Who has time to read books? We all should, but it's tough to know what is worth reading. Each week, this blog will spotlight a new book relevant for marketers or people in business with ideas worth learning and sharing. Through a combination of a personal interview with the Authors, and short review – you'll get the basic premise of the book and why you might want to read it. To recommend a book to be featured, send an email pitch to influentialmarketing@gmail.com.
This week's featured book is microMARKETING – Get Big Results By Thinking And Acting Small, the first book from social media consultant Greg Verdino.
THE INTERVIEW (Thoughts from Greg Verdino):
1. What inspired you to write microMARKETING?
There are so many social media books on the market but many are thin on insights, short of practical approaches and virtually devoid of hard discussions about tangible results – conversation isn't enough; neither is "engagement"; marketing – social included – needs to move the needle… Others – books like the For Dummies series or the rash of "Twitter" books – put tactics and tools before strategy, providing (quite frankly) no actionable insights about what the bigger trends that have spawned micro-platforms like Twitter and micro-formats like web video, blog posts, etc will mean for marketers even after the platforms we use right now give way to another set of shiny objects.
I wanted to write a book that explored the social media landscape – and more specifically the micromedia and microcontent landscapes – from a more strategic perspective than the latter, while applying a practitioner's eye (I've been marketing for 20+ years and immersed in social both personally and professionally for 5+ years) to deliver real insights, approaches that I know work and tackle the "but what were the results" question head-on.
2. What is the big idea of the book?
Over the past decade or so, a series of shifts have resulted in the hyperfragmentation of our mass culture and media into millions of niche microcultures, consumer-created micromedia and bit-sized microcontent formats. Many marketers acknowledge that this has happened but, because mass is all they've known throughout their careers, continue to do the same things they've always done to reach big audiences – even though those things are less effective than ever before. I believe – and the book bears this out with a dozen or so results-backed case studies – that companies can be more effective and achieve better ROI if they instead tapped directly into the trends toward microculture, micromedia and microcontent by adopting a series of micromarketing approaches – essentially doing lots and lots of small but meaningful things to forge deep connections and deliver real value to their best "few" customers and prospects.
3. Who is the perfect person to read this book?
I wrote the book primarily for client- and agency-side marketers that are looking to understand social media from a strategic perspective (rather than from the standpoint of tools, tactics and technologies) and learn new, repeatable approaches that they can apply to their own businesses right away. If a reader is a social media novice, the book offers (as Godin wrote) my take on "the greatest hits of social media marketing" so it's a great primer. If you're a social media veteran, you'll find new innovative approaches and actionable insights that will help you take your programs to the next level and get bigger results and have more predictable success.
THE 30 SECOND REVIEW (Why You Should Read It):
If you were to buy a business book based on your ambitions, you might never get to one with the word "micro" in it because it came across as a small idea. The big idea of Greg Verdino's book, however, comes by virtue of the simple insight that big things happen when you know how to put the right small things together. Unlike many business books written by professional speakers, Greg's background comes as a VP at a large agency running strategic social media campaigns on behalf of clients … in other words, he has street cred. And while many of the social media examples in microMARKETING might be familiar to the uber-geeky social media mavens in the audience – for most readers the examples he shares will help to cement the concept behind the book. Ultimately, you will learn how to use the elusive technique of creating "microcontent" to engage your audiences and stand out. (Review written by Rohit Bhargava)
LINKS AND MORE INFORMATION:
Official Book Website: http://www.micromarketingbook.com/
Author's Website: http://gregverdino.typepad.com/
REVIEW PHILOSOPHY (Why This Review Matters):
All the books that are reviewed in this series are worth your time. That's why you won't find any negative book reviews on this blog. As an Author myself, I have hundreds of book on my shelf and have researched hundreds more. I get many invitations to preview books and choose just one every week to share here on this blog. Read my other book reviews at http://rbarchive.flywheelsites.com/book-reviews/.
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