Starr Hall - The Social Wave: Why Your Business is Wiping Out With Social Media and How to Fix It

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I have a young child and every once in a while Im forced to endure a few hours of video game noise, irritating music, screaming children, frazzled parents, and an unsympathetic adolescent staff at the local Chuck-E-Cheese. When Im there, however, I secretly enjoy playing the Whack-A-Mole game. You know, the one where you whack the moles but its never enough because another one always pops up. Well, thats how I feel about the thousands of new, self-proclaimed, social media experts. It seems like, wherever I turn, another one has popped up.

The current form of social media is really only about five years young. How then, can you have so many people, so expert, at something so new? You might have people who understand how the tools work and can speak the language of social media but, to be a true expert, you need years and years of experience in marketing, PR, and social media. There are really only a few of those types of experts. Starr Hall is one of them.

The mistake many experts seem to make with social media is that they get so busy with the trees (tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that they forget the forest (the way all the tools should work together to create a successful, big-picture strategy). The same is true for many books about social media. Countless authors approach social media piecemeala book on Twitter or a book on Facebook.

Its easy to break something down, as Ive done here. Its harder to build something better in its place. Starr Hall, however, has done it. In fact, I think shes written the perfect book on social media marketing because shes approached the subject from a holistic perspective. Her book will help you create a big-picture strategy for your social marketing and understand the exact tools you need to make it work as well as how to use them.

While reading the book, I heard myself saying, wow again and again. I was continuously surprised at how many social media questions, issues, and concerns Starr addresses. Looking back over the book, hard as I tried, I couldnt find a tactic, strategy, or concept missing. Literally, this book covers everything you need to know about social media marketing.

Of course, just thinking about starting what seems to be the uphill trek of social media marketing can tie knots in your stomach and glue your feet to the floor. I totally get it. But it doesnt have to be overwhelming or intimidating. Social media, at its core, is about being social. That you can do. Youve been connecting emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually with other people all of your life. Now you just need to do it consciously, using technology as nothing more than a platform. If you do so, with greater awareness and a strategy to boot, it will naturally become as comfortable as a day at the beachwith your laptop, that is.

The first step is to change your perspective on networking. Typical (and traditional) networking conjures up nightmares of the old-school business mentality of scarcity and fear that asks:

The modern social media strategy should be filled with generosity and grace and ask:

Furthermore, when we use the word networking, lets think of connecting, instead. Does that help you fall in love with the concept of networking? We dont get contacts, we dont find contacts, we dont have contacts; we make connections with people.

Your networking and ultimately, business success, is determined by other people and how they respond to you. If you keep asking yourself the preceding value-added questions, youll create a large and powerful network built on compassion, trust, and integrity, a network that is priceless and will reap rewards for years to come.

Oscar Wilde, once said, Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. When being social online, offline, or in line, for that matter, leave a trail of happiness and others will follow you.

Think big,

Michael Port

New York Times bestselling author of four books including Book Yourself Solid

www.MichaelPort.com

Twitter: @michaelport.com

It wasnt more than a decade ago when businesses large and small were investing hundreds even thousands of dollars in advertising and paying people a lot of money to write powerful marketing copy for their campaigns. Now businesses are starting to invest not only their money but their time in a new form of marketingsocial media. However, most businesses have no idea what they are doing with this new form of marketing, let alone how to make this marketing vehicle work in growing their brand exposure and ultimately drive sales. This book aims to solve these problems and guide youthe business owner, marketing director, brand manager, entrepreneurin how to utilize quick, easy strategies about online marketing and social media, and how to avoid what just doesnt work. My first book, Get Connected: The Social Networking Toolkit for Business, was created to highlight the basics of social networking and online marketing, along with a few get-started strategies to get you better results right away. The emails, posts, feedback, and comments I received have been somewhat overwhelming, so I figured that I had struck a cord with most readers. Therefore, I am back with The Social Wavebasically social media and online marketing on steroids, a more intermediate and advanced approach than Get Connected. Some of our greatest lessons can come from our attempts and tests. Therefore in this book, I will share my journey, mistakes, suggestions, hair-pulling-out social interactions, successes, and challenges. Basically this is me being transparent: a teacher, friend, mentor, student, and well... marketer. I will also share stories from studies, surveys, and a few friends of mine that have been successful online with their efforts. Take what you want and what feels right to you. Although I should say leave the rest behind, I would like to ask that you consider all approaches, suggestions, and resources in this book to help you grow your business and take it to a higher level financially and/or emotionally.

So why me? Why am I writing on social media and online marketing? Well, I didnt just fall into social media and online marketing. I flew into it. More than five years ago, when I decided to sell my public relations agency and travel the globe to present and train business owners on their branding and public relations, I was completely motivated by the social movement. I started to notice a shift in the communications industry when dealing with the media as they were moving to less phone pick-up and more email answering. As I began to move my own communications online, I noticed conversations forming and, more important, how easy it was to contact decision makers, and movers and shakersand get almost instant media coverage for clients and me. This online world was moving at a speedboat pace, and I wanted to be on board. I was ready. I embraced it. I dug into it. I learned all I could and continued to become a part of the conversations more and more every single day.