This book is aimed at managers, business owners, marketing managers, and aspiring social media marketing interns and managers. I will assume that however accomplished in your own field - baker, developer, teacher and that even as successful business owners, you approach the topic of social media marketing as a beginner. Even if you are an avid personal user of social networks, we will treat this book as a guided tour of social media for marketing purposes.
Like many of my Generation X peers, I began using forums and chat rooms in the early 1990's and have watched social networks come and go (AOL and Yahoo chat rooms, Friendster, Myspace) - To those not inclined to spend countless hours online over the past couple of decades, it may seem as if things change too often.
For others, particularly those born into the technology, aka digital natives, social networks as with most technology, are second nature to you, but not having work experience may leave you perplexed as to what your boss / client / customers really want from you as a social media manager.
If you fall within either one of these audiences, this book is for you. I will do my best to help you sort out a basic understanding of the why of social media as a marketing tool for business, for personal brand building, and perhaps more importantly, where to find supporting information and research to help you design, monitor, test, and re-define a social media marketing strategy.
Like many of my Generation X peers, I began using forums and chat rooms in the early 1990's and have watched social networks come and go (AOL and Yahoo chat rooms, Friendster, Myspace) - To those not inclined to spend countless hours online over the past couple of decades, it may seem as if things change too often.
For others, particularly those born into the technology, aka digital natives, social networks as with most technology, are second nature to you, but not having work experience may leave you perplexed as to what your boss / client / customers really want from you as a social media manager.
If you fall within either one of these audiences, this book is for you. I will do my best to help you sort out a basic understanding of the why of social media as a marketing tool for business, for personal brand building, and perhaps more importantly, where to find supporting information and research to help you design, monitor, test, and re-define a social media marketing strategy.
This open book is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY). You can download Intro to Social Media ebook for free in PDF format (1.0 MB).