Review by A. S. Johnson:

This book is a good way to get familiar with online social tools. The author covers ways to use email, social networking tools and publishing tools. He has good information about establishing some goals and determining a strategy for meeting the goals. He also has a lot of useful references if you want to get more familiar with a particular topic.

I only gave it three stars for the following reasons:

– Too much coverage of the history of the internet, email, and web pages. If I was interested in that, I’d get a book on the history of the internet, email, and web pages.

– Misinformation on some tools, and missing information about other tools. For instance, the author mentions Joomla, a content management system that can be used to create websites and blogs. He mentions it in a way that may mislead people as to its uses when he states that it can pair with any number of applications. It might work with other applications, but that may require coding skills or money to pay someone to make them work together. He also ignores the multitude of other open source content management systems that are out there.

– A serious amount of repetition in sections one and two. A lot of what is stated in the second section is already in the first, so it added a few hundred pages without saying a whole lot.

This is a good book. It’s less complete than the title suggests.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

Great book! Loved it! It’s huge and heavy and not particularly pricey. I found it to be well organized and well written. And it was certainly packed to the gills with content. There are 43 chapters split into three different sections: (1) Background basics & tactics, (2) Tools, & (3) Strategy. The chapters in the first part provide an introduction and framework regarding the book. The numerous chapters in the second part cover 100+ social media tools. And the last five or six chapters in the third part can help you do an audit of the social media marketing your company does (or doesn’t do).

The book is comprehensive. I haven’t seen a book that covers so much and in such depth on the topic of social media marketing (or Internet Marketing). There were a ton of “Expert Insights” sprinkled throughout the text that really made the book shine. And each chapter ended with three summaries: (1) Commandments, (2) Conclusion, & (3) Readings & Resources. Each were well done. In particular the Readings & Resources for each chapter were better than most books have at the end of an entire book. 6 stars!

PS. To see the chapter titles and how the book is specifically organized I encourage you to peek at the Search Inside feature Amazon offers for this book. With 43 chapters there are a lot of chapter titles to read.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved this book. Over the past year or so I have read quite a number of tomes regarding social media and social media marketing, but none until this one have been written in a planner or workbook format. This one is well written, well organized, and full of content. It has 14 chapters split into the following four parts or sections:

I. The Foundation of Social Media

II. Month 1: Prepare for Social Marketing

III. Month 2: Social Media Channels

IV. Month 3: Complete Your Plan

Two books similar to this one on how to put together a business plan are: “16 Weeks to Your Dream Business” (ISBN: 9780071588362, and “Self Employment: From Dream to Reality” (ISBN: 1563709228). And a book similar to this one on how to put together a fundraising plan is: “The Fundraising Planner” (ISBN: 0787944351). The instant book being reviewed touches on the marketing issues of social media, and then devises a systematic approach to putting together a social media marketing plan customized to your small business.

Each of the 14 chapters ended with a summary section. I found it very easy to cruise through this book by first reading the summary sections and then tackling the rest of the book after having a pretty good idea of what was being covered.

After reading this book you will have devised a social media marketing plan that addresses (1) platform, (2) content, and (3) interaction. You will have decided whether to use Technorati, MySpace, Socialvibe, Flickr, Facebook, Friendster, Linkedin, and/or YouTube. Technorati is the tunnel through which to learn more about the blog or blogs you will create.

So if you want to tap into the power of the Social Web through connected networks and consumer-oriented media, then I recommend this book as one of the tomes you seek out and read in order to build your company’s social media marketing plan. 5 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside feature at Amazon for this book. There you can access the book’s Table of Contents and see exactly what is covered.

Review by Robert G. Johnson:

I had been on the waiting list of Amazon.com for over 3 months waiting for this book to be released and it is exactly what I hoped for. I’m actually only 108 pages through it now as I “peeked” at all the self help guides that the author has in the appendix. I want to jump right in and get it going but Dave’s advice to take your time and learn the hows and whys is so important.

I was not looking for a social commentary on social media but wanted to know the ins and out, nuts and bolts, on how to implement a successful marketable strategy and this book does it.

Only this morning I actually went to the blog and sent an email to the author, Dave, and was surprised that within a few minutes he had responded . Talk about getting more than a book!!

What is so engaging is the author is energetic, evangelistic in his zeal to help others, and willing to share to make this journey easier for others to follow. It’s a step by step guide for an emerging dynamic field which is affecting us now and will do so far into the future.

