I love Dummies! Many of the Dummies books are my favorites because I teach (and do) practical Internet marketing. When the Dummies are good, they are really really good. This current Dummies book is one of the very best with lots of great insights into Facebook marketing, plus many wonderful details. There are a few things it leaves out, but overall this is the No. 1 book on Facebook marketing. Buy it! Here is my book review.
By Jason McDonald
Senior SEO Instructor – JM Internet Group
Posted: May 3, 2012
Facebook has become a very popular social media platform and a great place for businesses to grow. While you might think Facebook is only good for business updates and photos, it’s also brilliant for getting new customers. Many businesses are using Facebook ads as well as hiring agencies such as Voy Media to boost conversion rates. Even a small budget can go a long way if you use it properly. So, what resources are out there for you to use and improve your Facebook skills? The latest Facebook Marketing for Dummies book is a great place to start.
Review of Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2012 – Review of John Haydon, Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger’s New Book © 2012 (Five Stars / Recommended)
First, the great. What is great about this book? Facebook Marketing for Dummies gives you the big picture. Why do you want a Facebook account? Who are your customers? Why do they want to ‘like’ you on Facebook? These major questions get to the heart of social media marketing: it is a conversation, a relationship. It’s not just about you TALKING it’s about your fans LISTENING. It’s not just about you and your fans TALKING, it’s about your FANS talking to other FANS. Social media is very conversational, very relationship-oriented, and Facebook for Dummies begins at the beginning: why do your customers WANT to listen to you on Facebook?
Next, the book proceeds to give you all the basics (what is a page vs. what is a profile, what is a group and all that jazz) plus wonderful technical insights. For instance, it explains how to use the Facebook Ad Tool to get at Facebook demographics (what a great idea!). And it explains how Facebook’s Edgerank is an algorithm that decides how your updates will appear in your fans’ news feeds. So at the level of GREAT, this book is an encyclopedic overview of Facebook at all levels: high, medium, and low.
THE GOOD: PDF’s, DOWNLOADS, LINKS ON FACEBOOK MARKETING
Facebook Marketing for Dummies does a good, but not great, job of identifying helpful resources on the Internet for more information. Throughout the book, it peppers and salts you with pointers to cool online resources such as free and low-cost services that will help you create Facebook tabs, or services that will manage coupons for Facebook.
My criticism here is that there is no organized list of all the resources, no pointers to the Internet where you can find all sorts of free resources for your Facebook marketing. On my wish list for 2012 is that book authors start to think of books as ‘platforms’ or ‘starting points’ to the Web, and build into each paper book a ‘Web strategy’ so that readers can easily follow along online, and get access to more Internet information. This should be obvious to the Dummies editors, but they don’t do a good job of making this easy for you.
Here is a link to the old (2009) downloads –
- Book Page – Facebook for Dummies – PDF’s, Downloads, Goodies (not much there, sadly).
I wish that the new, 2012, book had a clear and concise page on the Internet, but I can’t find it!
THE GO BEYOND: FACEBOOK AND YOUR TOTAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Finally, here is my one criticism of the book. Like most books, it focuses very narrowly at the topic on hand: Facebook Marketing. It neglects to situate Facebook as part of a ‘concentric circle’ view of marketing: your social media marketing (Facebook vs. LinkedIn vs. Twitter vs. Google+), your Internet marketing (Social Media marketing vs. SEO vs. AdWords) and your total marketing (Your Internet Marketing vs. all other types).
I would not recommend that a company plunge into Facebook marketing without having first thought through its entire marketing and Internet marketing strategy. Facebook isn’t for everyone; many companies (most companies) will do better with SEO, first, before moving on to Social Media.
But, all in all, this is a fantastic book and well worth the investment!
