The Cmo's Social Media Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide for Leading Marketing Teams in the Social Media World

by Peter Friedman

It's a terrific time to be a senior marketing leader-if you're prepared to leverage social effectively, and with time, utilize its power to transform marketing for your brand. In The CMO's Social Media Handbook, Peter Friedman distills 30 years of experience to offer a combined practical tool kit and social-media-theory crash course to help big-brand marketing leaders with everything from dealing with vendors to establishing a social brand identity to managing crucial conversations at every level of the organization. With this step-by-step handbook, you'll learn how - Strategize and execute a long-term social media plan, even in a business environment focused on short-term promotion, to create dialogue and deepen customer relationships - Start small and build results so that you can confidently lead your organization to become a customer-centric brand - Develop a social brand identity to bring your brand alive for customers - Define KPIs and measure social media so that you can demonstrate ROI and quantifiable business impact - Create content for social media channels that provides value and creates emotional connection to customers for enhanced loyalty, word-of-mouth marketing, and advocacy - Mitigate the risk of PR landmines and learn how to turn them to your advantage - Engage, understand, and leverage the voice of the customer at a global scale

188 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2014

Reviews

[Michael Bolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the given purpose of the book, Friedman does what he says he will do. And he does it well.

If you're looking to prop up your personal social media account, this book isn't for you. If you're a C-level or marketing executive, it's a great intro to social media marketing.

Not only does Friedman demysticize social media marketing, but he shows how to get ahead. He also covers what questions to ask and how to start thinking of strategies for social media. Friedman goes step-by-step throughout the book and leaves nothing to chance. Some advice seems obvious, but we've all seen how bad not following the rules can hurt a company.

I enjoyed Friedman's writing style. He's down to earth, human, and calculating. All those adjectives that are also advice given in this book. He does go in circles at certain points but I saw those as adding emphasis instead of being wandering.

The book itself is up-to-date. Referenced examples are still up and none expired. The toolkit in the end provided a ton of help as well.

The main downside this book has is that some parts are a bit dry and can be more concise. Also, the lack of an Appendix section made revisiting the book for examples a bit hard to do.

Treat this book as it is: a handbook for quick references. It should be a point of reference for your social media marketing plan. More reading on this subject is a must.

I'd give this book a 4/5. Though it will be a solid choice to be on every marketer's desk, it's lacking a final extra "umph."