As you probably know, this blog is more than just a fun place to blow off steam and knowledge; it’s an intricate part of my freelancing. I get jobs through this blog, this blog is central to some of my Fiverr gigs, and it’s where I show off my expertise. The social media outlets related to The Writer’s Scrap Bin, including the Facebook and Twitter accounts, are as much for connecting with potential clients as they are for connecting with my fellow writers and readers. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to bring you a business-related book review today, namely my review of a book called Social Media Marketing: Step by Step Instructions for Advertising Your Business on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Various Other Platforms by Noah Gray and Michael Fox.
Social media has grown rapidly since the launch of platforms like Facebook and MySpace. Is it too much growth too quickly? That’s for future generations to decide. In the meantime, our world is becoming increasingly dependent on social media for everything from reconnecting with old friends to looking for a job. That’s why businesses have to ride this wave while it lasts. The more exposure a business gets, the more people shop that business’s products and services. What better path to exposure than social media? People are on those sites 24/7 anyway. Why not take advantage of the captive audience? That is exactly what Gray and Fox discuss in Social Media Marketing.
Image retrieved from Amazon
Gray and Fox more than just detail the benefits of social media marketing; they give readers all the tools they need for launching a social media marketing campaign for as little money as possible (often even for free). They tell readers about some of the most prominent social media platforms out there (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Google+, Reddit, Tumblr, Quora, Periscope, Goodreads, and Flickr) and explain which platform is best for which kind of marketing. They explain the ins and outs of each platforms, as well as what you shouldn’t do in order to avoid getting into trouble.
This book is all about personalizing your approach. Gray and Fox emphasize that social media is constantly evolving, and so platforms will come, go, and change over time. What works in today’s social media might not work in ten years or even in one year. They also stress the fact that you have to decide for yourself which platform(s) is right for your business and how many platforms you can reasonably handle in a single campaign. (Don’t want to burn the candle at both ends, after all!) Regardless, this book provides a general guide which both the novice and experienced social media marketer can use to start their next campaign.
Gray and Fox’s book is yet another I wish I had found a little sooner. The tips for Facebook paid advertising and utilizing Twitter in a social media campaign would have saved me some trial-and-error and uncertainty. Even the Instagram and Pinterest sections should prove useful as I try and expand my blog’s reach.
I personally most benefited from the sections on social media platforms with which I’m not very familiar. Despite all the time I spend online, there are many social media platforms which I’m just becoming aware of. Among these are Quora, Periscope, Flickr, and even Reddit. Fortunately, Gray and Fox provide detailed chapters on all of them. They explain these platforms in ways which made a lot more sense than when I look them up on Google or Wikipedia. The simple language used in this book also helped me to understand how each platform works and which ones will work for my freelance writing and editing work. (Honestly, I think only Quora and Reddit are a good fit for me out of those four.)
However, with all the platforms that Gray and Fox introduced me to, there were just as many that I already knew about. For this reason, the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube chapters felt rather…repetitive and slow to me. That’s no fault of the writing. Anyone who isn’t already familiar with these platforms and their possibilities for marketing will find these chapters key to starting a social media marketing campaign. After all, these are three of the biggest social media platforms in existence right now. I had just recently familiarized myself with the marketing potentials of these platforms and thus already knew most of the information.
Perhaps the most useful set of chapters for writers is the set on Goodreads. This section teaches readers the basics of Goodreads, how to use it with a blog, and how to best use it for marketing your book. I’m sure that most of my readers are comfortable with Goodreads already. Regardless, I think that these chapters could help writers learn to utilize this platform’s potential even better.
Overall, I highly recommend this book for people looking to launch a social media marketing campaign. Gray and Fox’s Social Media Marketing is well-organized, informative, and written perfectly for a beginning marketer. You don’t even have to spend any money to jump on these tips! Many of them just involve having an active and strategic social media account in order to work.
Whether you’re a business owner, freelancer, or even a writer, you need to bring your products/services/books into the realm of social media. Like it or not, there will be one form of social media or another for quite some time. You have to strike the iron while it’s hot, or else you—and your business—will be left behind.
You can buy Social Media Marketing by Noah Gray and Michael Fox as an eBook or in print on Amazon.
Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.
Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011