The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success

This book is a good way to get familiar with online social tools. The author covers ways to use email, social networking tools and publishing tools. He has good information about establishing some goals and determining a strategy for meeting the goals. He also has a lot of useful references if you want to get more familiar with a particular topic.

I only gave it three stars for the following reasons:

– Too much coverage of the history of the internet, email, and web pages. If I was interested in that, I’d get a book on the history of the internet, email, and web pages.

– Misinformation on some tools, and missing information about other tools. For instance, the author mentions Joomla, a content management system that can be used to create websites and blogs. He mentions it in a way that may mislead people as to its uses when he states that it can pair with any number of applications. It might work with other applications, but that may require coding skills or money to pay someone to make them work together. He also ignores the multitude of other open source content management systems that are out there.

– A serious amount of repetition in sections one and two. A lot of what is stated in the second section is already in the first, so it added a few hundred pages without saying a whole lot.

This is a good book. It’s less complete than the title suggests.

Rating: 3 / 5

Ask a hundred people what “social media” is, and you may get a hundred different definitions. Frankly, social media doesn’t just connect people–it baffles them, too. The authors of “The Social Media Bible,” however, have made a considerable attempt at creating a resource that helps readers gain an overall understanding of the social media “ecosystem” (to put it in the authors’ terms) and how the social media phenomenon relates to business.

First, I think it’s in order to discuss what this tome covers. Part I, Background Basics and Tactics, comprises the first 23 chapters. This section of the book defines social media, explains the different types of social media, and helps you understand why it’s important. You get coverage here of everything from social networks to microblogging to virtual worlds. If you’ve read other books about social media, you may already be familiar with some of this content. If you’re brand new to social media, you’ll find it especially helpful.

Part II, Tools, comprises chapters 24-38 and revisits the different categories of social media, focusing on current popular tools. The authors discuss each tool, focusing on who should use them and why; you’ll even find some more technical information in these chapters. Although I appreciated the broad look at all the different types of the social media, I felt that the sections could have gone into more detail. However, you could easily write an entire book on each type of social media presented, so the authors clearly had to limit coverage of each type of social media resource.

Part III, Strategy, includes the final chapters of 39-43 and offers some excellent advice on how to apply everything learned in the book. I appreciated the bits of advice spread throughout as well as the cohesive strategies presented. I especially found the chapter “The Four Pillars of Social Media Strategy” helpful, which discusses how a social media strategy should have goals of communication, collaboration, education, and entertainment.

Although some of the principles in this book will endure, much of the descriptions for current social media tools will quickly go out of date (as some already have). However, the authors clearly recognized this and intended it to be a timely book. If you’re new to the concept of social media and seeking how to apply social media to your business, the “Social Media Bible” is a great resource. If you’re already familiar with using social media, you may find yourself skipping some of the basic information in the book. Overall, I believe there is wisdom for everyone to find in this useful guide–the kind of wisdom that will help you to give new life to your company’s online marketing efforts in the social media world.

Rating: 5 / 5

Great book! Loved it! It’s huge and heavy and not particularly pricey. I found it to be well organized and well written. And it was certainly packed to the gills with content. There are 43 chapters split into three different sections: (1) Background basics & tactics, (2) Tools, & (3) Strategy. The chapters in the first part provide an introduction and framework regarding the book. The numerous chapters in the second part cover 100+ social media tools. And the last five or six chapters in the third part can help you do an audit of the social media marketing your company does (or doesn’t do).

The book is comprehensive. I haven’t seen a book that covers so much and in such depth on the topic of social media marketing (or Internet Marketing). There were a ton of “Expert Insights” sprinkled throughout the text that really made the book shine. And each chapter ended with three summaries: (1) Commandments, (2) Conclusion, & (3) Readings & Resources. Each were well done. In particular the Readings & Resources for each chapter were better than most books have at the end of an entire book. 6 stars!

PS. To see the chapter titles and how the book is specifically organized I encourage you to peek at the Search Inside feature Amazon offers for this book. With 43 chapters there are a lot of chapter titles to read.
Rating: 5 / 5

For those of you that would like to know more about Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Meebo, Plurk, Digg, Vimeo, PodBean, BlogTalkRadio, Second Life, etc.), The Social Media Bible by Lon Safko and David K. Brake is the book to buy.

I purchased it last week and have devoured it from cover to cover. The information is comprehensive, timely, and practical.

It provides the historical background of social media as well as how to use social media as a strategy in your marketing plan. It describes what each social media tool is, how it can be used, what other applications work with it, who uses it, and even gives suggestions on who SHOULD use it. I’ve read just about every other book on social media and none of them are as complete as this one.

As well as being an essential resource for everyone involved in marketing, PR, and business, this could well be used as a textbook for college classes in social media.

To keep the information timely, the authors have included a link and log-in information for purchasers to access up-to-date information.
Rating: 5 / 5

This book is amazing. The explosion of different types of media and all the jargon that goes with it can be overwhelming. The social media bible is perfect for someone that wants one stop shopping for everything there is to know on the subject. The Social Media Bible is a great starting…. end …. or middle …. or wherever you may be in understanding this subject. Kudos to the authors and great job!!
Rating: 5 / 5