Review by Jill Florio:
This dummies book provides a good grounding in the uses of Facebook. As with all technology books, it’s *already* a tad dated, even though it’s publish-date is this year (2008!). Applications and their popularity ebb and flow – some of the third party applications they’ve mentioned I have not once encountered (ie – Fluff Friends), and some daily requests I get deluged with are not mentioned at all. I can’t turn around, for example, without someone sending me a Lil’ Green Patch, guilting me into sending out more green patches. It’s like a charity virus.

What the book is really for, though, is a novice through beginner’s journey into the social network that is Facebook. The guide begins with how Facebook started, what the term “face book” means (hint – it’s a college thing) and things you can and cannot do on this site.

What can’t you do? Troll. Lie about who you are. Be under 13. Upload illegal content or porn – sorry!

What you can do – post a profile. Add photos, find friends, join groups, make pages for your business, plan events, mess with all kinds of fun applications, join up to five networks, make a newsfeed, sell things and buy advertising.

It’s useful that some mention is made of how many friends to acquire. DO you be-friend everyone who asks? The book suggests quality over quantity – always useful advice in making friends in the meat world as well. What exactly Facebooking is, in practice, is laid out: how to find friends, how to “poke” them, and how to manage your ever-growing FB friend lists.

The Adding Photos chapter is pretty comprehensive and moves on into adding videos, writing Wall posts and giving “gifts.”

One thing I found interesting and useful was the section on setting up FB with cell phones, something I had not tried prior to the reading. Of course, young people who’ve grown up with texting won’t find anything new here.

The book has a great section for business people who have not been weaned on social networking – there is a chart advising when to make profiles, pages or groups, what you can do with events, how to set up ads and find/nurture “fans” of your business. This information should be extremely useful for anyone with a small or home business wanting to explore the amazing potential of free marketing/networking with Facebook, which is, honestly, a pretty intuitive site to dive into.

One thing I would have appreciated would have been some more insights from the authors on how FaceBook has impacted their lives and the lives of people in general. FB is a huge world and I am still learning the etiquette – how long is too long to be polite when answering wall posts and messages – sometimes I don’t get to it for weeks/months. Do I always need to return gifts/fairy dust/karma? How do I get people to stop deluging me with said gifts/fairy dust/karma? What about people in the real world who want to know about my life and *aren’t”* on Facebook – how do I let them know I don’t have time for updating them and that REALLY if they care, they need to follow me there?

These are the kind of things I would really like to know and would improve the book considerably. In a sense, FaceBook for Dummies is mostly a regurgitation of the how-to instructions you can glean yourself from the FB website. A nicely laid-out regurgitation.

Review by James N Simpson:
I joined Facebook a few months ago, didn’t know anything at all about it, just that other people wanted me on there too. If I had picked up this book at that exact stage of my Facebook experience it would have been very, very helpful, especially in knowing just what all the terminology and features were going on about. Having used Facebook for a few months now (and believe me there’s lots of elements to Facebook I don’t know) being that through trial and error I have become familiar with the basic tools on the site, (write on wall, post an image, start/edit a photo album, send someone a message etc) I found there wasn’t really anything this very basic book could teach me. Well except I did find out what poke means, I had always wondered. The book really doesn’t go into too much depth at all other than the basics. A lot of those basics if you’re familiar with e-mail or basic photo software, wordprocessing you’ll have no trouble working out yourself either.

This book would be ideal for the don’t use a computer much in your life type people who have heard about Facebook, know their grandkids or whoever are on there and want to become a part of the very easy communication method. Facebook is a great site, by far an easier way of communicating than e-mail, chat rooms or anything else plus it’s lots of fun! So if you’re a bit daunted by it, then by all means this sort of book will be a great aid. If you’re already familiar with the basics of Facebook, then there’s really not much this book can offer you.

By the way Facebook has recently changed its layout and member profile appearances (it calls these changes the new Facebook) something which has dated this book still using the old (or classic layout) a fair bit even though it is still 2008 at the time of this review, the same year as publication.

There’s actually a better book than this for those not too computer savy called Facebook: The Missing Manual. If they are both around the same price, I’d get that instead.

