Social media has become a mainstream force that all businesses must now understand and utilize. The transition from more controlled and traditional marketing techniques to the new and sometimes confusing world of social media marketing can be difficult. There are a number of books published in 2011 that can help any type of business understand and implement social media marketing.
The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build A Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using The
Social Web by Mari Smith
This is an essential book that provides an overview of social media for businesses and marketing professionals. This includes how the websites work, how users interact with them and the etiquette that should be adhered to in order to remain relevant and acceptable to customers. The book also includes information about the advertising and business sides of social media sites that can be directly utilized in a marketing campaign.
Likeable Social Media: How To Delight Your Customers, Create An Irresistible Brand, And Be
Generally Amazing On Facebook by Dave Kerpen
This best-selling book describes a number of techniques to use and pitfalls to avoid when working through social media. It describes what users are looking for and what they are look at when using a social media website. The book helps businesses that are just starting to employ social website marketing and to understand the process and the target audience.
Groundswell, Expanded And Revised Edition: Winning In A World Transformed By Social
Technologies by Charlene Li
This book is written for companies that have had difficulty understanding or implementing marketing strategies that involve social media websites. The writer provides an overview the current technologies and gives detailed examples that describe how to move from traditional models of thinking into new dynamic models that incorporate emerging technologies. Methods for repairing your online reputation or establishing a new online reputation are described. It even includes a section on how to create marketing plans that can change as social environments and technologies shift.
Social Media ROI: Managing And Measuring Social Media Efforts In Your Organization by Olivier
Blanchard
Calculating the return on investment (ROI) of a marketing effort is important for any long-term business plan. This is a very detailed text that is not always easy to read. The author covers how to merge business plans with social media. Techniques are also described that can allow marketers to start to bend social media websites in order to accommodate specific brand requirements or sales goals.
Social Marketing To The Business Customer: Listen To Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account
Leads, And Build Client Relationships by Paul Gillin
This book addresses the distinct issues that surround establishing business-to-business marketing efforts through social media. The differences between impulsive social purchasing and more calculated business purchasing are described. The author shows how to create a professional and effective business presence online that can attract other companies based on real value and not advertising gimmicks.
The focus of many social media marketing books is to provide a guide into an evolving world where corporations and many marketing specialists have not had an effective presence. Much of the understanding of social media marketing involves identifying the cultural trends and technological subtleties that currently exist. These books can help to decipher the behavior of customers while relating new concepts to traditional marketing techniques.
This guest post was written by Sam Peters, who is an avid blogger and contributor at Online Rep Management, a service for those with trouble with their online reputation.