Mental Monday: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web by Tamar Weinberg part 2

Good Morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.

Today as promised (although a bit late, sorry) is part 2 of my review of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the social web.

As you know I loved the first half of this book and now looking at the second half…  This is a much more hands on part of the book, with where to go and what to do when you get there references.

My favourite parts are: (all direct quotes)

• the most successful Twitter users are those who engage in facilitating and building friendships.  Some of the most successful business entities are those that actively monitor the conversation, show concern for the well-being of their customers, and provide in-depth and quick customer service
• In reality, Twitter has proven itself to be a reputation management tool, but it is also a tool that brings people all over the world closer together for business and personal goals
• If you’re looking to Twitter as a source of income, consider a strategy that allows you to broadcast sales that you can offer your Twitter followers exclusively
• When you provide value to your followers, you will find that more people will become aware of you
• How can you acquire customers on Twitter?  It’s as simple as monitoring for your competitors or industry terms and then participating in the conversation when it seems right
• “social networks” and “social networking sites” are generic terms that are used to connect users with similar backgrounds and interests
• The best-performing Facebook pages are those that provide compelling and engaging content.
• MySpace works very well as a social network that lets you meet new users.  It does not support third-party applications nor does it have a company-specific pages
• LinkedIn is best for finding potential clients, service provider, subject experts and colleagues
• Yahoo! Answers can, therefore, be a very powerful social media marketing tool, as it can drive traffic and awareness.
• The biggest benefit to sharing knowledge is that you’re arming individuals with information that enhances their opinion of your credibility
• While social bookmarking services exist to help you centralise a list of your favourite websites in a single location, the goal really is for social sharing, and that’s exactly what today’s social bookmarking accomplishes
• Social news websites, like social bookmarking sites, are communities that let you submit web content in the form of articles, videos or pictures.
• for the most part, promoting yourself using only one medium won’t yield the biggest success.  In fact, for the best ROI, you will likely need to focus your energies on multiple online properties
• For most individuals and organisation, however, a long-term engagement will require a long-term commitment.  Just like any type of promotional tactic, social media marketing is hard work.

There are lots more gems in this book, and I also like the Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook which Tamar has taken from a blog post – this is worth a read, as it is really all about how to behave online – believe me I can think of A LOT of people who would benefit from just reading that!

All in all I would really recommend this book for anyone looking for a one-stop shop to social media marketing, some of it is slightly out of date now, but it is still a good resource for those just starting as well as those with more experience.

If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought….