Steve Cunningham is the CEO of Polar Unlimited, a digital marketing agency. To win a signed and personalized copy of each of the books mentioned here, visit Read It For Me.
So you want to get up to speed fast on the latest social media thinking. Maybe give your colleague, boss or friend a dose of new social strategies. But where to start? Amazon nicely suggests 44,444 titles that they would be delighted to overnight direct to your bookshelf. Ummm, no thanks. Fortunately, you’ve got your own social media fairy right here. (Hi!) We’ve already done the hard part for you, and have narrowed down those 44,444 titles to 5 killer must-reads that can get you on the road to social media stardom. Abracadabra!
5 Social Media Lessons
This story is magically formatted for 2 types of people: readers and watchers. Look up for the video, or scroll down for the text. Magic. You’ll learn why trust is the new currency, from Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, how the social media revolution has “turned the bullhorn around” from Tara Hunt, the two pillars of social media success from Mitch Joel, why you need to work your face off from Gary Vaynerchuk, and lastly, the nitty gritty of some of the most effective tools out there to grow your business and personal brand with Tamar Weinberg. These 5 ideas are (almost!) all you need to create and execute a powerful social media game-plan. Let’s go…
Lesson #1 – You Need to Build Trust
This lesson comes from Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.
The first step in building trust is to turn yourself into Donnie Brasco. That’s right, you have to become a member of the community. The movie Donnie Brasco is the real life story of Joe Pistone, the FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia and brought them to their knees. Joey spent 6 months sitting on a barstool in New York, drinking, eating peanuts, and watching the scene around him. He knew that the only way to integrate himself into the mafia community was to watch and learn how it operated first.You should feel free to take the same approach, sans peanuts. Go to the websites of the people you want to connect with, and watch how they interact with each other. When you feel comfortable knowing how to interact, start leaving thoughtful comments on other people’s blogs. That lets the blogger know you’re listening and it helps them build up credibility. Your credibility will follow.
Lesson #2 – Turn the Bullhorn Around
This lesson comes from The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.
What you’ll learn, while sitting on your virtual barstool, is the fascinating part: you’ll learn quite literally how to transform your products and services. And that’s a big deal. Hunt gives us some great tips on how to properly put all this new information to work to your advantage: (1) use it to design a product/service for the broadest possible community, (2) make sure you respond to all feedback, even if it’s with “no thanks,” and (3) give credit to the people whose ideas you implement.Lesson #3 – Learn the Pillars of Social Media Success
This lesson comes from Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel.
You’ve listened to and integrated feedback, and now you are ready to communicate. The 2 pillars which should guide your communication arepermission and content. Permission is grade-school easy: only share relevant and timely information with the people who have agreed to receive it. Content comes next. As Joel says, your ability to create compelling text, audio, video, and images is what’s going to build your story and get people excited about staying connected. He says to ask yourself these hard questions to decide what content to create: (1) What expertise and knowledge do I have, and how can I best share this with my customers? (2) Is there something I can create that will empower my consumers to connect to one another better? (3) Which medium am I most compelling with – text, audio, images, or video?Lesson #4 – Work Your Face Off
This lesson comes from Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck.
Vaynerchuck’s not drugs, it’s drive. He wants you to work your 9-5 day job, go home and hug your spouse, kiss your baby, and then get working again from 9-2 AM on the thing you love. As he so eloquently puts it, “you’ll be bleeding out of your eyeballs at your computer.”When you want to change the world, there’s no place or time for couch surfingGrey’s Anatomy, Wii, Scrabble, book clubs (there’s always time for 10 minute reviews on Mashable
, of course), or online poker. So, be sure to pick something you are very passionate about, because there’s NO way you will work this hard at something you don’t enjoy.
, of course), or online poker. So, be sure to pick something you are very passionate about, because there’s NO way you will work this hard at something you don’t enjoy.Lesson #5 – Get Smart About the Tools
This lesson comes from The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg.
Editor’s Note: Tamar Weinberg is Mashable’s Director of Community.
Want the nitty gritty details of social media success? Weinberg (the Queen of Smart) has literally hundreds of great tips in this book. Some of the gems include: submitting your blog to various directories (a simple but often overlooked step), learning how to run contests on Twitter to drive traffic, how to become a power account user on the social news sites, and how to use Yahoo! Answers to create thought leadership for your brand.So that’s the scoop. Five killer social media must-reads. This is a tech democracy we’re living in here – where the net and content overcomes traditional media gatekeeping. These 5 books are your roadmap to becoming a social media rockstar in 2010 – rock on!
