What do you think?
Rate this book
The Social Media Strategist: Build a Successful Program from the Inside Out
Build a powerful social media strategy to increase buzz—and the bottom line
In today’s fast-paced professional climate, large companies are learning that launching a website and taking a wait-and-see approach to engaging customers is not enough. Competition is fierce, and those who master the social media space are the ones who come out on top. There is greater urgency than ever before to establish a vibrant social media program—and it all starts with a key strategist who can best organize and leverage all of the organization’s resources to cut through the bureaucracy and get real-time results.
This is where The Social Media Strategist comes in. Before tackling specific social media programs, you first have to get your own organization—and everyone in it—on board with making social media a business strategy priority.
Christopher Barger, the award-winning former social media director at General Motors and IBM’s former “blogger-in-chief,” describes all the challenges particular to getting a comprehensive social media program off the ground in a large firm. The Social Media Strategist teaches you how
Manage internal office politics, from your legal team to the policy makers to the human resource department Present new ideas to lawyers and executives in a compelling, convincing way Teach your employees the guidelines and protocols they’ll need to represent your company Turn your organization into a true media outlet, publishing content that is generated by in-house employees and is truly engaging to an outside audience “Telling a company from the outside what it should do is one thing,” writes Barger. “Actually making it happen from the inside is quite another.” Here, he takes the bold step of starting where all successful endeavors by planning well, by putting all the moving parts in the right place, by constructing a solid foundation.
Consult The Social Media Strategist and build the best-suited social media infrastructure for your company. Then, and only then, can you begin to raise your profile, connect with customers, and increase your profits using the most powerful new business tool.
In today’s fast-paced professional climate, large companies are learning that launching a website and taking a wait-and-see approach to engaging customers is not enough. Competition is fierce, and those who master the social media space are the ones who come out on top. There is greater urgency than ever before to establish a vibrant social media program—and it all starts with a key strategist who can best organize and leverage all of the organization’s resources to cut through the bureaucracy and get real-time results.
This is where The Social Media Strategist comes in. Before tackling specific social media programs, you first have to get your own organization—and everyone in it—on board with making social media a business strategy priority.
Christopher Barger, the award-winning former social media director at General Motors and IBM’s former “blogger-in-chief,” describes all the challenges particular to getting a comprehensive social media program off the ground in a large firm. The Social Media Strategist teaches you how
Manage internal office politics, from your legal team to the policy makers to the human resource department Present new ideas to lawyers and executives in a compelling, convincing way Teach your employees the guidelines and protocols they’ll need to represent your company Turn your organization into a true media outlet, publishing content that is generated by in-house employees and is truly engaging to an outside audience “Telling a company from the outside what it should do is one thing,” writes Barger. “Actually making it happen from the inside is quite another.” Here, he takes the bold step of starting where all successful endeavors by planning well, by putting all the moving parts in the right place, by constructing a solid foundation.
Consult The Social Media Strategist and build the best-suited social media infrastructure for your company. Then, and only then, can you begin to raise your profile, connect with customers, and increase your profits using the most powerful new business tool.
- GenresBusinessCommunication
306 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 14, 2011
8 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 9, 2012
"Page turner." Not words you usually expect to associate with a social media book.
For anyone who is looking for a solid primer on social media within corporations, though, those two words perfectly describe Christopher Barger's book The Social Media Strategist: Build a Successful Program from the Inside Out.
In case you aren't familiar with Barger, he's headed-up social media at two of the world's largest companies - IBM and GM. While at the latter, he led their social media communications around GM's bankruptcy filing. Suffice to say, he has the chops to write a book about corporate social media. Nowadays he plies his trade at Voce Communications.
Despite the over-abundance of social media books nowadays, you can generally divide them into twocategories: the inspirational, philosophy-level books (Trust Agents, Six Pixels etc) and the practical, action-focused books (ok, there are probably many more, but work with me on this...). The Social Media Strategist falls firmly into the second category - one that I think is very thin on the ground right now - and immediately takes its place as my pick for one of the best in the category.