I’m glad this book exists and is so affordable and even happier the author is willing and able to help us along.

Bob Johnson

Review by David M. Freedman:

Qualman insightfully advises companies to patiently build relationships with customers through social media, rather than instantly getting a customer’s name and e-mail address into its database. “Good businesses realize that it’s not all about the instant win of getting someone into a database,” he says. “Rather it is cultivating that relationship via social media. If it’s done correctly, you will have a relationship that lasts a lifetime.” Throughout the book he tries, but doesn’t quite succeed, to show how to “correctly” cultivate such relationships.

Another insight: He says on page 111 that marketers will need to create content (news, entertainment, and how-to information, for example) for their websites, not just advertising messages.

Unfortunately, insights like those are few and far between.

Qualman’s platitudinous premise is stated in the introduction, and again in the conclusion:

“It’s all about the economy, stupid. No, it’s all about a people-driven economy, stupid. If anything, I hope that you have learned this from reading this book.”

(In the introduction, Qualman explained that the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” was coined in 1992 by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager. Qualman merely “adjusted” that phrase to create the book’s alleged premise.)

After reading the book, I still don’t have the slightest idea how the “people-driven economy” differs from “the economy.” Or what the adjusted phrase means.

This book is full of superficial anecdotes and miniscule case studies, platitudes and generalizations, unsupported opinions, idle speculation, specious claims, inconsistent style, imprecise language, typos, and bad punctuation.

In some of Qualman’s examples, I couldn’t tell whether the facts were real or hypothetical. In many of the micro-case studies, he shows how a company accomplished a certain objective through social media, but does not establish that the objectives could not have been accomplished more cost-effectively through other marketing channels.

He describes the case of Dancing Matt–about Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing around the world and put his videos on YouTube. The videos were hugely popular, so Stride Gum sponsored his further travels and video production. Stride exercised restraint and placed its logo discreetly at the end of the video (in the post roll). Qualman claims Stride earned “millions of dollars in brand equity,” but does not support that claim with any data or sources. Is it his own guesstimate, or did the company tell him it earned “millions”? No clue.

He claims that social media activities “connect parents to their kids like never before.” He offers no source, data, or study to support that statement, and he is clearly not qualified to offer that opinion.

Regarding microblogging, he says, “What once took place only periodically around the watercooler [sic] is now happening in real time.” Huh? What can be more real-time than water cooler conversations?

He says (on page 52) that micro-blogging functions as a kind of log that you can look back on–at the end of a day or week or month–and review your posts and updates. “It’s extremely enlightening because it shows you how you are spending what precious time you have.” Ah, yes, it’s not only improving the way parents relate to their kids, it’s therapeutic as well.

As a downside of social media, he says, Generation Y and Z [are having] difficulty with face-to-face conversations.” No support for that claim. Is that his personal observation? He’s a marketer, not a sociologist.

He says that staying connected, through social media, to the people who elected Obama president will be the “key to his success as president.” The key!

He says social media “allows for a government to be more in tune with the country and to truly run as a democracy by stripping away the politics and getting to the core of what matters.” Uh huh.

He recites marketing platitudes that have been true for decades or centuries, but treats them as though social media makes them especially true. An example: “Companies that produce great products and services…will be winners in the socialnomic world.”

Here is an example of idle speculation. Qualman uses an example involving NBC’s failure to put its 2008 Olympics coverage online in certain circumstances. “Most likely, NBC and their advertisers…were judging themselves using old metrics…” Sorry, you can’t prove a point with a “most likely.” Qualman could have contacted NBC’s marketing department and asked them why they didn’t. But that would have required real journalism.

Regarding the concept of network neutrality (although he doesn’t use that phrase), Qualman says that if Internet service providers start charging for usage (“per stream”) rather than a fixed monthly fee, that would be “malicious.”

Qualman devotes almost five pages (perhaps the longest case study in the book) to the Scrabulous case, where the Agarwalla brothers created an online game similar to Scrabble, which they called Scrabulous and which attracted 500,000 daily users at its peak. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble brand, issued a cease-and-desist letter and pushed Scrabulous off the web. Qualman excoriates Hasbro for being heavy-handed in the case, and he quotes several other marketing professionals who likewise criticize Hasbro for being short-sighted. Yet Qualman presents not a single quote or statement from Hasbro, nor does he speculate as to why Hasbro’s believed its legal action was necessary.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Review by Justin S. Dickinson:

At first thought I would give this a 3 out of 5 stars. However it is so comprehensive with regards to social media and the impact it is and will have on commerce and marketing I am giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.

