The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users

Is social media a science or is it an art? Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick contend it is an art and make a strong case to support that in The Art of Social Media. It is true there are tools that can and should be used if you are going to maximize your presence and reach on social media today. You will learn about many of those but applying and using those tools along with your own common sense is more of an art.Take, for example, this quote from the book,“At its foundation, social media is simple: if you share good stuff.”But how do you find good stuff to share and how then do you share it and when is the best time to share it and how many times do you share it? All of these questions are answered in The Art of Social Media.This book has a wealth of information you will refer back to from time to time as needed. It will be your go-to resource for social media and will put you ahead of many, especially those who choose not to get their own copy and digest the information for themselves.I love this advice given regarding comments.“I have a one-strike rule: I delete inappropriate comments (profanity, racism, and off-topic rabbit holes) and flag trolls and spammers on the first occurrence without hesitation. Life is too short to deal with orifices.”Were you aware how many pictures you can share with a tweet?“You can add up to four pictures to a tweet, which is sweet.”And, in those photos…“Tag People in Your Photos You can tag up to ten people per photo, and the tag doesn’t affect the character count of your tweet.”You will learn how to optimize your posts for most of the major social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, SlideShare and YouTube.There is much too much information in this book to try to even hit the highlights in a review. Let me just give you my recommendation. I have read it and think it is well worth the cost if improving your presence and engagement on social media is something you desire either for your personal blog traffic, much like me, or for your business. This is an invaluable resource that will help you achieve that goal. Get yours today!

The title was the first thing that attracted me to this book. Specifically the first three words “The Art of…” I look at most things involving the Internet as an art form not a science. In the grand scheme of things the Internet is SO new that there hasn't been enough time to write all the rules and turn it into a science.If the rules ever do get written Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick are probably two of the people that will help write them. In less than 200 pages they lay out the best practices for anyone who is taking their social media seriously.To get the most from "The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users" a basic understanding of the major social-media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc…) would be help, but no in-depth knowledge is necessary to understand this book. By the time you are done you will have more than a basic understand of several of them.The 12 chapters are broken down into 123 easy to digest segments. I bought the hardcover book, but in hindsight I wish I had gotten the Kindle version. There are lots of hyperlinks in book to various, examples, apps and services mentioned in the book. I can, and did Google and found the ones I was interested pretty easily, but it was an unnecessary step if I had the digital copy. The book itself is 5”x7 1/4” and is very easy to carry around with you. I kept mine in the front pocket of my briefcase for the week it took me to read the book.I will say that I have read several of the tips before, for free on-line. You could probably find most, if not all posted someplace for free, but it would take a lot of time and bother to find them all. If you are planning on using social-media for than to kill time at work this book is a great first step to doing things right. If like me you have been using social media for business for a few years this book will help you to refine your approach and improve your results.

I read a lot of mix reviews about this book. A lot of the bad ones refer to the fact that Guy Kawasaki has already a growing fan base were is "fairly easy" to try and experiment with the way content goes, and it's not really helpful for people just starting, and that he only advices about pages he has already tried and/or he works for.- I don't think going viral is easy. Nor predictable. So I appreciate when someone offers his advice on how he does things, although it doesn't relate completely with what I do. Guy does posts on technology and social media. I have an architecture based page, but I can apply his advice to my situation.- Tips and advices are not to take literally, its not a science where 2+2=4. He does say in the book no one can be called an expert, because you can't predict how social media is going to be.- He does advice to use Canva, for instante, a company he works for, and I think for someone who doesn't have a design background is a great app. But If you don't want to use, then don't. Simple as that.- Of course he has a huge fanbase... Would you take advice of someone who doesn't have a huge fanbase?- Yes, there's a lot of books about social media. I've read a few and I can honestly say that is really hard to find someone that says things so clear. I want to know how to do things. I don't want definitions of what is social media or whatever. This book is straight forward, and I love that about it.- Nobody seems to be talking about Peg Fitzpatrick, the best discovery of this book.- And finally, I believe this book is for someone with a small to medium size fanbase, and its a great tool to engage those people even further.

Would have been great back on the day, but it’s now outdated. The digital world moves too fast.

Terribe.....superficial and flat. This book offers no real insight unless you consider hints about social media such as "be interesting", "be helpful" of some value. For most readers these are self-evident facts...for these readers this book offers nothing.I am very annoyed for having purchased this book.

The book offers nothing new; I read it from cover to cover in a couple of hours and found nothing that I hadn't already read online. Chances are you've already been reading up on social media marketing if you're looking at buying this - if so, you'll probably have already read the majority of tips laid out in this book.

This little gem of a book is packed full of practical tools and tips to help navigate the fast changing world of social media. Written in 2014, it’s still very relevant. Buy this book and start rocking social media. Your future success depends on it.

I'm a marketing professional with some knowledge of social media, but far from an expert.Some good and interesting points highlighted throughout the book that I didn't know. Lots of fluff though that most people probably know already, and you have to read this to find the real gems of information.I managed to read the book in around 3 hours.