The Start of Social Media Marketing

Jason McDonald's "Social Media Marketing Workbook" provides tools for small business owners and marketing managers or non profit organizations. It looks into some of the most common social media platforms in use and will teach theory along with workbook activities that allow for hands on experience. The first chapter of the book doesn't go into depth on any particular social media platform but it does discuss some tools to help get started and to optimize the use of social media for marketing purposes. The workbook begins by relating marketing on social media to throwing a party. The goal of party synonym is to demonstrate that it takes work to throw a good party, but a good party looks effortless to the attendee. The goal of marketing on social media is to make it effortless and entertaining which means work will have to be put in behind the scenes.

Part of the work that has to be done in order to "throw a great party" is looking at what other people have already done. The book goes into some detail on "reverse engineering" other companies social media sites. One of the main points made of doing research on other companies is to take notes on what is done well on each site, and the things that you do not like about the site. By taking note of the things that you like and dislike, you will be able to tailor your content in the most beneficial way possible. When starting out, the workbook points out that Google is a great tool to use for any questions that arise while working with different social media platforms. The workbook also highlights that it is not necessary to put lots of work into every type of social media platform, instead an understanding of your target market can help you focus on the platforms used mainly by your target community. The main goal of using social media for marketing is to get people to talk about your organization and also to spread awareness for your brand to people that may not have been searching specifically for your organization.

Not all of the content that is put out on your different social media platforms has to be created by your organization, you can share other people's content if it is relevant to your cause. The workbook points out that there are benefits and costs to both approaches to sending content out on social media platforms. The workbook offers many worksheets throughout the book to help provide an understanding of the theory that is being presented in the writing of the workbook. The end of the first chapter gives the reader some content marketing tools and resources that may be helpful for running your social media outlets and creating content.