Chapter 11 of “The Art of Social Media” was my favorite chapter of the book. While there were helpful bits in almost every chapter, I believe this chapter was the most helpful to me. Chapter 11 discusses many social media platforms and how to best customize them for your use. For organizations on Facebook, they could use the Page Insights feature. It helps tell the organization of what information is getting the most attention and how to help target others. It also discussed the benefit of interacting with other Facebook pages.
There was also quite a bit of information about Google+, but I still feel ignorant to the platform. I am unsure why companies or individuals would use it rather than another platform. Because of my inadequate understanding, many of the features discussed went over my head. I believe I understand the basis of the information, but I would have to interact more with Google+ in order to fully grasp what is being explained.
Instagram was another platform included in the chapter. I believe Instagram has been pretty well covered in the book. I believe the site is easy enough to grasp and navigate that there is not much to say about it. It was discussed several times throughout the book to where it felt overdone. The information pertaining to Instagram was not new. The same thing was repeated about every platform: Provide a widget to help others share the post, use hashtags and share the picture on every other platform you are using.
What I really enjoyed in Chapter 11 were the tips for using LinkedIn. As a college student, I know a lot of people that are on LinkedIn. So many good things have been said about the platform. Other students praised the effectiveness and importance of it but not me. I only just recently learned that it even existed. It was sometime in the past six months that I had first heard about LinkedIn, so I have been unsure of what it was or why it is used. After reading previous chapters, I had a vague idea. Unlike Facebook or Instagram, I can confidently say it is for professional interactions and networking. Chapter 11 really helped to explain more things about the site.
The most important information I got about using LinkedIn is to make things personal, professional and focused. I am not as good as I would like to be when using new social media sites so I would have gone against many of the tips listed in Chapter 11. For starters, I now understand that you must send connection requests to the people you want to get in touch with. I am absolutely delighted that Chapter 11 states that the best thing you can do for these connection requests is to make them personalized. If I had never read this chapter, I would not have done it. I would have assumed it was such a minor, unimportant aspect that no one cared to check. I would have been very wrong.
With most books for classes, I am unhappy to have read them. I feel they provide an insignificant amount of relevant information that was not worth spending money on. With this book, I feel differently. I learned much more than I thought I would and actually enjoyed some of it.
