12 min read

Planning on having a few days off after the end of the world or during the festive season? If you fancy catching up on some reading during your holidays, we highly recommend you have a look at the list below. We compiled 25 of the best Social Media books of 2012, covering everything from guides for beginners to fully integrated business strategies. We couldn’t really place them a



8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success

Insights and Success Stories from 154 of the World’s Most Innovative Marketing Practitioners, Authors, and Professors

8 Mandates for Social Media Marketing Success focuses on the personal traits and behaviour that marketers must master in order to get results. Some of the most innovative marketing practitioners, authors, and professors have provided their take on the eight mandates in this book. At the end of each chapter are success stories featuring large organizations and small/medium organizations.

Amazon $14.95

Blog, Inc.

Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community

With roughly 95,000 blogs launched worldwide every 24 hours (BlogPulse), making a fledgling site stand out isn’t easy. This authoritative handbook gives creative hopefuls a leg up. Joy Cho, of the award-winning Oh Joy!, offers expert advice on starting and growing a blog, from design and finance to overcoming blogger’s block, attracting readers, and more.

Amazon – $11.53

Content Rules

How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business

Content Rules equips you for online success as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about. This coverage is interwoven with case studies of companies successfully spreading their ideas online–and using them to establish credibility and build a loyal customer base. Boost your online presence and engage with customers and prospects like never before.

Amazon -$18.38

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0

How to Stand Out from the Crowd and Tap into the Hidden Job Market Using Social Media and 999 Other Tactics Today

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters – 3rd edition has been revised, updated, and expanded to include new and timely information about recruiting in the information age. Use social networking sites to take advantage of “the secret lives of top recruiters” Learn how to present yourself in ways that stand out in today’s competitive job market. Includes search engine optimization tricks used by top headhunters.

Google Books – $18.99

Internet Prophets

The World’s Leading Experts Reveal How to Profit Online

In this industry-defining book by award-winning author and Reinvention expert, Steve Olsher, you’ll discover the seldom-revealed tools, strategies, and shortcuts leveraged by the world’s leading Internet and Mobile marketing experts to cut through the clutter, reach the masses, and profit online. To become the best, you must learn from the best. “Internet Prophets” provides the blueprint.

Amazon $13.49

Light, Bright and Polite

How Businesses And Professionals Can Safely And Effectively Navigate Social Media

In this book, Josh Ochs outlines many of his counter-intuitive marketing techniques he has used on over 36+ brands in multiple industries. Josh also shares dozens of grassroots techniques and tips he has developed to unite thousands of people at his international networking events that bring together professionals all over the world. He also shows brands how to keep it Light, Bright and Polite.

Amazon – $14.95

Navigating Social Media Legal Risks

Safeguarding Your Business

The plain-English business guide to avoiding social media legal risks and liabilities-for anyone using social media for business-written specifically for non-attorneys. This insightful, first-of-its-kind book provides business professionals with strategies for navigating the unique legal risks arising from social, mobile, and online media. This book covers trademarks, promotions, endorsements, user-generated content, copyrights, privacy, security, defamation, and more.

Amazon -$29.10

Outsmarting Social Media

Profiting in the Age of Friendship Marketing

Evan Bailyn reveals how to attract friendship-based recommendations that will motivate customers more than any ad or algorithm. Bailyn explains how today’s Internet titans are battling to control the future of search and social media, and shows how to use their newest innovations to supercharge your marketing. Preview the upcoming trends and discover ways to pool that knowledge to your advantage.

Amazon – $19.92

Pinterest for Business

How to Pin Your Company to the Top of the Hottest Social Media Network

The complete guide to profiting from Pinterest! As the hottest new social media platform, it’s perfect for businesses with small marketing budgets. Two top social marketing experts show you exactly how to make Pinterest work for your company. They concisely explain how Pinterest works, how businesses are using it, and how to get started the right way.

Amazon -$21.45

Platform Get Noticed in a Noisy World

To be successful in the market today, you must possess two strategic assets: a compelling product and a meaningful platform. In this step-by-step guide, Michael Hyatt, former CEO and current Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, takes readers behind the scenes, into the new world of social media success. He shows you what best-selling authors, public speakers, entrepreneurs, and musicians are doing differently to win customers in today’s crowded marketplace.

Amazon – $13.63

Sell Your Book Like Wildfire

The Writer’s Guide to Marketing and Publicity

In Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, marketing expert Rob Eagar explains how to use the best promotional methods available to get your book noticed and drive sales. Includes tips on how to increase your book sales, secure more media interviews, and connect with key influencers. He also shows you ways of creating, and keeping your fan base.

Amazon – $11.35

Social Media Marketing

Tuten/Solomon is the first social media marketing textbook that focuses on showing readers how social media fits into the marketer’s toolbox. Ideal for students, in specific undergraduates, this book gives examples of working business instances where social media use has succeeded, or failed, and reasons why this has happened. Full of definitions for beginners.

