Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and More

The media could not be loaded. Hi I’m Douglas Burdett, host of The Marketing Book Podcast and I’d like to tell you about the book, “Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and More” by Dave Kerpen.This updated version of the New York Times bestseller beautifully explains how marketing in a social media world is not about broadcasting your message and getting the largest reach and frequency.It’s about tapping into the conversation, listening, engaging, and empowering. The loudest, biggest spenders don’t win anymore. The smartest, most flexible listeners do.The book includes 18 strategies to help you create an irresistible brand through online social channels to become more transparent, responsive, engaging and profitable.New to social media? It also includes an appendix that is a primer on the most popular social media channels. If you want to get a handle on this week’s social media technicalities and minutia, this is not the book to read. But if you are a CEO, business manager or marketer who wants to gain a really solid strategic foundation for using social media to grow your organization and build your brand, read this book and you will rule!And, to listen to an interview with Dave Kerpen about Likeable Social Media, visit MarketingBookPodcast.com

Overall a great book for students or small business owners wanting to develop a social media strategy. The message of the book was clear: listen, engage, build trust. Much of the book focused on Facebook and went into some detail on best practices for paid ads. The real world examples of how various companies use social media to engage with customers reinforced what the author was saying, and many of the Action Items at the end of every chapter were extremely helpful in applying the strategies discussed in the book.The only reason I did not give 5 stars is because I feel as if some of the chapters covered generally the same topic and could have been condensed. For example, chapters 8 (Be Authentic), and 9 (Be Honest and Transparent) have a very similar theme. There were a couple other chapters that were similar as well, but overall I really enjoyed the book.

I originally came across the first edition of this book because it was my textbook for my first and only social media marketing class my senior year of college.This book ROCKED. MY. WORLD. I read the whole thing in about 2 sittings and kept it in my book bag all day every day. I was brand new to marketing and rose to the top of my class because I really took away some great lessons. I loved this book so much that I preordered the 2nd edition AND Likable Business about 3 days later. I was even more excited when the book came in earlier than expected.A few months later I bought another copy for two reasons. 1. I told my mom to read it and she loved it so much it was hard to get it back from her. 2. The spare copy now resides in my office as the social media bible.I also constantly tweet about how much I love this book and made all my friends read it, though I dare not lend out my copy for fear of never getting it back. I am the consumer this book talks about, the one that tells the world about products I love ALL the time.Read this book if you do anything in social media, there's so much to learn Dave's perspectives and it's in the most likable voice!

Understanding who this book is for and who it is not for will really impact how you benefit from Likeable Social Media. First a few things of note:1. The book is a quick and easy read with lots of excellent examples2. There is an excellent introduction to social media for novices3. The author clearly has mastery of the topicSo, if you are new to social media and are focused on end-user engagement then you will probably really benefit from this book.However, if you are already using social media and really want to take your strategy to the next level you may want to rely on alternatives. What I was hoping to get from this book was specific strategies on the various social networks highlighted on the cover. Instead, the book was really focused on general social media strategies - listen to your customers, engage, etc. These are all important but anyone engaged in social media tends to understand why it is important. As someone that works in the B2B space I wanted something more tactile such as 'here are some great tools for following trends on twitter' or 'here are ways to get your tweets better noticed' or 'posting on Mondays on Linkedin is a bad idea'. Again, I still got something from the book but it wasn't really what I had hoped for.The only area I would specifically highlight where the book let me down is the decision to highlight several social networks on the cover and in the title. This led me to believe there would be a discrete discussion on best practices for each network but most warrant passing mentions which left me a little disappointed.