The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success,   ISBN:9780470411551

Customer Rating: 

Are you terrified of Social Media? I am. There are so many social media sites, so many confusing terms, and so much incredible over the top hype. Do you Twitter? Do you Facebook? What's all this about FlickR? You can go on and on and on and on about Social Media. (I do Youtube at [..].

This book bills itself as the Bible. I suppose that means it's comprehensive, which it is. It has every social media imaginable in it. The "thou shalt" this and that is a little weird. It has that for each social media.

What's great about the book is the lists upon lists of social media websites. The interviews with leaders are very superficial and self-congratulatory, but that is the bane of social media these days. It's hot, and it's hyped. I am a dot.com survivor, and I have seen all this before. We live in the days of social media hype - so don't shoot this book, it's just the messenger of all the hypesters out there telling you you MUST do this or that.

What it lacks is a real strategy or outline. The best, most thoughtful part of the book is Part III / strategy wherein the authors finally get around to helping you think through your strategy. Believe me, you can't do it all. You can't Twitter, Blog, Facebook, FlickR, Yelp, Google Buzz, Justin.Tv., Youtube, etc. You will drive yourself insane, and you will go bankrupt. What you need to do is figure out which social media fits your goals and do that, and then do not feel guilty for ignoring the others!

Part III / strategy touches on this, but I wish it were more detailed.

But if you are looking for a good comprehensive overview to all the social media, this is a good start. I enjoyed it, but like the Bible I don't believe every word of the book just as I don't believe every word in the Bible. But thematically, spiritually, it's a great guide and it has every "character" as it were in the social media universe. So, like the Bible, it's a bit disorganized and a bit over-the-top in its enthusiasm, but like the Bible it has earned a spot in my reference library.

Enjoy!

Customer Rating: 

this book/bible answers all of your social media questions and opens your brain to more topics and insights that can not be done by for dummies or idiot's guide....please invest your time in the SM bible you will be glad you did

Customer Rating: 

Now, don't take this personally--all you marketeers out there. But to preface this humble review, I'm reminded of a remark a friend made who never finished college, started out as a salesclerk, became VP of one of the biggest retail companies in the U.S., and retired at 40. She once said to me, "There are no geniuses in retail." OK. I'm just the messenger. Don't get mad. But given that statement, this book makes entire sense. Just how 'good' could a book be about how to position, promote, and 'brand' yourself using social media? It's really common sense, isn't it? I'm sure any 'consumer' could provide a ten-point 'to do' or 'what not to do' list in maintaining 'relationships' with current, past, or perspective customers. For example, if you're a tech support person, don't sigh and act like the person calling is an idiot (happened to me--until I spouted a bunch of html jargon to put the bored guy back to reality); don't say your name is Todd or Jennifer (when you have an obvious Indian/Pakastani accent in your English--when people in that category tell me that, I ask them to spell their name-they can't); if you're using social media to announce a new product, event, suggestion, free offer, discount, etc., don't sound overly enthusiastic--people nowadays won't buy it. Sound HONEST and SINCERE via social media even if you're not. Consider the brilliant words of George Burns, who stated, "Acting is all about truth, and if you can fake that, you have it made." Well, now to the book. Still there? OK. Each chapter of this tome is devoted to a particular 'genre' of social media, i.e., e-mail, twitter, blogging, etc., OR a 'platform' within a particular genre, i.e., sections are devoted to LinkedIn, Facebook, LiveJournal, MySpace: all the usual suspects (including a few not so usual ones). Just a couple of problems here. First, do we really need extensive info about e-mail at this point as a form of 'keeping in touch' let alone a definition of e-mail?? I don't think so. Then regarding the structure of this 'bible.' After each chapter, there is sort of summary in the guise of "commandments": thou shall do this; thou shall not do this, etc. Now, come on guys. We know you don't mean this stuff is 'religious' or 'spiritual' in the traditional sense, but unfortunately, our society is getting closer and closer to day when marketing WILL BE a religion, at which point we are all in deep S--T. Why encourage it? If you can't figure out WHY this is dangerous, I'm not about to give a lecture here. OK, then as for the 'commandments.' This goes back to my original statement. There really isn't much more than common sense. Ever get a job and have to sit through a corporate video/dvd of the company's policies? You know the kind. You sit in an antiseptic room, and after five minutes start staring at the scratch on the door and wonder how it got there because the presentation is so mind-numbing? That's about how revelatory the 'commandments' are here. Now for the good part. Well, if you're scrolling around a social media site, trying to locate the help link and are ready to go ballistic with your monitor, at least this book does give you a basic summary of the features of the most popular social media formats, and basics in how to navigate them, so perhaps it will cut down on those WTF!@! moments. But other than that, there's not much else to commend this book. It doesn't provide the 'meat' of marketing, i.e., how to use marketing analysis, psychographics, experiments, etc., which, if you consider marketing to be a form of applied psychology or sociology, are essential to your success. But hats off to the authors for coming up with a bible/commandment structure. That will help sell the book. Which reminds me of another anecdote. I have another friend who plans to write a steamy sex/erotic book about the goings on in a health spa. I asked him how did he know the book would sell. He responded, "Are you kidding? The title of the book is going to be _SPA_. The title alone will sell 50,000 copies." Go for it!

Customer Rating: 

I give The Social Media Bible "5 stars" for these reasons:
1. If you have been looking for a nontechnical compilation of information about social media, The Social Media Bible provides that.
2. If you want a book that offers a context within which you can get an overview of and think about how to use social media, the SMB does that too.
3. If you want a reference volume that you can use as a quick guide to specific programs and applications, this book is very useful.
4. If you want a book that describes how to think about mixing and matching different social media applications, venues, and channels, The Social Media Bible offers this.
5. If you want to know what kinds of things go wrong with social media, and the lessons already learned from others' mistakes, this book will give you a good starting point.

As a small business owner I am primarily concerned with our company's clients, and our own way forward amid the rapid changes taking place. We simply cannot wait any longer to figure out how to effectively and profitably use social media tools.

The ever present constraints on time, funds, and the opportunity costs of delaying decisions are making the kind of information in The Social Media Bible essential, especially for nontechnical folks like me.

I recommend this book.

Disclosure: I have no connection to, nor contact with anyone associated with The Social Media Bible.

Ken Jones, PhD
12-29-09

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Customer Rating: 

After considerable research and reading over a dozen books on Social Media this year, SMB is far and away the best. And best by at least an order of magnitude.

Read the Social Media Bible FIRST before you read any other book on Social Media.(I rank "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky as a strong second; however, it's written for a slightly different purpose.)

My company is in process of creating an online Library Of Mind Mapping using the ideas, suggestions, and solid usable knowledge so well recorded in SMB. Also, we'll be using the social media platform [...], the "usability" wisdom of Dr. Jakob Nielsen ([...]), and the pricing concepts of Chris Anderson (his book "FREE!") to bring a new way of visual thinking across all landscapes.

How fantastic and wonderful it is to be able to access these great warehouses of knowledge, wisdom, and ideas for so little cost.

Glenn L. Flock
President, G2F, Inc