At times I found the author to be right on the mark and quite insightful and at other times I found myself thinking that the incredibly insightful person who wrote the book had been kidnapped, forced to drink the “social media Kool-Aid” and live with Care Bears for 45 days, thus morphing his sense of society.

Having said that, this is absolutely well worth the read. But if you find yourself from time to time thinking “where is this guy coming from?” ignore your apprehension and just read on to the next section, he will come back to reality and it will get good again.

Review by Brad Shorr:

More than anything, The New Rules of Marketing & PR ties things together. The book provides an easy to understand yet comprehensive view of the new online marketplace–a landscape that can appear quite bewildering, even to marketing specialists. With so many options at our fingertips (literally), where do we start? Blogs? Podcasts? Public relations? SEO? Paid search? Viral marketing? The list goes on. To make matters worse, technology is changing and new tools are developing almost every day.

In the early chapters, David takes a high altitude look at online marketing options, showing us how they developed, why they’re important, how they work, and why they work. In later “Action Plan” chapters, he jumps into the trenches and shows us how to actually use the tools and implement programs. Throughout, he uses detailed case studies to illustrate not only the programs but the amazing results they can achieve.

But it isn’t just the latest and greatest technologies that are crucially important. Public relations, for example, has been around since Gutenberg but for the first time is practical for a small company. Traditional PR was cost-prohibitive and dependent on unreachable key media contacts. But in the new world–

“…your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers.” (Chapter 5)

Today, public relations may be the single most underutilized tool in the marketing arsenal.

Another “old” technology David brings us up to speed on is the corporate Web site. In fact, the three most important points I got out of The New Rules of Marketing & PR have enormous implications on traditional Web development.

Those key points are–

1. The most important New Rule is CONTENT. Design is important. Technology is important. But without extraordinary content, you’re doomed.

2. Interruption marketing (think spam and pop-up ads) has given way to consumer-driven marketing. Yippee! “The Web is different. Instead of one-way interruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it.” (Chapter 1)

3. The starting point for any New Rule program is to create customer personas. If you’re going to have extraordinary content that motivates buyers to take action, you’d better know your customers inside-out.

David explains how these three principles should influence not only your corporate Web site, but every other online program you undertake.

Thankfully, David is understandable as well as instructive. One reason I’ve enjoyed his blog for over a year is his conversational, entertaining writing style. He makes learning easy (which is harder to do than you might think). Anyway, his book is just like his blog–illuminating and fun.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR presents the most complete picture of any book I’ve read. For the marketing specialist, it will fill in the gaps. For the generalist, it will open up a whole new world.

Review by Jill Konrath:

By embracing the strategies in this book , you will totally transform your business. David Meerman Scott shows you a multitude of ways to propel your company to a thought leadership position in your market and drive sales – all without a huge budget.

From my perspective, the best thing about this book is that everyone can gain value from it. There are so many places you can start applying these new rules of marketing and PR. For example, I’m an experienced blogger, considered an expert in my field and already have a strong online presence. Yet I’m immediately going to start applying the lessons in Chapter 14: How to Use News Releases to Reach Buyers Directly.

Here’s what else I like about this book:

1. The author includes numerous examples from a variety of businesses in different industries & sizes that have all used these strategies for success.

2. The book shows you multiple venues to reach your buyers directly. This circumvents the high costs of mainstream media enabling firms who are running bootstrap operations to compete with the big boys.

3. The “how to” guidelines on leveraging news releases in a web-based world are excellent. You’ll learn how to create news on a regular basis, capitalize on various distribution services, focus on key words/phrases in your writing that are used by your buyers, and incorporate social media tags.

4. The insights on optimizing a website’s online media room for search engines is another easy-to-implement technique with high payback.

In summary, I guarantee you that your investment in this book will be paid back many times.

~ Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies

Review by Kristen:

I really enjoyed this book and found it both extremely thought provoking and practical. It has some smart insights, introduces a clear framework for understanding and approaching social media marketing and then explains the specifics of how to market on each of the social media platforms while recognizing that this is part of the marketing puzzle and not the whole one. It really seems like a one stop shop in terms of covering the basics, the more strategic concepts (including mobile social media) and the practicalities of what you can “buy” and “earn” across the social web. I definitely recommend this book to read. Its thoughtful, specific and actionable and not hype driven. The author obviously has a lot of experience in this space and it shows.

