12 Marketing Books to Read
* orange stars mean it's available in the Boston Public Library!
Social Media Marketing for Dummies ***
by: John Arnold, Michael Becker, & Ian Lurie
Everyone's doing it -- Web marketing, that is. Building an online presence is vital to your business, and if you're looking for Web marketing real-world experiences, look no farther than "Web Marketing All-in-One For Dummies." These eight minibooks break down Web marketing into understandable chunks, with lots of examples from an author team of experts. The minibooks cover: Establishing a Web Presence, Search Engine Optimization, Web Analytics, E-Mail Marketing, Blogging and Podcasting, Social Media Marketing, Online Advertising & Pay-Per-Click, Mobile Web Marketing
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media, But Were Afraid to Ask: Building Your Business Using Consumer Generated Media
by Hilary J.M. Topper
Designed for marketing professionals, small business owners, and non-profit organization executives, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media, but were afraid to ask..." is filled with detailed, how-to information on the sometimes complicated online world. Guiding readers through the importance of implementing social media tactics into their marketing mix to increase awareness and maintain visibility, this guide: Describes how to use social media sites, blogs, and microblogs Reviews more than a dozen social networking sites Provides an understanding of the importance of podcasts and video podcasts Discusses what it means to "Go Viral" Gives suggestions for handling crisis situations via the Web "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media, but were afraid to ask..." highlights the power of consumer-generated media and how it can be used effectively to help grow your business.
Youtilitiy: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype ***
by Jay Baer
We’re not investing our time and money on social media to share fun pictures and our latest product release. We’re doing it to make a profound impact on how our audience sees us. And the more help we can provide them with, the deeper the impact!
This book has helped me rethink all of our content and social media strategy. Now, everything we do goes through the “Youtility filter”: is this helpful for our audience? If yes, it goes out; if not, we dump it and start again.
s at what we should do on social media to be successful—which is to be helpful to our audience!
he social media industry has become extremely crowded over the past few years. Baer offers great advice when it comes to standing out in a crowded space: be helpful and be good at what you do.
This doesn’t just apply to individuals looking to make a name for themselves. The principles that Baer writes about can be applied to the solopreneur on up to the larger, established business that is looking to connect with new customers and continue to provide value for existing ones.
Targeted: How Technology Is Revolutionizing Advertising & the Way Companies Reach Customers ***
by Mike Smith
Far from the catchy television spots and sleek magazine spreads are the comparatively modest ads that pop up on websites and in Internet searches. But don't be fooled--online advertising is exploding. Growing at a compound annual rate near 20%, it is now the second-largest advertising channel in the United States.
Part history, part guidebook, part prediction for the future, Targeted tells the story of the companies, individuals, and innovations driving this revolution. It takes readers behind the scenes--examining the growth of digital advertising, its enormous potential, and the technologies that are changing the game forever. Leading the way is real-time bidding, which offers advertisers unprecedented precision in targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness.
From keyword micro-markets and ad serving systems to aggregated virtual audiences and new business models, Targeted is sweeping in scope and stripped of technical complexity. It is an essential resource for anyone interested in finding and connecting with customers in the vast and shifting Internet universe.
The Art of Social Media ***
by Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick
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.”
The Noob Guide to Online Marketing
by Oli Gardner
The book is very practical, with 50 manageable items written into a step-by-step 24-week actionable plan.
My best takeaway: Successful social media marketing takes time and effort. You need to strategize your social media marketing, and plan to work on it daily.
That is: define yourself, brand yourself on your social sites and then continually engage with tactics like running interactive contests, monitoring all of your social sites and taking real action on customer feedback.
Tweet Naked: A Bare-All Social Media Strategy for Boosting Your Brand and Your Business ***
by Scott Levy
Presenting a fresh perspective on a common challenge, author Scott Levy delivers a new answer to every business owner's social media question -- how can I make social media work for me? Levy's solution takes a cue from another explosive media phenomenon: reality TV. Levy invites readers to create the same magnetism that pulls reality TV viewers in by using the same tools: transparency, authenticity, and a human element. Readers learn how to use social platforms to tactfully share, or bare, their brand, inciting consumer action. Readers also learn how to strip their social media strategy down to what works for their brand, exhibit transparency that engages followers on all popular social channels, and create brand consistency across all social platforms.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
by Jonah Berger
Whilst it is broader than social media, it gives great insight into why things spread, how to create triggers so people think of your product or service when they see or hear something else and what the magic ingredients are to getting something shared en masse.
We know that creating emotion is key, that the funniest videos get shared, but Berger delves deeper than that into what the real essence of the emotion is, and that’s arousal.
Word of mouth is the top way to gain consumer trust. Recent Nielsen research revealed that 84% of consumers trust information from people they know. Want to learn how to accomplish this viral word of mouth? Then read Wharton professor Jonah Berger’s Contagious: Why Things Catch On. It’s a well-written book chock-full of examples illustrating how to make your business a word-of-mouth darling.
Spreadable Media: Creating Value & Meaning in a Networked Culture ***
by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, & Joshua Green
The book is a refreshing bird’s-eye view of how to make content that connects with your audience. Instead of viewing audience members as passive consumers of content, Spreadable Media suggests that the audience plays an active role in the distribution and meaning of your content.
This might make some marketing managers uncomfortable, but the authors lay out strong evidence that passive consumers are a thing of the past. The companies that connect with the audience and empower them to improve and reuse content are the companies that are cutting through the noise.
They also delve into tactics, including information and how new technology can contribute to ‘spreadability.’ They outline several factors including content availability, portability, reusability and relevance that help create the foundation for spreadable content.
Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success & Influence
by Erik Qualman
If you’re looking for a book that provides tips on getting more Facebook likes or Twitter followers, then Digital Leader by Erik Qualman might not be for you. But if you’re looking for a book to show you how to be a leader in the digital era, then I can’t recommend it enough.
Qualman kicks things off with his take on the issue of transparency and walks the reader through why this trend is not only important, but also meaningful.
He then talks about the five key habits of the digital leader, which form the acronym STAMP. They are Simple (narrowing things down to their essence), True (remaining true to your passion), Act (nothing happens without action), Map (setting goals and creating a vision) and People (success doesn’t happen alone).
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content ***
by Ann Hadley
Finally a go-to guide to creating and publishing the kind of content that will make your business thrive.
Everybody Writes is a go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is, in fact, a writer.
If you have a web site, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt...does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are.
In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results.
The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, & Social Media to Market Your Brand
by: Walter, Ekaterina & Gioglio, Jessica
Attention is the new commodity. Visual Storytelling is the new currency.
Human brain processes visuals 60,000x faster than text.
Web posts with visuals drive up to 180% more engagement than those without.
Viewers spend 100% more time on web pages with videos.
Filled with full-color images and thought-provoking examples from leading companies, The Power of Visual Storytelling explains how to grow your business and strengthen your brand by leveraging photos, videos, infographics, presentations, and other rich media. The book delivers a powerful road map for getting started, while inspiring new levels of creativity within organizations of all types and sizes.
