I spent some time this week with Power Friending, the new book from Amber Mac, the Canadian digital media luminary.
It's a breezily written, thoroughly understandable guide to gain greater attention with social media, and I'd recommend it for all but the most advanced social media user.
I suspect its target audience is the large segment of business still fumbling with the platforms of Facebook, Twitter and others --- she is adroit at describing the impediments many firms create in the way of success --- but I found useful elements for the craft of journalism and many helpful tips for bloggers.
The book largely deals with how to gain attention, in particular with how to behave and present. Mac has an ABC approach: authenticity, bravery and consistency. She repeats it through the book as an encouragement and she celebrates examples of how that simple approach has made successes of followers and failures of rogues. It is embedded by book's end.
Power Friending has a nice flow to it, from easier to harder and simpler to more ambitious, and I can imagine where some readers will simply get off the train as the book burrows more deeply into the steps necessary to excel in the social media sphere.
But if you're trying to build such a presence --- or fix the one you have --- I think it's a good idea to stay onboard to the end. I found very little I could quarrel with in her approach, in the tools she recommends, and in the basic execution of the program to achieve more attention, and I can imagine a much better business climate if more adhered to her approaches.
What I didn't find --- and this might be a matter of a journalist looking for material inside a book aimed at business --- was much writing on the strength of social media in eliciting information. Social media's conversation also involves learning much more than your teach in many instances, and I think she could have elaborated on how business and others can use it to build expertise. It's far more focused on directing you to widen attention for your work and dealing with your customers.
But Mac has some basic predictions that seem very sensible: the real-time Web, location-based services, social shopping, QR codes, augmented reality, mobile meet-ups, Internet-connected devices, open social networks and people-powered customer services. Any one of these is deservedly a book on its own, and I wanted a little more of Mac's mind and a little less of her resource list. Having seen her work across platforms, I know there's more of a thinker in there. What we get in Power Friending is more of the doer.
Having said that, Power Friending is a book we needed some time ago. I hope it paves the way for many more versions that guide social networking conduct. Mac has blazed a nice trail for them.
It's a breezily written, thoroughly understandable guide to gain greater attention with social media, and I'd recommend it for all but the most advanced social media user.
I suspect its target audience is the large segment of business still fumbling with the platforms of Facebook, Twitter and others --- she is adroit at describing the impediments many firms create in the way of success --- but I found useful elements for the craft of journalism and many helpful tips for bloggers.
The book largely deals with how to gain attention, in particular with how to behave and present. Mac has an ABC approach: authenticity, bravery and consistency. She repeats it through the book as an encouragement and she celebrates examples of how that simple approach has made successes of followers and failures of rogues. It is embedded by book's end.
Power Friending has a nice flow to it, from easier to harder and simpler to more ambitious, and I can imagine where some readers will simply get off the train as the book burrows more deeply into the steps necessary to excel in the social media sphere.
But if you're trying to build such a presence --- or fix the one you have --- I think it's a good idea to stay onboard to the end. I found very little I could quarrel with in her approach, in the tools she recommends, and in the basic execution of the program to achieve more attention, and I can imagine a much better business climate if more adhered to her approaches.
What I didn't find --- and this might be a matter of a journalist looking for material inside a book aimed at business --- was much writing on the strength of social media in eliciting information. Social media's conversation also involves learning much more than your teach in many instances, and I think she could have elaborated on how business and others can use it to build expertise. It's far more focused on directing you to widen attention for your work and dealing with your customers.
But Mac has some basic predictions that seem very sensible: the real-time Web, location-based services, social shopping, QR codes, augmented reality, mobile meet-ups, Internet-connected devices, open social networks and people-powered customer services. Any one of these is deservedly a book on its own, and I wanted a little more of Mac's mind and a little less of her resource list. Having seen her work across platforms, I know there's more of a thinker in there. What we get in Power Friending is more of the doer.
Having said that, Power Friending is a book we needed some time ago. I hope it paves the way for many more versions that guide social networking conduct. Mac has blazed a nice trail for them.