Review by Andrea Harrison:

Great resource for marketers looking to incorporate social strategies and tactics but not sure where to begin. Covers a wide variety of topics which makes it helpful for anyone needing best practices and tips regardless of industry or market size. Well done Shiv!

Review by Manny Hernandez:

I just finished reading Dan Zarrella’s book and I am very impressed. If you are new to the world of social media or wondering how to make it fit your marketing strategy, this book is a perfect starting point. Dan lays out all the dimensions of social media in an easy-to-understand way, outlining the do’s and don’t's for each of them. It doesn’t pretend to be a Bible of the topic: for in-depth tactics for each leg of your social media marketing strategy, you will need to pick up other titles. But it gives you a very complete feel for what lies ahead, should you want to market your brand through social media, something that you will soon realize not to be an option but a must.

Review by David J. Perdue:

In the increasingly complex world of social media, how do you begin to successfully engage in social media marketing for your business? Dan Zarrella has responded to that question with “The Social Media Marketing Book.” It’s a quick read. But the small book is packed with useful information for those itching to jump into the social media marketing fray.

The book’s organization is quite user-friendly and begins with a brief introduction to social media. The bulk of the book then focuses on presenting a concise history, definition, and description of the various types of social media: blogging, Twitter/microblogging, social networking, media sharing, social news and bookmarking, ratings and reviews, forums, and virtual worlds. I found each section both helpful and interesting, especially appreciating the author’s conciseness.

The final two chapters–one on strategy, another on measurement–are some of the most important. As I went through the strategy chapter, I was highlighting different bits of advice and enjoyed his discussion of “call to action” (CTA) in which you, the marketer, try to engage visitors on your website. The measurement chapter stresses the importance of goals and describes several tools you can use to measure return on investment and engagement as a result of your social media marketing efforts.

Overall, I found Zarrella’s guide a helpful resource on understanding and applying social media for business. Note that the book is an introductory guide, so don’t expect to find profound social media strategies if you’re already an experienced social media marketer. Nevertheless, I appreciated the nuggets of wisdom throughout this survey of social media marketing.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I loved it. What a book. These days there are many books on the market that address the basics or the theory regarding online marketiing and the Social Web. At this point I have trouble giving them super high review ratings because they don’t bring much new to the table. One such book I recently reviewed was e-Riches 2.0: Next-Generation Marketing Strategies for Making Millions Online. As a result of my less than glowing review (even though I gave it 4 stars) I got hit with 5 neggies. Anyway, the instant book does not go too heavy on the basics or theory. It is a practical book for the do-it-yourselfer who wants to be lead by the hand on how set up their online presence using social media and Web 2.0 tools. It is well organized and well written and includes an introduction, 15 chapters, and 4 appendices as follows:

0. Introduction

1. Creating your social media strategy

2. Preparation

3. RSS feeds & blogs

4. Building a WordPress powered Web site

5. Podcasting, vidcasting, & Webcasting

6. Social networking & micro-blogging

7. Social bookmarking & crowd-sourcing

8. Media communities

9. Widgets & badges

10. Social media newsrooms

11. More social tools

12. Pulling it all together

13. Looking to the future

14. Measuring your success

15. Conclusion

A. Installing WordPress

B. Creating your own RSS feed

C. Building your own widget

D. WordPress 2.7

Clearly the author is partial to WordPress-dot-com. But there’s nothing wrong with that. WordPress offers great tools and it is a very nice service provider. Chapter 4 talks about WordPress. Appendix A describes the process for setting up WordPress. And Appendix D is kind of a supplemental blurb to Appendix A. I found the Introduction to be great. Chapter 1 on strategy was great, and chapters 12 through 15 were wonderful, too. Chapters 2-11 did a good job of providing tools and tactics to be used in building your online presence.

Building a meaningful and productive online presence is all about (1) interactivity, (2) sharing, & (3) collaboration. This book will tell you what you need to know to get involved online, build your presence, and interact, share and collaborate. 5 stars!

