The Social Media Survival Guide: Strategies, Tactics, and Tools for Succeeding in the Social Web

As social media platforms proliferate and usage of social media expands among the population, new marketing users of social media need to make sense of what to use and how to use it to communicate with stakeholders, drive traffic to their websites, and maximize their web presence. Even for more seasoned users, given the frenzied pace of change, it is important to keep abreast of the latest developments in the (virtual!) world of social media.

As in many categories, social media services come and go. Deltina Hay builds on, and updates, a previous edition of The Social Media Survival Guide to provide a comprehensive overview of how one can navigate the social web jungle to drive traffic to their website. Social media brings power back to the people – as such it something that most of us need to get to grips with (either as passive or active users, and either as businesses or as consumers). Hay's book fills this gap by providing a social media toolbox, and an instruction manual outlining how these tools should be used and integrated to maximum effect.

Chapter 1 sets the scene by relating strategy to the different social media tools available. The chapter provides several detailed examples of real users' goals and how they try to achieve those goals with the different tools available (e.g. by showing which tools are not useful and which are). With a detailed range of examples from a wide range of sectors, users get a quick picture of how this might relate to them.

Chapter 2 then provides guidance on how users should prepare their content to realize the strategy developed in the prior chapter. It covers the importance of “tags” and how to organize one's files and other materials to maximize their online impact.

Subsequent chapters begin to explore each class of tools in more depth, and show how they can be best utilized to serve the social media strategy developed in chapter 1. For example, chapter 3 outlines the use of RSS feeds and blogs, chapter 4 outlines the use of content management systems like WordPress to build websites, and chapter 5 covers podcasting, vidcasting and webcasting. Chapter 6 provides detailed coverage of social networking and microblogging websites such as Facebook, LinkedI, and Twitter, and it gives advice on how to create a social network, and how to design a social networking strategy to utilize these sites to get your message across. Chapter 7 illustrates the power of social bookmarking to save blogs and websites in a public place, and it also explains the use of crowdsourcing. Chapter 8 shows how to use media communities like Flickr, YouTube and Scribd to share pictures, videos and documents. Chapter 9 explains how to use widgets and badges to perform functions such as site customization for visitors. Chapter 10 covers social media newsrooms to communicate with interested parties about current and past news items. Chapter 11 outlines some less well known, peripheral social tools, including social calendars and event tools, geo‐tagging tools, hybrid social tools, social pages and collaborative technologies. Chapter 12 takes a holistic perspective by showing how to integrate the previously discussed social media tools to optimize web presence. Chapter 13 provides some thoughts on the future of the web and how it might develop, and chapter 14 illustrates how you can gauge the success of your social media campaign through measurement, including quantitative and qualitative approaches. Chapter 15 concludes by summarizing how communicating via social media is different to communicating via traditional channels, and emphasizes the importance of “netiquette” and the key terms that you choose.

The Social Media Survival Guide is easy to read and is suitable for a variety of audiences, including individuals, start‐ups, SMEs and employees of large organizations interested in creating and developing an integrated web presence. As the name suggests this book is not targeted at students on theory based courses but would be suitable to students on practical courses related to e‐commerce and business in general, where the focus is on skill transfer, rather than theory development. The 454 pages are easy to get through if you have a basic knowledge of social media and its applications, but the jargon can be a chore if you are new to social media, though this is more to do with the subject area and its unique terminology, rather than the author. This book differs from other books on social media by providing highly practical applications, in an easy to understand (and use) format. To enhance practicality, chapters are accompanied with a resource CD to help you apply the lessons in the text.

This book delivers on what it promises. As a practical book on social media usage it gives clear guidance and detail on the key aspects of social media strategy. Most importantly, at the heart of this book lies Hay's appreciation of the audience – Hay illustrates the importance of understanding the preferences, habits and behaviors of the target audience in harnessing the power of social media. Understanding this is paramount to understanding the application of the social media tools discussed. The book was enjoyable to read and is a must for anyone wishing to develop an integrated web presence. It is thoroughly recommended.