Author: Gail F. Goodman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Reviewer: Amanda Phillips, MD and Head of Strategy, Volume
One of the difficulties in traversing the modern, socially-connected world is scale. Customers are connected to more and more choices and by comparison for a business, the marketplace gets larger and larger. Particularly with such a new discipline in social marketing, it’s understandable that this glut of information is potentially a daunting prospect.
Engagement Marketing is a step-by-step guide that is designed to make sense of social marketing for small businesses. However, the result is a set of principles that can be applied and effectively utilised by businesses of all sizes.
With such a vast social landscape, it is easy to become preoccupied with how your business size relates to the marketplace; such is the nature of our newfound connectivity. Likewise, it’s human nature to be curious as to how others are succeeding. But the most crucial insight on offer here is that it’s not about how others approach the challenge – it’s how you approach it.
What makes Engagement Marketing a worthwhile read is that instead of providing an off-the-shelf, ready-made solution, it takes the principles of effective social media marketing and applies them within a context that’s relevant to its audience. Author, Gail F Goodman, implores the reader to ‘stop worrying about Facebook fans and Twitter followers’, and explore ways in which already-familiar, highly powerful marketing principles of word-of-mouth and referrals can translate onto these platforms.
The important takeaway is that it’s only through one-on-one, business-to-person marketing that real long-term engagement can be fostered and profitable conversations sparked. The new era of connectivity means consumer voices are broadcast farther than ever before, and if a brand can ensure positivity is maintained at each touchpoint, then a vast referral network can be activated in potentially a very short space of time. Research shows that leads generated through peer recommendation are 2.5 more responsive than any other channel. If social marketing is approached as a facilitator and not placed in a silo, it can be used to build highly potent referral programs.
In this sense, the socially connected world is actually a great equaliser. By seeking to thoroughly understand the context in which your business exists and the way your customers navigate it, it will soon become apparent that size really doesn’t matter and some of the oldest marketing principles still carry just as much weight today.
