The internet is awash with valuable information. You can read it, watch it, listen to it, and share it, and all without doing much more than opening your laptop or swiping the screen of your tablet. Technology is grand and the chance to have almost anything you need not too much mire than a couple of clicks or taps away is a blessing to be sure.
Sometimes, though it’s easier on the eyes to kick back and search for knowledge in an old fashioned book. Whether reading more is one of your New Year’s Resolutions or whether you just want to learn a little more on the commute to work or on the weekend in front of the fireplace, here are five books you should definitely add to your reading list for 2015.
Twitter is Not a Strategy
Tom Doctoroff
Tom Doctoroff has more than 20 years experience building and supporting international brands, including work with global giants Nestle and Microsoft. In this book – which despite the title is not an anti-digital marketing volume – he explains how to build recognition, create lasting value, and combine the best of traditional and online marketing in today’s complex and noisy world. Whatever the tools that a marketing campaign employees, Doctoroff makes clear that the fundamentals of brand development and management have not changed, and teaches readers how to apply these fundamentals in building their own brands.
A World Gone Social
Ted Coiné and Mark Babbitt
If there’s one message to take away from Ted Coiné and Mark Babbitt’s new book A World Gone Social it is this: social media is here to stay, and companies have to either adapt or die. This book teaches you how to use social media platforms to reach out to customers and also to employees, to take advantage of the positive and negative feedback that social media brings to businesses, and leverage platforms like Facebook and Twitter to the benefit of customers, staff, and the business as a whole. There’s value here for business owners, but also for content creators and freelancers getting ready to make their next client pitch.
The Art of Social Media
Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Kawasaki’s latest book, this time co-written with Peg Fitzpatrick, is a chance to learn how to lift your social media game to the next level. If you’re looking for a philosophical take on the impact of social media on life, the universe, and everything else then you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. Kawasaki’s book is practically focussed, delivering step-by-step tactics and strategies that almost anyone can employ to improve social reach, social engagement, and brand performance. Protein: get the eBook instead of the paperback – there are hundreds of links you’ll want to be clicking as you read.
Shortcut
John Pollack
We all use analogies to convince others and it turns out we are hard wired to the power of analogical arguments. In this book John Pollack, former speechwriter for US President Bill Clinton, explains how analogies have been sparked the idea for everything from the Ford assembly line to the Apple computer. There’s a dark side to analogies, too, though, and Pollack also explains how poor analogies led to tragedies like the Vietnam War and an unwindable US war on drugs. Telling the difference between good and bad analogies is therefore key, and thankfully among all of his examples Pollack offers strategies on how to do just that.
Launch
Jeff Walker
Walker’s previous book, Product Launch Formula, changed the way that many thought about selling online. With this new book, Walker provides a practical guide to selling in a digital marketplace that begins even before you know what your product or service might be. Drawing on nearly 20 years of internet business experience, Walker expands on his previously articulated ideas to focus on those first, crucially important steps in a marketing strategy: the launch. Walker explains the importance of a mailing list, the significance of scarcity in creating demand, and destroys the myth of ‘hope-based’ marketing forever.
