The Art of Social Media

Guy Kawasaki, a social-media strategist, and Peg Fitzpatrick, director of digital media for Kreussler Inc., present a practical guide for readers who already understand social-media basics and want to use platforms more effectively for business. Kawasaki writes in a single voice for readability, though the book draws on both authors' expertise. He characterizes their dynamic by comparing it to the television show 24: He is the action-oriented figure, while Fitzpatrick is the behind-the-scenes strategist keeping operations on track. Both emphasize that their knowledge comes from hands-on experimentation rather than theoretical expertise, and they encourage readers to develop techniques that surpass their own.

The book opens with guidance on optimizing social-media profiles, which the authors treat as a résumé visible to the entire world. They advise choosing a neutral, easy-to-remember screen name and designing a profile that can withstand a snap judgment lasting only a few seconds. Key profile elements include an avatar focused tightly on the user's face, a cover or header photo that tells a visual story, biographical text, and links to other accounts. The authors recommend crafting a "mantra," a two-to-four-word phrase explaining why you or your organization exists, such as Kawasaki's own "I empower people." They stress using the same photo across every platform for consistent recognition, obtaining vanity URLs (custom profile web addresses that replace long numeric links), completing all available profile fields, and selecting the appropriate account type for business use, such as Facebook Pages, which offer features like multiple administrators and analytics.

The second chapter addresses what the authors call "feeding the Content Monster," their term for the daily challenge of finding enough material to share. They distinguish between content creation, which involves writing posts or producing photos and videos, and content curation, which involves finding, summarizing, and sharing others' quality work. Since most people can create only about two pieces of content per week, curation becomes essential. The authors introduce the "reshare test" as the central metric: Every post should be compelling enough that followers would risk their own reputations by sharing it. They catalog dozens of curation sources, including Alltop (an RSS-feed aggregation site Kawasaki co-founded), Feedly, Google Scholar, Reddit, NPR, and TED. Additional tactics include sharing content already popular on one platform that may not have reached another, timing posts to holidays and events, and leveraging user-generated content such as customer photos from Instagram.

The third chapter explains how to craft effective posts. The authors define four categories of valuable content: information, analysis, assistance, and entertainment. They introduce the "NPR model" as an aspirational framework: Just as NPR earns the right to run occasional pledge drives by providing consistently excellent programming, social-media users must earn the privilege to promote their own products by delivering sustained value. Every post, they insist, must include visual "eye candy," citing a study showing that articles with relevant images received 94 percent more views than those without. They recommend brevity, compelling title formulas such as "How to..." or "Top Ten...," two or three hashtags per post, and posting frequencies ranging from one to two Facebook posts daily up to 25 tweets daily. The book cites an experiment showing that repeating the same tweet four times yielded 5.8 times more clicks than posting it once. The authors list scheduling tools including Buffer, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck, arguing that using such tools is smart optimization rather than cheating. They dismiss most search engine optimization (SEO) as futile, advocating instead for what they call "SMO," or social-media optimization: focusing on creating and sharing great content rather than trying to game search algorithms.

Chapter 4 addresses responding to comments, which the authors frame as hand-to-hand marketing. They emphasize that the audience for any response includes everyone who reads it, not just the original commenter. Their approach favors assuming good intentions, staying positive, and agreeing to disagree when necessary. For persistent trolls, they advocate a "three-round" rule modeled on amateur boxing: After the initial post, one comment, one response, and one counter-response, the exchange ends. If all else fails, they advise deleting, blocking, or reporting offensive users without hesitation.

Chapter 5 argues that blogging and social media complement rather than replace each other. Kawasaki recounts initially believing social media would supplant blogging but being persuaded by Fitzpatrick that blogs retain lasting value, especially after LinkedIn launched its Influencer program for long-form posts. The authors recommend sharing blog posts on social media, adding share buttons, and using ClickToTweet (a service that embeds tweetable links in blog posts). They highlight Pinterest's unique staying power, since pins "reincarnate" when re-pinned and drive ongoing traffic. They advocate starting e-mail lists, noting Kawasaki would choose an e-mail subscriber over a social-media follower. The chapter ends with a ten-step promotion process Fitzpatrick uses for each blog post, which the authors dub "Pegging," involving creating multiple title variations, producing platform-specific images, and sharing across Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter with tailored formatting.

Chapter 6 distills the quest for more followers to two strategies: Share good stuff, which accounts for 90 percent of the effort, and jump on new platforms early, when fewer users and less noise make it easier to build an audience. Kawasaki cites his own 6.4 million Google+ followers, gained by joining within weeks of launch, as evidence that early adoption creates advantages difficult to replicate later.

Chapter 7 draws on the authors' experience staffing Motorola's Moto X launch events across six Latin American countries in 2014. They recommend selecting a short, evergreen hashtag, integrating it into all event materials, and actively asking attendees to use it. Practical tips include dedicating at least one person exclusively to social-media duties, streaming live video, displaying the event's Twitter stream on screens, ensuring robust wireless access, and putting executives to work posing for photos with attendees.

Chapter 8 focuses on Google+ Hangouts on Air (HOAs), live video broadcasts through Google+ that are automatically archived to YouTube. The authors recommend investing in quality equipment for under $1,000, structuring events with planning rather than improvisation, creating event pages with RSVP functionality, and conducting full rehearsals at least 30 minutes before start time.

Chapter 9 covers Twitter chats, live discussions in which participants tweet using a shared hashtag. The authors advise preparing guests with likely questions in advance and emphasizing audience-driven discussion over self-promotion.

Chapter 10 catalogs behaviors to avoid, including buying followers, asking people to follow or reshare, excessive self-promotion, swearing, and self-declaring as a "guru" or "expert." They strongly advise against outsourcing social media to expensive agencies with few followers and against delegating it entirely to unsupervised interns.

Chapter 11 provides platform-specific tips. For Facebook, the authors explain EdgeRank (the algorithm determining which followers see posts) and recommend Page Insights for analytics. For Google+, they suggest using the Ripples feature to identify top resharers and running polls with +1s, Google+'s equivalent of likes. For Instagram, they advise slice-of-life simplicity and piggybacking on popular hashtags. For LinkedIn, they stress personalizing connection requests. For Pinterest, they recommend collaborative boards and keyword-rich descriptions. For SlideShare, they note slides must be self-explanatory since there is no audio accompaniment. For Twitter, they explain how a dot before an @name makes a reply visible to all followers rather than only mutual ones. For YouTube, they recommend consistent publishing schedules and active comment responses.

The penultimate chapter presents a case study assembling all the book's strategies into a nonfiction book-launch scenario. The process unfolds in three phases: building a foundation by refreshing profiles and creating a media kit; amassing digital assets such as chapter videos, blog posts, and quote graphics; and going to market with a coordinated schedule including a Twitter chat, a Hangout on Air, and a Reddit Ask Me Anything during publication week.

The book closes by drawing on the philosophical framework of Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz, authors of The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement. Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick adopt five principles as a code for social-media conduct: Be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions, always do your best, and be skeptical but learn to listen. They assert that no matter how social media evolves, this code will remain relevant.