DreamGrow Social Media

9 Free Social Media eBooks

A friend of mine listed the social media ebooks he’s reading at the moment. There are dozens of social media ebooks around free and otherwise. So, I decided to make a list of the ebooks that seem to stand out. Here are nine of them:

The New Rules of Viral Marketing, David Meerman Scott. The smart marketers profiled in The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free tell you exactly how they used viral marketing and provide advice in their own words.

Fish Where the Fish Are- Mapping Social Media to the Buying Cycle, Chris Brogan. An ebook meant to get your mind started on how social media ties to the more traditional buying cycle. These are some thoughts I’d put together immediately after my presentation, fleshed out, lined up, and with some takeaways that you can use to dig in once you feel comfortable.

The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008, Philip Sheldrake. If you could go back to the mid-90s and offer a marketer a little box that could sit on her desk and let her listen in on thousands of customer conversations and participate in those discussions regardless of geography or time zone, it would appear so farfetched that she’d probably call security. This eBook is about that reality.

Customer Service, The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media, Brian Solis. Transforming people into a surrogate sales force is the dream of any service organization. The difference today is that the landscape has shifted to the point where good customer service is no longer the minimum ante to play the game.

Getting a Foothold in Social Media, Amber Naslund. you don’t have any idea where to start. It starts with a strategy, rooted in a desire to forge better relationships with your customers.

The Social Media Starter Kit, Amber Naslund. Several times a day, I hear folks asking about how to get started with all this social media stuff. What tools they need, what sites they should look at so as not to get overwhelmed. This is the nuts and bolts stuff, not so much the “why”.

Social Media Time Management. Strategies for Tackling Information Overload, Amber Naslund. How many hours do I have to spend in social media each day? Do I have resources/people other than me? What can I expect of them? (Note: if you’re serious about doing social, you need to find an hour a day to start with, at least.) Which 2 or 3 tools and social networks make sense based on my listening efforts? What is my goal for participation on those sites? What is the culture of those communities and how will my participation line up with that?

Social Media and Network Starting Points, Chris Brogan. Some thoughts based on a question about guidelines, a toolbox, and how to grow a community.

The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want, Skellie. How can I get visitors, subscribers, comments, inbound links, and people saying good things about what I do?

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Image credit: Antony Ruggiero

Seven Actionable Marketing Trends

Excellent! A collection of insights and ideas in relation to each of the before published seven actionable marketing trends.

Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium

When I read that headline on MediPost I was certain that people who are saying that have yet to receive a clue. If you ask 100 people if advertising influences their decisions then the majority of respondents would say ‘no’. That does not mean you stop advertising. They just don’t know how media influences them.

The same thing goes for social networks. Marketers may dream that some day we can call them marketing networks but I wouldn’t hold may breath. People are there to connect with each other, to talk about their dog and how their day went. I do too. Sure, sometimes you stumble upon something great and insightful but for the most part it’s just chatter. When you try to turn it into a home shopping network people will just leave.

“What we’re seeing is that word-of-mouth is still the No. 1 most influential source, followed by TV. The influence of social media isn’t at the bottom of the list, but it is somewhere in the long tail of marketing – about the same as print ads, or online [display] ads.” says Dave Tice, vice president and group account director at Knowledge Networks, and the top analyst behind the report.

But there’s a bit more to it than that. We tend to talk about brands. Some say that about 1/6 of our conversations are about brands. Up until recently this talk was cheap, just hot air. Now, with the social networks, this talk is permanently recorded, indexed and searchable. Word of mouth has found a new carrier in the form of social media. A carrier where others can tap into your conversation.

This is the marketers opportunity to engage, change minds and sell. But tread carefully as the rules are still vague…
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Image credit: Alex Brazhnikov

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)