27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki

1)    What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general theme/argument of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki is the relationship between social media and the growing business world. Guy emphasizes how to build a strong social media in order to get the most out of it and based off how well you make your social media, there are different levels of success you can accomplish from it. It really is just a book teaching about the various ways social media can positively impact a business and how it can help grow a company.

2)    How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book greatly connected and enhanced what we learned in entrepreneurship. This book greatly related to expanding your network and social capital which has been ah huge aspect of ENT 3003. We even have to submit all our assignments in a blog, which is a form of social media, showing how even in this class, social media is very important. In addition, many people’s business concept was based off apps, which definitely corresponds to social media.

3)    If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I were to base an assignment for this class on the book I read, I would probably have students create a social media account for their product. Nearly all businesses advertise through social media accounts such as Instagram and Facebook, so I would have students experiment with the same. I have friends at the University of Michigan who had to do this assignment and it ended up being very successful and a very good learning opportunity. The goal of this assignment would be to see how other students would react to the posts and see how customers would like the business,

4)    What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

My biggest surprise or ‘aha’ moment was when Kawasaki was talking about how social media can be used and perfected by anyone, not just experts. Just by being an active user, your social media presence can be greatly grown and strengthened. I thought this was super cool as not a lot of things can be done well or perfected by people with no real education on the topic. I was also surprised when he talked about how sometimes it is better to post stuff the customer wants to see rather than what the company wants to post. This seems to be going against your intuition which doesn’t seem like a practical thing to be, but what do I know.