At its root, social media is about person-to-person interaction. Developing relationships should be the primary goal of any social media campaign. Businesses that focus on this concept can find success using social media tools to generate sales and revenue. Just take a look at Dell, Cisco, Old Spice, etc. There is little doubt about the sales potential that can be created through the effective integration of social media.

Integration. This is the key. Your business needs to have something for social media to integrate with. Alone, social media isn’t worth anything. Combined with your existing marketing mix, it can rock!

The Cons (no pun intended)

Yes, I am starting with the cons. If all I knew about B2B social media came from this book, I would probably have nothing but bad things to say about the subject. At times (many times), The B2B Social Media Book, Become a Marketing Superstar gave me the creepy car salesman vibe. You know, the feeling you get when you first notice the salesman approaching you. Distain, loathing, fear, panic, and maybe even a little empathy. You suddenly feel like you are about to get robbed and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes, that feeling.

This feeling first hit me when I read the title. I firmly believe that anyone who thinks they are (or will become) a social media superstar, rock star, guru, ninja, Jedi, or any other cheesy cliché, is simply a social media wiener.

The Pros

Okay, so it wasn’t completely terrible. To their credit, the authors do a great job of highlighting and explaining the driving principles behind social media, search marketing, email marketing, etc. If the creepy salesman wasn’t lurking in the pages, I may have actually enjoyed this book.

Almost every concept described in The B2B Social Media Book, Become a Marketing Superstar could just as easily be applied to any sales/marketing plan, regardless of industry or who is identified as the target audience. If you need to know the basics of how social media can be applied to your business, this book can answer many of your questions. Just ignore the B2B jargon.

The best thing about this book is how everything is actionable. That is, the authors breeze through the boring theory and actually teach you how to apply the concepts.

To accomplish this, you will find a to-do list at the end of each chapter. These include steps like implement the four steps of content discovery (which the authors outline in detail), and create a Twitter content process.

The authors also created an online workbook for you to use. When combined with the end-of-chapter to-do list, this will help you to integrate an active social media element into your existing marketing plan.

This book is not a complete waste of time (if you can get past the creepy salesman). There are tools and concepts that will likely help to improve how your business uses social media.

What did you think of the book? 

**Social Media Club members (Open/Pro/SMB/Corporate) are welcome to participate in a free webinar hosted by Social Media Club featuring Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen, Authors of The B2B Social Media Book on Thursday, June 21st at 2pm EDT. Register here!**