There are so many business books I have read that have benefited our publishing company or my author platform. Over the next few months, I will highlight some of my favorite business books with a brief synopsis of the book as well as my top ten take aways or quotes.

Book Title: The Art of Social Media

Author: Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick

Book Synopsis:

By now it’s clear that whether you’re promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what determines your success or failure. And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you.

But there’s no one quite like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and one of the pioneers of business blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Tumbling, and much, much more. Now Guy has teamed up with Peg Fitzpatrick, who he says is the best social-media person he’s ever met, to offer The Art of Social Media—the one essential guide you need to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money.

With over one hundred practical tips, tricks, and insights, Guy and Peg present a bottom-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms. They guide you through steps to build your foundation, amass your digital assets, optimize your profile, attract more followers, and effectively integrate social media and blogging.

For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game, The Art of Social Media is full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world. Or as Guy puts it, “great stuff, no fluff.”

My Review:

I read this book in two sittings. I took a ton of notes and was able to easily take action on the research based advice that was given. Two thumbs up!

Top Ten Quotes:

1. “In our opinion, most search engine optimization (SEO) is bullshit. It involves trying to read Google’s mind and then gaming the system to make Google find crap. There are three thousand computer science PhDs at Google trying to make each search relevant, and then there’s you trying to fool them. Who’s going to win? Tricking Google is futile. Instead, you should let Google do what it does best: find great content. So defy all the SEO witchcraft out there and focus on creating, curating, and sharing great content. This is what’s called SMO: social-media optimization.”
2. “The biggest daily challenge of social media is finding enough content to share. We call this “feeding the Content Monster.” There are two ways to do this: content creation and content curation.”
3. “The goal is to emulate what I call the “NPR model.” NPR provides great content 365 days a year. Every few months, NPR runs a pledge drive to raise money. The reason NPR can run pledge drives is that it provides such great value. Your goal is to earn the privilege to run your own “pledge drive.” A “pledge drive” in this context is a promotion for your organization, product, or service. If you are familiar with American radio or TV networks, the question is, Do you want to be NPR or QVC?”
4. “I mention this because some idiot might tell you that Google+ is a “ghost town” (which it isn’t) and that you shouldn’t bother using it. Google+ is one of the best sources of content.” PS, I, Maria Dismondy, have been one to say that Google+ is a ghost town!
5. “Content curation involves finding other people’s good stuff, summarizing it, and sharing it. Curation is a win-win-win: you need content to share; blogs and websites need more traffic; and people need filters to reduce the flow of information.”
6. “You can extend the life of your most popular blog posts by turning them into SlideShare presentations. Peg” This is on my to-do list for this summer!”
7. “Resharing is caring!”
8. “Sharing good stuff is 90 percent of the battle of getting more followers. Almost everything else is merely optimization. End of discussion.”
9. “Our experience is that the sweet spot for posts of curated content is two or three sentences on Google+ and Facebook and one hundred characters on Twitter. The sweet spot for created content is five hundred to a thousand words.”
10. “Starting a community is like getting a puppy: it sounds like a good idea in the beginning, but you have to clean up after it and train it. Also, when it grows up, it may no longer be cute.”

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My name is Maria Dismondy. I am a children’s book author who also founded the publishing company, Cardinal Rule Press.

Finding ways to market my messages is a passion of mine. I want to help you gain greater recognition of your brand, to generate new readers and improve your sales. Why? Because I love to GIVE and CONNECT and I truly believe we are all in this together!