The Art of Social Media Book Report for Social Media Marketing Course Mark 9057

1. Book Report
Heather Miller
MARK 9057
April 3, 2014

2. • It was on the recommended list for the class
• It had a recent publish date – December, 2014, so I was
confident the information would be current
• Available in e-book format
• Had active links embedded in the e-book
• Reputable co-author –Guy Kawasaki is former chief evangelist
at Apple

3. Analysis
This book is accessibly written for both the new and power user,
with 130 helpful and relevant hints that are well organized.
However, it is full of flagrant self-promotion, which detracts from
its legitimacy.

4. It is a “How To” book – Chapters all
start with “How To”
Chapters
1. How to Optimize Your Profile
2. How to Feed the Content Monster
3. How to Perfect Your Posts
4. How to Respond to Comments
5. How to Integrate Social Media and Blogging
6. How to Get More Followers
7. How to Socialize Events
8. How to Run Google+ Hangouts on Air
9. How to Rock a Twitter Chat
10. How to Avoid Looking Clueless
11. How to Optimize for Individual Platforms
12. How to Put Everything together

5. Organization
• The book is essentially 130 hints divided across the chapters
• The chapters, all entitled “How To…” flow logically
• Each chapter begins with a quote, which helps set the tone
• I enjoyed that the book was organized by issues such as
“Feeding the Content Manager” and not by individual social
media type. This is wise as it keeps the book relevant as time
passes and the popular social media sites change.
• There are many active links in the book, which provide real
examples if you are reading it as an e-book, but they can be
distracting, as you have to leave the e-book. However, those
links would be useless if reading hard copy not close to an
internet connection.

6. My favourite Tips & Concepts
• A blog post not worth sharing is not worth writing
• If you are not pissing someone off on social media you are not
using it aggressively enough
• It is Okay to repeat the same tweet in order to be seen by
people viewing Twitter at different times
• Use the ideal image size for each separate social media
• SEO is bullshit; tricking Google is futile; instead create content
for Google to find
• You are always “on record” on social media, put class and
credibility first

7. • Fight only 3 rounds – 1 commenter, 2 your response, 3
commenter (end of fight), and don’t fight dirty.
• Every curated post should contain a picture or video
• Add share buttons to posts and blogs to maximize reach
• Vanity URLs are effective
• Short hashtags are easier to use (chose short over unique)
• 5P’s of Social Media –
Google+ is for passions
Facebook is for people
LinkedIn is for pimping
Pinterest is for pictures
Twitter is for perception

8. Self Promotion
The book is co-written with Peg Fitzpatrick, but uses Kawasaki’s
voice, for simplification and to capitalizes on his celebrity
Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangalist at Canva, and it is
mentioned in the book 8 separate times. This in my opinion is
overkill, and it got in the way of my enjoyment of the book. It
made me question the objectiveness of the book. It reminded
me of the old soap operas with product placement of both Canva
and Holy Kaw. Even the book cover is the same colour as Canva’s
logo. See image below of Kawasaki wearing a Canva t-shirt.

9. • Like each chapter, chapter 11 begins with a quote, but this
one is by Guy Kawasaki, and he concludes it by saying
“Let’s see Philip Kotler top this”. That is egotistical and
doesn’t belong in a published book
• From my heatherbikegirl twitter account
- Feb 15, I tweeted a response to Mike Dyer who Tweeted
- “I’m skeptical of books on social media but @GuyKawasaki
@PegFitzpatrick #Artofsocialmedia is quite good.
- @MointMenino@GuyKawasaki @PegFitzpatric I’m
reading it now…Quite good except for shameless self
promotion and some research gaps

10. • March 24 I tweeted: @GuyKawasaki My summary of book
report on the Art of Social Media…Flagrant self promotion
and poorly researched. I received no response.
(In chapter 3 when referring to TweetDeck he states “There are other products that
provide similar functionality including Everypost, Sendible and SocialOomph, but we
have not used any of them.” This, to me, showed laziness, and/or bad editing. Either
don’t mention that you haven’t used them, or do some research. Making these words
live links was helpful.
• A search of #TheArtofSocialMedia showed many tweeters
excited to be reading the book and others mentioning that
the tips were very helpful. No other tweets mentioned the
self-promotion

11. • Kawasaki cites himself as an influencer on a LinkedIn matrix
• Kawasaki uses his Canva email address in the book. If this
were more objective, he would have used a different email

12. Conclusion
• It is a light and informative read and the ebook format makes
is simple to look things up after reading it. The book has
something for the power user, but someone new to social
media will not be overwhelmed.
• I would recommend the book, with the caveat that you’ve got
to be prepared for the flagrant self-promotion.