : It may well be the reference I use when discussing social media, much like Joy of Cooking is for discussions on meal preparation and serving. While I do not directly deal with many of the concepts addressed in the book, I am frequently asked for my advice for others using these concepts. Understanding several of the concepts would also be useful in my classrooms as I prepare students for the business world. As an Internet marketer I will use any tool to improve my marketing. This book will elaborate on all the tools, and allow me to choose which may work for me. I like to learn about social media and it changes so quickly that I can t keep up, so this book looks like it will be a good primer for getting to know and understand a vast array of outlets. If my primary job function involved an arena where I could use this I would have rated it Extremely Useful, however it mostly applies to projects I do in my spare time... although after reading the book maybe I could use social media to turn those projects into full-time income. 2. Based on what you ve seen of the book so far, How likely are you to purchase a book like this? 44.9% said Very Likely 28.5% said Likely How likely are you to recommend this book to family, friends, and colleagues? 30.6% said Very Likely 41.8% said Likely Sample comments: Last week I attended the Inman News Conference in San Francisco. The 2,000 attendees were all twittering and raining without a true understanding of the impact of social media on the real world. As the real world and virtual worlds converge, businesses need a strategic sherpa. This book and its templates will provide that guidance. Brilliant!. I love the concept and the process for content development and the ongoing marketing engine that it will create. Sounds well thought out. Well-planned. Much like a good textbook, lay out a skeleton of basics/build up the technical skills/then show how it can be used practically. This book would be a useful tool for entrepreneurs, marketing exec s in larger busineses and on college campuses for both student and continuing ed. I think it s great! I believe that if you just want to keep up with progress you need to understand Social Media! Very interesting, especially knowing the strengths of social media with marketing strategies. Many of the topics could help expand my knowledge and help with the planning of future projects. The ways and of doing business and approaches to business have changed dramatically over the last 40 years. Many of us who are trapped in the old mentality will benefit greatly from moving to the front of the class. Hopefully some of us old school will now become new age. The Social Media Bible book concept sounds like a must have. The implementation plan with baby steps will be the key to actually using the techniques. Giving a step by step plan will help companies save thousands of dollars in consulting services.
QUESTIONS : I like where this is headed, seems all the bases are covered and some people could hop around the book to get what they need. If my experience is any indication of industries within the mainstream of business but not directly connected to media, technological or publishing segments, such a book is certainly needed and can be very valuable The book s concept sounds informative, interesting and a must read for anyone in the field of web-based marketing. This appears to cover from the beginning of the subject through the end and broken out in a way that those who know little or none on social media could get a good overview and those with some knowledge but looking for the right way to leverage the knowledge would benefit. I think it hits the need to know about social media, what it is, and how to get started leveraging it in my business. I m interested in this book because I haven t yet seen one like it. Social media is definitely something of a hot topic right now for marketing and I think a userfriendly guide will be helpful. I am really interested in parts one and three. I like the idea of a workable appendix. Having just read Thomas Friedman s The World is Flat, I can more readily appreciate the timeliness and necessity of such a resource book. New ways of connecting whether personally or for commercial ventures are still emerging and if America wants to stay economically relevant, it is essential we educate ourselves to take advantage of these opportunities and thereby reassert ourselves as innovative entrepreneurs at the forefront of technological, service and humanitarian enterprises. Very, very interesting. Looking forward to the information. Great to have it in a book and be able follow the plans to improve your business. This is much needed. As a marketing professional, I would be very grateful for this comprehensive bible...i get most of my info piecemeal in WIRED magazine and through my own experience. An expert s understanding and analysis would be a useful too for me. And, as I m in the creation stages of creating my own social networking site, it d be interesting history reading. Sounds like a HUGE Book, but if it s chopped up into sections as indicated I could see how it would be a great reference tool. It would be great to have a book to help you surf through the many areas of technology out there in the world. I also like the fact there is a section on realcompany case studies to help you understand how they did it and/or what went wrong. TACTICS, TOOLS, & STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS LON SAFKO & DAVID BRAKE
INTERVIEWS PEOPLE/COMPANIES INTERVIEWED TO DATE VINT CERF, Inventor of the Internet MATT MULLENWEG, Founder of WordPress ALAN LEVY, CEO, BlogTalkRadio JACK HERRICK, CEO, WikiHow LINH TANG, Coauthor, Launching Your Yahoo! Business & Succeeding At Your Yahoo! Business MICHAEL NAEF, CEO, Doodle.com (from Zurich, Switzerland) JOHN ARNOLD, Author, Email Marketing For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons PAUL SAM, COO, Blizzard Entertainment, World Of Warcraft JODY GNANT, Longest Livecast Ever & One Red Paper Clip PENDING INTERVIEWS WITH... Google, AdWords Google, YouTube Google, Google Docs John Pollard, CEO of Jott Flickr AOL Yelp Pownce FastPitch Apple Application & itunes TACTICS, TOOLS, & STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS LON SAFKO & DAVID BRAKE