2. In this book the title promises the reader that reading this
book will help you to "master" business social media,
which is a huge claim since mastery of anything implies
that you are the best of whatever it is. Reading this book
will not do that unfortunately. But what this book will do
is provide creative and sound fundamentals to start
implementing a social media practice into your business
right now.
3. As I mentioned in previous book reviews, I judge a book's
value by the number of colorful little tabs I have marked in
the book while reading. These tabs represent new ideas or
concepts that I want to make a special note of or parts of
the book that I would like to visit again to research further.
This book had a large number of tabs! Many of these tabs
introduced me to a new idea or a tip, which is great.
However, in the case of this book many of these tabs
represent concepts that are already widely known but still
a fundamental idea I wanted to note.
4. I'd like to give the author a break regarding subject matter
complexity since you never really know what level of
expertise the reader has on social media. It is always good
to go over the fundamentals, which Gitomer does, but he
also gets about as complex as you can with this topic as
well. As someone who has been studying social media for
quite some time, I understand going over fundamentals
like this get's tedious and boring, but it is still worth
revisiting. There is very little new in the book but Gitomer
does add a few fresh ideas to tackle your social media
plan. I particularly liked the chapter dedicated to LinkedIn
which is, in my opinion, an important social site for
business. LinkedIn often gets left out of other social media
books or is just barely mentioned, but in Social Boom the
features and approaches for LinkedIn networking are
5. Social Boom reads well for a motivational business tool
book. The chapters are short, the tone is aggressive
(sometimes a little arrogant), and the author provides
breaks in the reading with special hints, tips or single page
power messages. The flow and organization of the book is
perfect for a learning tool because it's a fast paced read.
The author uses highlighting, shadow boxing, large
fonts, and bullet pointed lists to the max, but it works on a
topic like this where the learning strategy is about
repetition and focus, rather than in analysis.
7. Overall I liked the book, specifically for getting refreshed
and re-motivated with my social media plan. There was
nothing earth shatteringly new but nevertheless a good
fast paced approach to cover the basics and Gitomer does
bring some fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. The
book only took me one evening to read, so it moves fast
due to the salesy big font styles and short, but
valuable, chapters. This is a great book to give to your
employees or just get for your own library. Keep it on the
shelf, place mark your favorite highlights and re-visit from
time to time to pick up a little motivation.
