#ArtofSocial - Book Review

The news that +Guy Kawasaki has written a book itself is a phenomenon in social media circle. And if that book happens to be on Social Media itself, it must be a craze. So it is. This is a quick review about +Guy Kawasaki & +Peg Fitzpatrick 's latest book - "The Art of Social Media" #ArtofSocial

If you have been into Social Media for a while, you must be knowing a little bit of many things, if not every thing of Social Media platforms. But this book gets into the real details behind a typical Social Media campaign, if that is headed by the likes of +Guy or +Peg.
[I intend not to introduce Guy in this post as I assume you have access to Google (or some other search engine) in your country, in case you are hearing his name for the first time]

Guy has been speaking about various aspects of Social Media for a while in various Hangouts & Seminars. This book consolidates those between the covers. If you are a regular listener of him, you may find some of the topics quite familiar. 

What is there in the book:

The book starts with how to build the perfect profile page in SM. Yes it starts at the basics. Then it gets into how to curate contents. Also he gives his view on what to comment (and what not to), while responding. He has pages on Hangout & Twitter specifically. He talks about how to socialize an event. The real life examples would be quite handy for someone trying to promote an event for his agency or org.

The Guy style:

Though the book is co-authored, Guy claims to have taken the task of writing the book himself while taking inputs from the co-author. Hence you can expect typical Guy-ish memorable lines, like this: "If you are not pissing someone off on social media, you are not using it aggressively enough." As you might be knowing if you follow him, Guy is a big proponent of repeating same posts multiple times during the day. He talks about this in his book with some stats. Though this sounds like a good idea, I personally don't do it. If you are doing it for an organization, which has followers in different timezones, this tip might help you. Also I liked his idea about engagements as a 3 round amateur boxing match. Round 1: Commenter comments, Round 2: You Respond, Round 3: Commenter responds to your response. End of fight. This tip might help you when you get engaged on something controversial, say politics. Avoid using curse words at any cost, even if you are yet to get into the 3 round boxing match mode. There is a growing trend these days of buying followers in Twitter, Facebook etc. +Guy  explains it beautifully on how the mandate of building social media flows from CEO to CMO to Marketing agency and how does it translate at every stage. At the end, the marketing agency end up buying few followers. But as he says - "You may never be caught buying your way into social media, but to do so is pissing your karma, and karma is a bitch."

Who should buy this book, and why?
This book is about execution plans of Social Media. Its not about the Social Media funda or philosophies or strategies to be adopted by different kinds of industries. It doesn't either talk on the Facebook vs. Google+ debate :-). If you were looking for any of those stuff, don't buy this book.

Then who should buy this book?

• If you are an SM enthusiast, buy this.
• If you are planning to use Social Media for your own business, buy this.
• If you want to sound smart in your agency, while the big guys give fundas on SM, buy this.
• If you are having your own agency and planning to do it better, buy this.

BTW, if you were looking for a large hardcover book, which is beneficial for improving your biceps, you might get disappointed. Its only about 92 pages. I guess that can work as a deciding factor as well! 


Happy reading and happy socializing.

Disclaimer: I had got the book for free to do a review.