27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general argument of the book was to offer insight on how to navigate social media platforms, how to advertise yourself professionally on social media accounts, and what content to create and offer to your followers. The reason he explains these concepts are because Guy Kawasaki believes that there are social media elements to include in your social media account to build a growing with followers that help build-up your community. The book teaches you the basic important lessons that would help build a community around your social media accounts online. 

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

In my opinion, the book connected with with what I'm learning in ENT 3003 in aspect of advertising and digital marketing to help grow and advertise a business. Kawasaki's book focuses mostly on the social media aspect of online advertising, but most of what he says crosses paths with the information Professor Pryor is discussing in his lectures. Kawasaki offers insight into how to use accounts to promote one another, make sure your image is professional, what content to share with followers and how to build a community around your hobbies. Similarly, Professor Pryor expresses the benefits of your biography, profile, way of expressing information, and who your audience is targeting. To continue, Guy Kawasaki expresses that creating content in the form of a blog is very valuable to relating to your social media growing, which is similar to how this class is structured in a blog format. This format allows us to learn how to express our ideas and answers in the form of 'posts' which is similar to creating content for a twitter feed and tweeting to your followers. 

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book I chose, I would ask the students to create a twitter account based on their product or service and require them to tweet information relating to opportunity and advertising their solution for it. This would help students understand about having an online social media presence and how to professionally express your opinions while growing your following around you. Also, this would demonstrate the different methods on how to advertise your business through one of the many social media platforms. 

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

My biggest surprise while reading Kawasaki's book was finding out the other social media platforms being used for advertising business products and services, and how each social media platform focuses on a different aspect of advertising your business. Guy goes on to bring in examples of how Pinterest and Instagram force companies to learn how to adapt to advertising with mostly pictures and short captions, while Twitter allows businesses to include links, images, and directly tweet to another company or person. Ultimately, these requirements were not part of any of my expectations when I started reading this book, and I was actually shocked to find out how many other little features can be utilized to better advertise your company online.