Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Roadmap for the Social Media Maze

Social Media Engagement for Dummies – Aliza Sherman and Danielle Elliot Smith (Wiley)

A quick look at any number of infographics that have been created in the past couple of years cover the explosion of social media outlets and it quickly become clear that the way we do business has changed dramatically and we’re going to need a roadmap to guide us through this ever increasingly tangled web of sites.

Clearly this is not a “build it and they will come” kind of thing; you need a strategy and a plan to execute. Aliza Sherman, founder of Cybergirl Inc. a full service internet company and Danielle Elliot Smith founder of ExtraordinaryMommy.com among many others, are multi-talented and engaged on a number of levels in guiding folks through the complexities of the social media maze. They have offered up a tremendous set of tools in the form of their new book Social Media Engagement for Dummies.

 
While some may scoff at the For Dummies books as a guide to the basics, sort of training wheels for the uninformed, I find them to be useful compendiums that I turn to for quick reference and often times inspiration. Sherman and Smith do breakdown the basics of social media, but also delve into helping you learn from their missteps and help you drill down into ways of being more effective and truly targeting your audience to maximize results.

They also help to broaden your horizons beyond the standard Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Google + routes. It’s not just a matter of bombing your audience with messages; it’s about developing the right message and the right method to make that message impactful. Sherman and Smith make path easier to follow and you will quickly find your copy of Social Media Engagement for Dummies dog eared and underlined just like mine.

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