Social Media Marketing Workbook

The last few weeks we have worked our way through many chapters in the Social Media Marketing Workbook written by Jason McDonald. This workbook was a great read because it gave us a better understanding on how different media channels work and how to handle them.

In chapter one we learned that social media marketing is basically like throwing a party. Going to a party, eating the food, enjoying the entertainment and leaving is just like using social media. When you get on Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels you are attending a party. While it is not exactly the same, the same principals apply in the fact that you are the work of someone else. McDonald covered a few main points in this chapter such as; invitations = promotion, entertainment = content, hosting = on-going management. Chapter two is connected with chapter one because it covered the area of content marketing. We need to make sure the things we post to our social media channels are full of great content our followers will enjoy reading. We need to make sure we add pictures, videos, memes, slideshows and many other things to keep our viewers happy.

Moving on to chapter three of the book, McDonald talked about Facebook. This chapter is great because Facebook is the largest social media platform out of all its competitors. Jason covers how we need to understand Facebook as a marketer by understanding the “F’s”: friends, family, fun, photos, and “fake.” Friends, fun, family can be shared through photos, videos, or plain text on Facebook. Photos dominate Facebook because everyone posts pictures about their everyday life. It can be someone graduating school, vacation, food, children, etc. the pictures are always being posted for people to see. The fake aspect of Facebook is something everyone needs to watch out for because people post a lot of fake news on there to grab the attention of its users.

Other things we covered in this workbook were LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. These are all great social media platforms to use for many different reasons. LinkedIn is great for anyone to use on a professional level when looking for jobs or trying to find connections with their current job. I like to think of it as a business form of Facebook. If you want to learn the ins and outs of these media platforms, I would highly suggest getting your hands on this social media marketing workbook. Jason McDonald does a wonderful job explaining the importance of each channel and how you can use them on a business and personal level.