Digital marketing is more than Google Analytics and content marketing. There is a massive opportunity for harnessing social media for engagement, cultivating loyalty, and turning followers into paying customers. At Ampry, we know the importance of optimizing brand engagement. Once social media followers come to your site, you’ll need a way to help them advance through the sales funnel. If you want to find out how Ampry can help you do that with your website visitors, schedule a free strategy call.Social media marketing can be daunting. There is a plethora of information available on the topic—so much that it’s difficult to know where to start. Luckily, a few valuable social media marketing books can teach you everything you need to know about social media marketing.These authors are specialists in social media and digital marketing. In these 5 books, they gather the essential skills that businesses need to launch and maintain successful social media marketing campaigns.
1: The Social Media Marketing Workbook: How to Use Social Media for Business by Jason McDonaldThe Social Media Marketing Workbook covers all major social media platforms. This includes Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Each platform is covered in detail. More than that, The Social Media Marketing Workbook gives you tips on how to optimize your business pages and how to effectively engage with audiences in a manner that is authentic yet beneficial to your marketing strategy.Jason McDonald has been teaching SEO, AdWords, and Social Media Marketing since 2009. He uses this workbook in classes around the San Francisco Bay Area (including Stanford Continuing Studies).
2: Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on All Social Networks That Matter by Dave KerpenLikeable Social Media focuses on generating genuine and honest content. The idea behind this is that people connect and resonate with authentic brands and align with their values and things that are important to them.Through authentic engagement and content that adds value, customers will become ambassadors and bring you the Holy Grail of social media marketing: word-of-mouth marketing!Likeable Social Media covers 18 concepts that will help you imagine, design, and implement robust social media marketing campaigns. All the while, the author encourages authenticity and likeability.Dave Kerpen is a serial entrepreneur who is the founder and co-founder of a social media software company and social media marketing agency. He has made the New York Times Best-Selling Author list and has published four books to date.
3: One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days by Brendan KaneThe main point of One Million Followers is to demonstrate the power of purchasing social media ads and then testing these ads to grow your following.The book contains many case studies to show Brendan Kane’s strategies. Brendan Kane is a “growth strategist” who has worked with people like Taylor Swift and Rihanna. He has helped large brands like Skechers, IKEA, and MTV grow their digital presence and engage better with their audiences.
4: 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints, and Strategy for Business: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and More! by Andrew Macarthy500 Social Media Marketing Tips cover all major social media platforms. It also gives general considerations that apply to all social media channels. More than that, it digs deeper into what types of content are best for your social media marketing campaigns.A bonus section of the book provides references to free and paid-for resources to assist you with maximizing your social media marketing efforts. Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant from Swansea, Whales, in the United Kingdom.
5: Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach by Melissa Barker, Donald I. Barker, Nicholas F. Bormann, and Debra ZahayThis informative book on social media marketing is often used as part of the curriculum for social media marketing courses. Each chapter includes information on how to create a personal brand.The content covers everything from identifying your target audience to creating content and marketing that content. Essentially, Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach is a comprehensive how-to guide covering all the essential elements involved in building successful social media marketing campaigns.Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach brings together four experts' knowledge, insight, and experience in their fields. Melissa Barker has been assisting businesses with their social media strategy for more than ten years.Donald Barker holds an MBA from Eastern Washington University with an emphasis on marketing research. He has contributed, authored, and co-authored 41 textbooks on various topics, including internet research and social media marketing.Nicholas Bormann completed his Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University.Debra Zahay is a professor of marketing and director of the digital marketing and analytics master of Science degree program at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. She obtained her Ph.D. in marketing at the University of Illinois.Other noteworthy booksAdvertising and marketing is such a broad field that limiting the best marketing books to five only touches on what you need to know. While books specifically focusing on social media marketing will help you quickly design and implement a social media marketing strategy, you will benefit significantly from reading other marketing books. These books could cover inbound marketing, permission marketing, email marketing, product marketing, epic content marketing, growth hacker marketing, scientific advertising, and influencer marketing.Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness, by Gary Vaynerchuk.
- It All Started With Positioning, by Al Reis.
- Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, by Nir Eyal.
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini.
- Everybody Writes, by Ann Handley.
- Content Inc., by Joe Pulizzi.
- Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior, by Jonah Berger.
- Fanocracy: Turning Fans Into Customers and Customers Into Fans, by David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott.
- Talk Triggers, by Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin.
- Upstream, by Dan Heath.
- They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan.
- Ogilvy On Advertising, by David Ogilvy.
- Hacking Growth, by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown.
- The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier.
- Top of Mind, by John Hall.
- The 1 Page Marketing Plan, by Allan Dib.
While marketing books can help your marketing strategies, your new visitors need somewhere to go. With Ampry, you convert more website visitors into paying customers and use your social media presence to its full effect. Schedule your free strategy call with Ampry today!