Social Marketology by Ric Dragon - Book review

Social Marketology

Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever

By: Ric Dragon

Published: May 25, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 0071790497
ISBN-13: 978-0071790499
Publisher McGraw Hill













"Marketing in the social media is fundamentally different from conventional marketing. The depth in which connections can be made with the 'audience' or 'customers' is far greater than it possibly can be with any other medium", writes internet marketer, software developer, and co-founder and CEO Of DragonSearch, Ric Dragon in his comprehensive and very practical book Social Marketology: Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever . The author describes how marketers are very likely aware of the power of social media, they lack the tools and best practices for making an effective social media strategy a reality.

Ric Dragon recognizes that a social media strategy, to be considered viable and effective on an organizational level, must be quantifiable, repeatable, and improvable. To achieve these levels of accountability, the social media marketer requires the tools and best practices that will achieve those criteria. For marketers, who continue to think in terms of traditional media, or even in standard internet marketing procedures, Ric Dragon provides clear evidence that social media marketing demands a fresh approach and a new way of thinking and behaving. To find success in the social media world, the author guides leaders through the basics of claiming their social media real estate, creating creating an organizational policy, and monitoring the results.

Ric Dragon (photo left) understands three basic premises. Social media behaviors follow patterns, which if deciphered will provide context and form to the seemingly unwieldy social media world. Social media, if brought into the form of a process, works even more effectively if applied on an organization wide format. Not all social media projects are the same,as evidenced by different platforms and communities.

Ric Dragon provides a complete overview of the process for creating, measuring, and improving a social media strategy. The author breaks the journey down into readily understood and applied segments:

* Patterns in social media
* Managing the social media team
* Focusing on desired outcomes
* Humanizing the brand with personality and voice
* identifying customer micro-segments
* Belonging to a community
* Going for the influencers
* Creating an action plan
* measuring your progress
* Avoiding the big mistakes
* Laboratory for innovative social media
* Measuring and improving the social media marketing process

For me, the power of the book is how Ric Dragon combines a strong theoretical framework with the practical tools and techniques for establishing, monitoring, and adjusting a complete social media strategy. The author takes a holistic approach to social media that involves all aspects of the social media world, and an overall organizational involvement in achieving social media success for the company and its brands.

Ric Dragon presents the best practices that are so often missing from social media books and discussions. He adds this critical element to the basic premises that are so crucial to understanding the value and fresh thinking involved with social media marketing. The author provides the important aspect of measuring social media results, and adds the additional crucial element of changing, modifying, and improving the strategy and process based on those measurement.

I highly recommend the insightful and holistic approach based book Social Marketology: Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever by Ric Dragon, to any internet marketers, marketing executives, brand managers, non-profit executives, and entrepreneurs seeking a very complete examination of the strategy and processes involved in a successful social media marketing program. This book will boost your social media success for any organization or brand.