Review by C. A. Lajos:

With the development of the constantly evolving Internet and its new technologies, more individuals and businesses are realizing that success on the Internet requires maximizing their presences in the Social Web. Here Hay (graduate education in computer science, applied mathematics, and psychology; principal owner, Dalton Publishing, and Social Media Power; founder, PlumbSocial.com; regular contributor to many journals and online news sites), an author, programmer, publisher, social media consultant, Web 2.0 developer, and dynamic presenter, provides an outstanding guide to social media and Web 2.0 optimization. Writing for authors, business owners, entrepreneurs, public relations specialists, marketing professionals, publishers, students, and others, she shows readers how to apply and integrate social media tools not limited to blogs, RSS feeds, content management systems, podcasts, videocasts, webcasts, social networks, microblogs, social bookmarks, crowd-sourcing technologies, media communities, widgets, badges, and social media newsrooms. By means of various chapters that are filled with numerous real-world examples and step-by-step screenshots, the author covers the aforementioned nuts-and-bolts technologies of the new, open-source Internet, but she also goes well beyond the basics. Setting forth proven strategies and tactics, future technologies, measurement tools, and more, Hay provides more in depth guidance from a business perspective. While her book can be read from cover-to-cover, it also can be consulted on an as-needed, chapter-by-chapter basis. It includes many useful, value-added features such as detailed appendices and a companion CD with bibliographies, directories, forms, links to other resources, and worksheets. Easy-to-read, but not a beginner’s guide, this expertly-presented, comprehensive, extensive publication will best serve readers who have some background knowledge of the social web and its tools. A significant, worthwhile resource, it belongs in many large public library collections. Highly recommended.

Review by Bhavana Musuluri:

I’m stealing one of the often used words in the book to define the book itself – remarkable. This book is fantastic and easy to read. As you read each chapter, the authors take you through each step in successfully marketing your products. This book is not filled with theories, but it rather cleverly explains each winning strategy which is relevant in this day and age, and then sums up each chapter with a list of things to do to implement the strategy. The best part is that anybody who is willing to invest time and brains can use this book as a reference and start creating value to their company immediately and of course build on it overtime. The book shows new techniques that doesn’t require an old-school marketing guru with tens of years of experience. In fact, a person with a little bit of creativity can use this book to REALLY get customers and sell their products.

Couple of other things that I liked about the book are the particular examples (other organizations/blog articles/etc) that were provided and the cartoons – who doesn’t enjoy a chuckle every few pages?

Absolute bang for your buck and once you pick up the book, you will finish it!

Review by Neil Davidson:

This excellent book is aimed at the 99% of the business world who are faintly befuddled by the strange world of youtube and delicious that they find themselves living in. It’s aimed at plumbers, hairdressers, lawyers and oil company executives; at people in large corporations and small businesses alike who are dimly aware that their working lives are about to change – indeed, have already started to change in disconcerting ways – and who don’t know what to do.

The premise of the book is that the old marketing is dead or dying. Gone are the days where simply throwing money at print or radio advertising guaranteed succees. Instead, you need to engage your customers. Give them reasons to come to visit your web site, and once they are there give them reasons to come back again and again. Turn your web site into a hub, stuffed with remarkable blog posts, videos and interviews. As the authors put it (they have a pleasing way with words) “ten years ago, your marketing effectiveness was a function of the width of your wallet. Today, your marketing effectiveness is a function of the width of your brain.”

“Inbound marketing” is clearly – and explicitly – inspired by authors such as Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott. But where this book differs is in its emphasis on hands-on advice. Not only is it inspirational, but it’s also brimming with practical wisdom. Sure, it talks about the power of Twitter. But then it gives you advice on how to choose a twitter handle. Sure, it talks about the rise of the superstar blogger and the death of the press release. But then it talks about how to decide whether you need a PR agency and, if you do, then how you should hire one. Sure, it stresses that your employees will need to learn new skills if they are to survive in this new world. But then it talks about what those skills are, what steps your employees need to take to get them and how you can track how they’re doing. Each chapter contains a checklist of things you should do, right now, to start improving your inbound marketing.

This is no dry textbook. It’s full of anecdotes, some from the usual suspects (Whole Foods, Zappos and Barack Obama) but from others too: accounting software, a shutter manufacturer and a PR firm among others. It’s well written, and there are cartoons too.

Inbound marketing – get found using Google, social media and blogs is an excellent, mainstream introduction to new marketing. If you want to dip your toes into the cold water of social media then buy a copy. If you know all about social media then you almost certainly know people who need this book. Buy them a copy from Amazon. They’ll love you for it.