Amazon – $85.26





Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

In the newest edition of his top-selling book, social media expert Dave Evans bypasses theory to provide you with practical, hands-on advice on developing, implementing, and measuring social media marketing campaigns. In what can be an overwhelming topic, he demystifies the jargon, dispels the myths, and helps you develop an effective, day-by-day plan.

Amazon – $19.59





Social Media Marketing For Dummies

This guide provides an indispensable resource for small businesses and start-ups looking for low-cost online marketing strategies, as well as for marketers in larger companies who want to be more involved with social media. Learn which sites best fit your business and how to take full advantage of them. This straightforward guide is exactly what busy marketers need to help them get up and running.

Amazon – $14.73





Social Media for Educators

Strategies and Best Practices

Social Media is not just a tool for business. Administrators and student affairs professionals will find a wealth of information useful for planning faculty development programs and communicating with students. Although the book focuses on higher education, tools and techniques presented here can be easily generalized for K–12 classrooms or organizational learning. Useful for professional development or network-building.

Amazon -$39.85





Social Media Marketing for Publishers

Key areas covered in this book include social media planning, websites and blogs, Facebook, Twitter, other social media marketing sites, measuring ROI and social media tools. The book is aimed at those who want to gain a low level understanding of all areas of social media rather than extensive knowledge about one area. It’s the perfect handbook for beginners.

Amazon – FREE as Ebook





Socialnomics

How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

In this revised and updated second edition, author Erik Qualman presents new material based on meeting with 75 Fortune 1000 companies, 50 colleges and universities, and over 100 small businesses & non-profits since the first edition. Qualman’s materials have been used from IBM to NASA to Harvard to local businesses. Lists the top ten easy opportunities that companies and organization miss and much more.

Amazon – $11.50

Starting Your Career as a Social Media Manager

There is a need for highly skilled practitioners: experts who not only are fluent in social media platforms but know how to use them strategically. For anyone considering launching a career in this growing field, this new release gives useful advice on making yourself marketable to potential employers using social media tools, advancing your career, and identifying the “best fit” social media employers and positions for you.

Amazon – $14.21





Stop with the BS

Written in a single train ride, this book takes an alternative view on how to begin your career. What results is a collection of 75 funny, real, raw thoughts and occasional rants about starting fresh, doing work that matters, making a difference, and why having a carefully-crafted resume is the last thing you need to make things happen in today’s world.

Amazon – $16.00





The Social Media Bible

Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success (Wiley Desktop Editions)

This social media resource that will teach corporate, small business, and non-profit marketers strategies for using social media to reach their desired audiences with power messages and efficiency. This newly revised 3rd edition addresses technology updates to the iPad, apps, Foursquare, and other geotargeted networks. New case studies and company profiles provide practical examples of how businesses have successfully implemented these strategies.

Amazon – $17.30

The E-Factor

Entrepreneurship in the Social Media Age

The E-Factor educates entrepreneurs on the pitfalls that take down most entrepreneurs before they get started, such as restricted resources, skills gaps, and financial limitations, and shows how to overcome these obstacles. Gain leverage and evaluate goals, products, and company structure to meet needs in a competitive environment. Combine the best traditional thinking with new tools, ideas, and channels now at your disposal.

Amazon – $21.50

The Rough Guide to Social Media for Beginners

Getting Started with Facebook, Twitter and Google+

Business, leisure and everything in-between is covered here, and this guide walks you through setup to maintenance and gives you the skills to make your pages lively and relevant. This book focuses on the most popular, and personal, forms of social media: Facebook and Twitter. Significant attention is also paid to Google+ and Tumblr, the latest direct challenges to Facebook’s overwhelming dominance of social networking.

Amazon -$10.70

The Social Use of Media

Cultural and Social Scientific Perspectives on Audience Research

It explores activity and interactivity, and media use as a social and cultural practice. It is a significant contribution to the development of interdisciplinary theories and approaches to audience and user studies. This collection of essays provides an overview of research on the social uses of media. This volume presents visions of current audience and reception studies and makes a significant contribution to the development of interdisciplinary approaches.

Amazon – $38.25

The Zen of Social Media Marketing

An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue 2012 Edition

This book outlines the most popular social media tools, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, and teaches you how to use them, step by step. Kabani provides proven strategies for success from the businesses she works with every day, along with shortcuts and tips to help you make the most of your time and energy. Includes updated information on Google+.

Amazon – $11.32

Working the Crowd

Social Media Marketing for Business

Blogs, social networking and social news sites have become the new tools for effective marketing and sales. This book is an excellent resource for anyone planning a social media strategy or campaign. It includes: sites and blogs for networking; social media brands and reputation; legal issues. This new edition covers the latest thinking, practices and technology such as Google+.

Amazon -$21.45





Anyone we missed or you would highly recommend?

Add your comments below and we will review it.