Review by Ark Lady (Diana L Guerrero):
Any user of Facebook needs this book. If you are a small business owner or active online promoting your brand it really helps to have a guide and a shortcut to being effective online.

I first met Mari Smith online as I was getting my profile and fan pages up and operating.

Since then I found that she is THE leader in anything Facebook and is accessible from her fan page to help with any updates or questions that might come up.

What I liked about Facebook Marketing An Hour a Day is that it gives you a background on Facebook, defines it, and then helps guide you into developing a strategy and how to measure it.

In addition it also teaches you how to use pages and groups, how to use ads, and advanced tactics–so it is great for the average user or the small business person or online marketing teams.

I selected the Kindle edition because of the rapidly changing nature of social media so I could get it right away.

Things in social media change so fast (just like Facebook’s new revamps over the last two weeks) so I do encourage you to download and begin using it right away.

This book is well worth the investment–go get it now and then go find MariSmith on Facebook!

Review by John Jantsch:
Facebook is so hot right now that businesses are jumping in without a plan or clue. This book is the kind of tool you need to dig in and create a strategy and master the technical stuff that can create so much frustration for the business owner already strapped for time.

The book will also help marketers demonstrate to CEOs and department heads reluctant to explore Facebook and other social media platforms how to treat Facebook as in integrated part of the marketing whole.

John Jantsch author of The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

Review by Praveen:
There are several books and websites which teach you how to develop applications for facebook but there aren’t any resources which explain how facebook applications can be used to generate revenue. This book explains in detail how revenue can be generated by using facebook to enhance your business opportunities. The author’s personal experience in creating the first business application on facebook gives this book a huge amount of credibility.

The best thing about this book for me is the author’s enthusiasm. Her belief that we are on the verge of another tech revolution is inspiring and exciting and that to me makes this book all the more worth it.

Review by F. Among:
For those trying to figure out how to use Facebook as a tool to enhance business opportunities and ecommerce, this book has a lot of the answers. Really like the case studies of how actual businesses are using social networking in real life. Of course the SalesForce – Facebook app is a huge advantage for Salesforce customers … and its free! I also found the history and in depth analysis of why Facebook is so popular for the first time explains the phenomenon in simple and understandable terms. If she is even half right in her belief that we are on the verge of another breakthrough which will be as big as was the creation of the internet, this book will have prepared you and will be worth it.

Review by Lisa Shea:
I normally adore Dummies books. I have several of them on my shelves. Facebook Marketing for Dummies is the first in the Dummies series that I did NOT like enthusiastically. I really feel this book is not up to the Dummies standard of helpfulness.

First, this book is supposed to be about MARKETING – but over half the book is about the very basics of Facebook. There are plenty of other books out there on how to use Facebook – including one by the Dummies group! It seems silly for this book on marketing to rehash the existing information and spend so much time on things covered elsewhere. It means that only a small portion of what remains is actually helpful information on Marketing.

They cover a few basics about the areas of Facebook to use for marketing – how a fan page is better than a regular “personal” account because a person can only have 5,000 friends while a fan page is completely unlimited. Fan pages are also “anonymous” – while a group makes it clear which person is the administrator, with a fan page the administrator is private. So you can run a fan page for your company or project without worrying about people tracking down and bugging your personal account.

But in terms of actual MARKETING information, the pickings are very slim. They tell you to post relevant info onto your account. Was anyone really going to post a lot of IRrelevant information? They say to post enough to keep people interested, but not so much that you bombard your users with too many messages. But they don’t provide any examples or information to help newbies get a feel for which numbers fall into which ranges! They tell you not to use a “hard sell” and turn off people – but again, no examples, no further information.

In terms of drawing in visitors, they focus primarily on paying Facebook to use their ad system, and that’s about it. They mention putting a Facebook tag in your email and on your site, and again, that’s it. That’s all you are learning about marketing your Facebook fan page?

There’s an entire section on pushing contests – about how you can do them with random winners, or with the judging of submissions, and how this is great for traffic building. But NOWHERE in that entire section do they even mention legalities of doing all of this! How about the legalities of taking personal information from winners who are under the age of 13? How about the legalities of having a winner who hails from South Africa or other countries which have strict rules about entering online contests? Some countries have quite serious penalties for companies who offer contests and sweepstakes to “their residents” without doing legal paperwork first! It was completely shocking to me that a book in the Dummies series would offer seriously flawed legal advice like this.

