My Review on "Likeable Social Media"

Likeable Social Media:  http://www.amazon.com/Likeable-Social-Media-Customers-Irresistible/dp/0071762...

There are many books about social media marketing that talk about how to maximize the company’s reach to customers and frequency of contact by using social media as a tool. Likeable Social Media written by Dave Kerpen is different from those books in the way that it does not simply teach you how to use social media but also talks about theoretical importance of social media in terms of business marketing, with practical techniques and real examples of social media marketing conducted by companies.

First of all, what I like about this book is that each chapter concisely explains what companies/organization should do; and it does not only show what they should work at but also tells how to actually do it. For example, chapter 6 tells you to “Respond Quickly to All Bad Comments”. Kerpen indicates how important it is to “communicate” with the customers by responding to every bad comment without ignoring it. “Respond Quickly to All Bad Comments” is indeed what you should aim at, but it is easier to say it than to actually do it. Understanding it, Kerpen gives you a tip to use Klout.com, which enables you to rank people depending on “how many friends and followers they have”, and respond to more influential users on social media. Like this example, the other chapters also teach readers what companies should aim at while understanding marketing situations on social media platforms and providing them with specific tools and techniques that might facilitate them to achieve the aim.

All of the instructions for social media marketing in the book, for example “Listen First, and Never Stop Listening”, “Be Honest and Transparent”, and “Share Stories”, can be summarized in what Kerpen emphasizes in this book, that is, “be human” in all social media activities – just “be likeable” as a person. He explains, to be a likable brand on social media you have to act like a person whom other people gather around at a cocktail party. Kerpen states that you treat customers in the way “you’d like to be treated” and you share contents that you would want to know are most important on social media. It sounds like a matter of course but companies can fail in doing so if they act on social media in the same way they do on traditional mass media. Kerpen points out companies should not “advertise” or “promote” in the way they do on traditional media; they should focus on “communicating” with consumers as one of the social media users. Companies are required to communicate differently on social media from traditional media because each of their activities on social media will be a component of their brand identities. I think his argument can be connected to what Nancy Baym says in her book, Personal Connections in the Digital Age, about users’ identities on SNS: “very small pieces of information, which were often not intended to be sources of information about the self, can become inordinately influential” (Baym 120).When a company engages in social media marketing, they have to think how each of their efforts, such as responding to bad comments or even not responding to them, can contribute to their brand identity that will be constructed via social media.

One thing that I criticize this book for is that it primary focuses on Facebook marketing. All of his instructions introduced in each chapter can be applicable to other SNSs. And Kerpen sometimes talks about Twitter and Likedin too. But it seems that the tools and the techniques, which he explains readers can use, are more applicable to Facebook than the other social media. Baym would say, different kind of social media sites “provide different cues” which help users construct their identities (108). There might be different tactics that a company should focus on depending on different social media platforms in order to create a likeable identity.

My review on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A18T01698LNE4P/ref=cm_pdp_rev_mor...


Sachi