Christopher Barger’s book, "Social Media Strategist" is incredibly valuable and worthwhile, right from the start. He emphasizes that we all must recognize that “the social is more important than the media and always will be.”

This handbook if you will, offers principles to guide corporations, small businesses, nonprofits and social media managers to think through a social media strategy that is aligned with their communication or marketing goals. Barger’s book is chocked full of excellent case studies and lessons from his personal experiences in social media. He doesn’t shy away from his examples of running social media for a large firm, even in their darkest of times. Christopher explains his strategy advice in the context of the current media landscape and how it has changed and evolved since the early days of blogging.

This book defines a social media strategy as team effort, and without such an effort success may be short lived. Barger explains in detail the role of every department needed to create a social marketing power team, from the “executive champion” right down to the “social media evangelist”.

Like many other pillars in his industry, Barger doesn’t shy away from the fact that social media is not a Band-Aid to fix all your ailments. There are some businesses that just can’t be helped! He says it best, and I have already quoted this to a client, “Social media is not a set of magic beans that turns chicken poop into chicken salad. In fact social media can and will amplify your business and product flaws.” In other words fix your business; social media won’t do it for you.

If you're looking for solid principles to establish your social media strategy, read “The Social Media Strategist” by Christopher Barger. With inspiration from Barger’s book, and the influence of the Profound Liz Lemon, might I add Deal Breaker #13: If your social media evangelist is not willing to learn from the masters of the industry that have gone before them……deal breaker! Read This Book.

**Social Media Club members (Open/Pro/SMB/Corporate) are welcome to participate in a free webinar hosted by Social Media Club featuring Christopher Barger, Author of The Social Media Strategist on Tuesday, February 28th at 2pm EDT. Register here!**