In their “why do marketing on Facebook” section, one of their top ten reasons is “to run promotions for fans”. This doesn’t make sense to me. This is one of the things you use Facebook FOR but it’s not a reason TO have a Facebook account. Reasons are things like “to get a higher ranking in Google” or “to get free word-of-mouth mentions by people in Facebook’s network”. It’s as if they ran out of real reasons and they had to stick something in there to fill out the top 10 list.

When they finally hit issues which ARE important in Facebook marketing – like dealing with irate fans posting on your public business area, there is hardly a few lines dedicated to the topic. If anything, this is the sort of thing that the book should be covering in great detail.

And how about their commandment of “don’t drink and Facebook”?? I run a wine site! My wine site page is ALL about drinking wine, and that is what all the members do. Many of them come online when they’re drinking wine and we discuss what we’re drinking. If what the book was trying to say is “don’t post when you’re drunk” then that is a COMPLETELY different issue and one they should have been more clear about.

I just can’t state how disappointed I was with this book. Looking at other reviews on Amazon, it seems like half of them were primarily swayed by a ” Facebook ad credit” they got – but I don’t see that credit ANYWHERE in my book. I even went back and re-read the entire Marketing chapter to see if I missed it somewhere. I still can’t find a free credit. If it’s in here somewhere, they didn’t make it very obvious.

Not recommended. You could get far more out of their regular Marketing book, and simply apply that great knowledge to the Facebook world.

UPDATE: I talked directly with the “Dummies” publishers. The book currently DOES NOT HAVE ANY GIFT AD CREDIT. So if you are buying the book based on those “ad credit” promotions on Amazon, you will NOT GET IT.

Review by Quadlibet:
This book is short on plot, long on value. Immediately got paid back 3x the cost of the book via the included Facebook Ads credit. This excellent primer is suitable for a range of readers from the FB-curious newbie to the seasoned marketeer seeking to leverage every facet of the Facebook service.

Unlike other books on this topic, these authors go beyond the platform capabilities for marketing via Facebook, and do a particularly good job of providing much-needed social context about Facebook norms, and do so with good humor. By providing simple guidelines, and “Do’s and Dont’s”, this book can save marketers from themselves and unintended backlash from their communities of interest.

The Dummies format makes finding useful bits easy – the TOC and indices are quite good. Like all books about online applications, certain page views are rapidly obsoleted, though in this case, the same social media marketing principals will apply, even as the Facebook platform evolves.

Overall, a very helpful volume that I will reference ongoing, and will keep paying returns well beyond the credit. Suggest the next edition include an electronic format (Kindle or included disc) to make it easier to access links referenced in the print version.

Review by Jeff Lippincott:

I liked this book. I thought it was well written and well outlined. I’m not sure I would have included on the cover the following: “Leverage social media to grow your business.” But the book provides a “rough guide” to Facebook. And I think it does a pretty good job.

Over the past year some leaders in the social media marketing realm have been materializing. Besides blogs of all kinds, it seems fair to me to say these leaders include MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I’ve read and reviewed the following books on some of these platforms:

YouTube for Business (ISBN: 9780789737977)

The Rough Guide to MySpace (ISBN: 9781843538424)

Amp Your MySpace Page (ISBN: 9780071490726)

I’m on LinkedIn, Now What? (ISBN: 9781600050695)

Until I read the instant book being reviewed I had not read any on Facebook. I am aware of “I’m on Facebook, Now What?” (ISBN: 9781600050954). But I haven’t seen or read it. If it is anything like the book its author wrote on LinkedIn, then it is probably a good book. However, I think “Facebook Marketing” does a better job covering Facebook than the LinkedIn book did regarding LinkedIn.

This book is NOT about social media marketing per se. It is not going to tell you how to leverage social media in order to grow your business. You will have to read other books on that subject. And the coverage on that topic is expanding and changing as I write this review. What this book is about is the Facebook platform that can be used as a marketer’s tool when practicing social media marketing. It tells us about User Profiles, Facebook Groups, how to create Web pages within Facebook, hosting events on Facebook, and other things that one can take advantage of at Facebook.