Barger writes in a pragmatic, realistic style - he doesn't pull any punches, but more importantly he doesn't focus on shiny objects and he doesn't bullshit you with visions of a social media-driven utopia. He's honest and to the point about challenges, and this book is all the better for it.
Barger gives a nod towards social media 101s, but this book is intended for people who have already bought-in to the potential of social media, and are looking for the "how", not the "why".
The vast majority of the book is taken up with chapters on critical pieces of the corporate social media puzzle - roles, responsibilities and key infrastructure. Barger leads with substance - early chapters on the executive champion, the social media lead, and the challenges they need to overcome are some of the best parts of the book. Later on he delves into aspects of social media training, policies, crisis management, blogger relations and more.
One key point to note is that this is not a tactical "how to" for social media programs, or a case study-focused book. You won't learn from detailed walk-throughs, and case studies are limited to comments from a few key individuals in the space (all of whom are highly credible, however). This book is focused at more of a strategic and structural level.
Equally, if you're already a long way down the road with your program then you may get relatively little from this (although there will certainly be nuggets and reminders throughout) - this is focused more on someone starting from close to scratch.
Neither of these things is a problem, though - Barger knows who he is writing for (he states it explicitly at the outset, in fact) and he caters to that audience with aplomb.
If there were one thing I could change, it would be the flow through the book. There's no narrative through the book - partially because Barger doesn't prescribe a set process to follow, but at times the leaps from topic to topic between chapters could use finessing (while chapter 9 focuses on social media training within the organization, chapter 10 focuses on blogger relations). Also, the crisis communications chapters have relatively little substance when it comes to how to prepare for those events (the GM-focused chapter, alone, could frankly be a book on its own).
Ultimately, if you're working on social media within an organization and need a handbook as you get started, I can hardly recommend The Social Media Strategist more strongly. I've already suggested that several people I know read it, and suspect that several others may find it in their stockings next time Christmas rolls around.
Two thumbs way up.
For anyone who is looking for a solid primer on social media within corporations, though, those two words perfectly describe Christopher Barger's book The Social Media Strategist: Build a Successful Program from the Inside Out.
In case you aren't familiar with Barger, he's headed-up social media at two of the world's largest companies - IBM and GM. While at the latter, he led their social media communications around GM's bankruptcy filing. Suffice to say, he has the chops to write a book about corporate social media. Nowadays he plies his trade at Voce Communications.
Despite the over-abundance of social media books nowadays, you can generally divide them into twocategories: the inspirational, philosophy-level books (Trust Agents, Six Pixels etc) and the practical, action-focused books (ok, there are probably many more, but work with me on this...). The Social Media Strategist falls firmly into the second category - one that I think is very thin on the ground right now - and immediately takes its place as my pick for one of the best in the category.
Barger writes in a pragmatic, realistic style - he doesn't pull any punches, but more importantly he doesn't focus on shiny objects and he doesn't bullshit you with visions of a social media-driven utopia. He's honest and to the point about challenges, and this book is all the better for it.
Barger gives a nod towards social media 101s, but this book is intended for people who have already bought-in to the potential of social media, and are looking for the "how", not the "why".
The vast majority of the book is taken up with chapters on critical pieces of the corporate social media puzzle - roles, responsibilities and key infrastructure. Barger leads with substance - early chapters on the executive champion, the social media lead, and the challenges they need to overcome are some of the best parts of the book. Later on he delves into aspects of social media training, policies, crisis management, blogger relations and more.
One key point to note is that this is not a tactical "how to" for social media programs, or a case study-focused book. You won't learn from detailed walk-throughs, and case studies are limited to comments from a few key individuals in the space (all of whom are highly credible, however). This book is focused at more of a strategic and structural level.
