Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick


This guide provides you with 120 tips, tricks, and tools to promote your image across multiple online platforms for viral virtual visibility. From perfecting your avatar and crafting your mantra to utilizing RSS feeds and having effective Twitter chats, Guy and Peg ensure your image and presence is resounding in the digital world. In relation to ENT 3003, this book serves as the perfect reference for building a successful blog. With concise guides for general maintenance, housekeeping, connecting all of your media platforms, facilitating inbound marketing, and responding to comments, The Art to Social Media serves as a playbook for successful blogging in ENT3003.

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book I read, I would have students read a chapter out of this book called "How to Feed the Content Monster" foremost. Following, I would have them create an editorial calendar for all of the assignments for the first three weeks of class in a platform of their choice in order to manage their blog posts and accompany a social media component in their blog. I would have students create a social media account to visually catalog their journey and progress in their ventures to give them a true sense of "Feeding the Content Monster" and equip them with the knowledge of integrating social media with their blogs to enhance their virtual visibility and relations in the entrepreneurial community.

What truly hit me like a brick wall when reading this book were two recurring factors: reach and consistency. You have to keep up with all forms of media in order to truly expose your posts, shares, and image to a considerable network, sharing the same post throughout all of your pages and sites to reach all of your followers. One quote that stuck out was, "If you’re not pissing people off on social media, you’re not using it aggressively enough". Furthermore, in order to truly brand yourself and relay the sense of who you are or what your company stands for, your media needs to have consistent visuals: use the same avatar, relevant cover photos, share the same images on your platform; create a sense of unity across all of your platforms. Seems simple enough but these were two things that I believe often go overlooked.