It’s the “other things” that take up half the book that may be nice to know about. But I doubt they are practical for growing a business. But the first half of the book is worth its weight in gold for anyone who wants to use Facebook in a big way to practice social media marketing. 5 stars!

PS. Examine the Search Inside feature offered by Amazon on this book. It provides a detailed Table of Contents for you to examine and see for yourself what is included in this book.

Review by JCK:
I am glad I got this book from the library and didn’t pay money for it. It is little more than a rehash of the menus. I am always disappointed in computer books that just list and describe menu items. There are maybe ten pages of worthwhile material. To make matters worse, all the screen shots are based on outdated formats. Save your money and search the internet for more useful and current information. Sorry to be so negative, but that’s the way I see it.

Review by Chad Estes:
I heard about Jesse Rice’s book, “The Church of Facebook: How the Wireless Generation is Redefining Community” from an interview he did on a podcast. The topic of online community and whether or not it can be authentic is of interest to me.

I wasn’t sure what to expect; perhaps a Christianized critique of the whole social networking phenomenon complete with a set of warnings for believers and suggested rules for underage children. Thankfully this is not Jesse’s book. Instead it opens with a fascinating story of the opening day on the Millennium Bridge crossing the Thames River in London. The unexpected shaking that day on the pedestrian footbridge is similar to the online spectacle of Facebook and other social networking sites. Jesse uses this and several other stories at the beginning of each chapter to create a historical framework for interpreting our online interactions. Jesse has done his research well and the book is very interesting because of it.

The science of connecting with others, of creating a “home” where we feel safe is the subject of chapter one. This is followed by a chapter on revolutionary changes to society and how Facebook is set up to be, if it not already is, a world changer. Chapter three delves into the controls people have of their online presence, of the information they choose to share online with others on their profiles. He poses the question of what we will do with the power we have to create, to shape society, with our online influence. Chapter four studies the impact that all of the new information has on an individual, understanding that people have adapted their behavior with this new way to connect with people, share information and collect new data. The fifth chapter focuses on the question of community and whether or not it can be experienced online. Are our relational needs truly being met? The final chapter speaks to implications of using social networking and some of the inherent behaviors that could be attributed to living life via an online presence. Jesse suggests some boundaries to keep the experience healthy, balanced and authentic.

Although the book could be categorized as a Christian book by a Christian author, it doesn’t come across as preachy or fear-based. As such I hope it will be picked up by readers interested in modern communication, community development, sociology, and human psychology. It broadened my perspectives of social networking and has stayed with me as I’ve continued connecting with old and new friends online.

Review by Paul Steinbrueck:
In Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community, Jesse Rice writes about the need for community, which is deeply engrained in all of us. He explains how Facebook has exploded in popularity by tapping into our desires for connectedness and a place to call home. And he takes a look at some of the ways social networking is impacting individuals and communities.

Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom contained in the book.

CPA – Continuous Partial Attention – This is the impulse to constantly check Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. It’s motivated by the desire to not miss anything. It creates an artificial sense of crisis. It can cause a person to become over stimulated and unable to focus on what’s right in front of him. (P 102)

“In affect the hyperconnection of Facebook changes the nature of our relationships by turning our friends into audiences and us into performances… Our actions are often based on what we think our invisible entourage might like best.” (P 112)

People can become dependent on Facebook for their identity, self-worth, and decision making. (P 145, paraphrase)

“[Genuine] community is less about `best-friendship’ and more about intentional engagement with the people in our lives… maybe it’s not the increasingly online nature of our relationships that is affecting our relationships most. Perhaps it is our `relational consumerism’ that needs changing.” (P 172 & 173)

“Life can all to often feel like little more than a knee-jerk reaction to urgent emails, phone calls, meetings, and decisions.” (P 190)

The book concludes with a some good tips on how to manage life in this always-on, hyperconnected world many of us find ourselves in today.

Do any of the excerpts above strike a chord with you?

If so, you might just want to pick up a copy of Church of Facebook. It can help you better understand how Facebook and smart phones may be impacting your relationships and your emotional well-being as well as that of the people around you.

This review was originally posted at the link below. Click to comment & discuss:

[...]