Equally, if you're already a long way down the road with your program then you may get relatively little from this (although there will certainly be nuggets and reminders throughout) - this is focused more on someone starting from close to scratch.
Neither of these things is a problem, though - Barger knows who he is writing for (he states it explicitly at the outset, in fact) and he caters to that audience with aplomb.
If there were one thing I could change, it would be the flow through the book. There's no narrative through the book - partially because Barger doesn't prescribe a set process to follow, but at times the leaps from topic to topic between chapters could use finessing (while chapter 9 focuses on social media training within the organization, chapter 10 focuses on blogger relations). Also, the crisis communications chapters have relatively little substance when it comes to how to prepare for those events (the GM-focused chapter, alone, could frankly be a book on its own).
Ultimately, if you're working on social media within an organization and need a handbook as you get started, I can hardly recommend The Social Media Strategist more strongly. I've already suggested that several people I know read it, and suspect that several others may find it in their stockings next time Christmas rolls around.
Two thumbs way up.
February 13, 2012
Useful. The chapters on training and on policy and on handling issues were among the best.
The contents are largely based on the author's experience running the social media program for GM. That's great for comms and marketing but less useful for other use cases. Also, while there is a chapter on ROI, there isn't much evidence of hard numbers at GM. (These are tough to get, but throughout the book the commercial benefit is largely anecdotal.)
In general, though, there is a paucity of good field experience and this book helps fill that void.
The contents are largely based on the author's experience running the social media program for GM. That's great for comms and marketing but less useful for other use cases. Also, while there is a chapter on ROI, there isn't much evidence of hard numbers at GM. (These are tough to get, but throughout the book the commercial benefit is largely anecdotal.)
In general, though, there is a paucity of good field experience and this book helps fill that void.
January 6, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable. Sound advice from a guy who has been at the social media front lines and back rooms at big companies.
November 11, 2015
A very educational read that is easy to get through and leaves you with a greater understanding of how to approach social media on a professional scale. I would easily call this a must-read and essential for all who work in marketing and advertising (client services).
I particularly enjoyed the tips on how to get legal to be a supporting member of the team when launching a social media campaign (versus opposing, which often tends to happen in our business), as well as the detailed chapter on various social media #fails and how to deal with them, and sometimes even use them to your business' advantage.
The only tidbit missing for me was the topic of setting up expectations on what the team (or person) responsible for a client's social channel(s) is and isn't capable of doing based on the initial budget allocated and how best to mitigate implications of this.
Otherwise, kudos to Christopher Barger for tackling the ever-changing social media space and publishing a book that so eloquently teaches social media foundations. I imagine smart professors would incorporate this into ad/ marketing school curriculum immediately as well.
I particularly enjoyed the tips on how to get legal to be a supporting member of the team when launching a social media campaign (versus opposing, which often tends to happen in our business), as well as the detailed chapter on various social media #fails and how to deal with them, and sometimes even use them to your business' advantage.
The only tidbit missing for me was the topic of setting up expectations on what the team (or person) responsible for a client's social channel(s) is and isn't capable of doing based on the initial budget allocated and how best to mitigate implications of this.
Otherwise, kudos to Christopher Barger for tackling the ever-changing social media space and publishing a book that so eloquently teaches social media foundations. I imagine smart professors would incorporate this into ad/ marketing school curriculum immediately as well.
December 28, 2012
Surprisingly readable and useful book about how to run a social media program. Several useful examples plus plenty of good tips in a well structured sequence. Although there is a fair amount of repetition, along the lines of not forgetting to listen, be responsive, be transparent, and not treating social media as a marketing 'push' campaign, the stories and fluid wiring keep it engaging. A good primer on the subject.
June 19, 2012
Best book on social media that I've read. No obnoxious fluff or pretense. Christopher Barger knows his stuff and has the credentials to back it up, and it's obvious. Written for someone doing social media for a large company.
November 15, 2012
Good, sane advice and stories.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews