Social Media Marketing eBook Review - Getting To First Base

I just finished reviewing a copy of "Getting to First Base, A Social Media Marketing Playbook" by Darren Barefoot and his wife Julie Szabo of Capulet Communications. Darren and Julie have collaborated with us in the past on creating and pitching the Crazy Messed Up World of Ecommerce series.

"Getting to First Base" is a clever metaphor for the social media marketing. Not only is it like a game, it's kinda sorta like the dating scene.

This book is about the “dating” stage of social media relations, and getting to that metaphorical first kiss. It’s about understanding and interpreting the language—spoken and unspoken—of social media creators. Learning to speak their dialect, and how to communicate with them respectfully and honestly, is a big part of social media marketing.

The authors are up front that this ebook will not help you convert social media traffic to sales (that would be home base). It's really more of an introduction for marketers who need a primer on social media marketing. But I believe there is still value in reading this book if you're an ecommerce marketer who is interested in:

• Opening up your brand
• Learning about opportunities where to promote your brand / products without being "spammy"
• Preparing your website to be "social media ready" (social media optimization)
• Etiquette for doing blogger relations
• How to pitch to and get noticed by media influencers (with case studies including the Crazy Messed Up World of Ecommerce pitch)
• How to respond to negative posts about you, tactfully
• Answering the question "should you build your own social network?" (like Circuit City recently did)

Though the industry is a moving target, the ebook is currently up-to-date (perhaps with the exception of paid review bloggers which Google recently threw the smackdown on). It includes a thorough section on Facebook marketing opportunities (but pays no mind to MySpace) and covers SecondLife, Wikis and Wikipedia, microblogging and Digg to boot.

The 99 page ebook is available for a reasonable price of $29, or if you are a marketing blogger (a.k.a "influencer"), Darren and Julie will hook you up with a review copy, simply give them a holler.