Jason McDonald, Author

The Social Media Marketing Workbook

ISBN 978-1-97942-499-8

Non-Fiction-business, self-help

447 pages

January 2020 Review

Reviewer-Michelle Kaye Malsbury, BSBM, MM

Review

Jason McDonald, author of The Social Media Marketing Workbook, has spent many decades being active on the internet. (2019, back cover) He is a teacher of Social Media Marketing, Adwords, and SEO at Stanford Continuing Studies Online and in corporate workshops. To learn more about him please visit his website at https://www.jasonmcdonald.org

Chapter 1 introduces you to what Jason calls Social Media Marketing or SMM. He says it is “…part theory, and part practice. It gives you the framework for how to “think” about social media marketing as well as a concrete advice on how to “do” social media marketing on each particular network.” (2019, p.15) Next, he offers some “to do’s. He likens social media to tossing a party. For which he says you need a plan. If you are unsure what to do he says “know the question and find the answer”. (p.27)

Chapter 2 delves into content. The first tip is to “…identify the content you can easily produce”. (2019, p.40) Then there are some tips on how to create your content. Use “…keyword themes.” (p,44) And to “..produce content on schedule.” (p.48) Another thing that Jason considers a must is to blog. Again, set forth your “blogging objectives” beforehand to ensure that you stay fresh in the mind of your consumers. Sometimes he says it is to “curate other people’s content”. (p.55) To which he says “Curate is just a fancy word that means identifying useful content in your industry..”

There is an entire chapter dedicated to Facebook. McDonald says that “…Facebook is…by far – the largest social media platform with nearly two billion active users…” (2019, p.69) “Facebook has a component in its algorithm which essentially rewards you for posting items users interact with.” Then he asks us to consider “…not whether your customers are on Facebook, but rather what are they doing and how can you brainstorm social media strategy to reach them.”

LinkedIn is the topic of Chapter 4. There is information about how to optimize your profile information so it helps to promote your business, how to leverage your company page(s), joining groups for conversations and networking, etc.. McDonald says “Whereas on Facebook most of us are suspicious of friend requests from people we don’t know… on LinkedIn you can easily reach out and ask for a connection.” (2019, pgs. 149-50) The perfect formula is “Employer participation + an active LinkenIn business page = LinkenIn marketing success” (p.151)

Twitter is highlighted in Chapter 5 and so on. There are many sage tips on how to maximize the use of these social market websites and upgrade your profile so businesses seeking employees can locate you. I enjoyed this book and learned a lot in the process and believe you can/will too!