Jordan Kasteler has had quite the career. He was the Senior SEO Analyst at Overstock.com, a co-founder of Search and Social, the SVP of Content Development / Managing Partner of BlueGlass Interactive, Inc. the CMO at Steelcast and is now the Online Marketing Strategist at PETA.
Jordan is extremely smart and has built a very respected reputation in our industry. He is also a very nice guy and one I have always enjoyed hanging out with. If you get the opportunity to meet him I suggest you grab the opportunity.
Jordan has recently released a book called A to Z Social Media Marketing that I have read and I think it could be extremely helpful to those trying to understand the ins and outs of social media.
I want to thank Jordan for taking the time to answer some questions about his book.
Can you tell us why you decided to write the book?
I decided to do an ebook as my thesis project for my Masters degree. I graduated with a Masters of Professional Communications and digital media was a large emphasis of that degree so it fit in pretty well. From there, I took the appropriate steps to create an ebook that would be available on iTunes, Amazon, etc. I didn’t want to stop there so I printed my book as well.
Who would benefit from reading your book?
This book is for people looking to dive into social media marketing and learn it from all angles. However, it is also for the well-versed social media marketer that wants to explore other facets of social media they might not know about like content marketing with social media.
Can you give us a breakdown of topics?
While most books focus on Facebook and Twitter (sometimes YouTube), this book teaches leveraging all facets of social media and all social media channels involved. This book largely explores concepts of content marketing and leveraging social media to promote that content. Learn how to create and distribute infographics, articles, videos, quizzes, widgets, etc and the proper social sites they should be distributed.
While this book features sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more, it’s important to note that it teaches promotion o social media holistically and not a channel-by-channel basis. Use everything together to create a strategy over just tactics.
Can you tell us your favorite websites or resources for staying up to date on Social Media?
- Mashable.com – I go here about 3 times a day and read it religiously. I find myself only cherry picking a few pieces to read, often I’m let down as the content isn’t as exciting as the title made it out to be, but it’s a good place to keep up with news and find new resources.
- Daily SearchCap – A daily link aggregation list by SearchEngineLand.com.
- Marketing Day – Another daily link aggregation list by marketingLand.com.
- Search Engine Journal – of course 🙂
What are “3 musts” those new to social media must know/do?
- Learn tactics and ways to implement ALL facets of social media into your marketing strategies.
- Keep your finger on the pulse by reading blog posts daily.
- Build your social presence. How’s anyone going to take you seriously if you don’t own your own profiles, have them fleshed out and active, etc?
Do you feel anyone can be good at social media?
Anyone can be good at anything if they put in the time and effort. Marketing and communication skills are important to being good at leveraging social media effectively. Most importantly, the thirst for knowledge and hunger to learn is important to staying up to speed and rising above.
What techniques & strategies do you think people need to stay on top of in 2012?
To stay one top you need to constantly be thinking outside the box and being unique. Doing stuff others have done before can only get you so far. In social, people really pay attention to new and unique ways of doing things.
Note that just because a new site comes out doesn’t mean you should add it into your marketing mix no matter how much hype it’s getting. Social networks come and go pretty easily these days.
Personal Questions
- Mac or PC? – PC! I gave the Mac thing a try for a couple years but have found myself coming back to the PC.
- Tweetdeck or Hootsuite? – I don’t personally monitor my feeds daily as it’s a distraction. I just check Twitter once or twice a day and use “Twitter Notifier” for Chrome to alert me of new @replies and DMs.
- iPhone or Droid? – iPhone but I see myself migrating to Android at some point. I’m quite disappointed at the slow speed of iPhone iOS upgrades each generation. Android seems to be moving much quicker.
- Favorite drink/beer? – Beer is my favorite drink 🙂 I’m a fan of any Hef
- Star Wars or Star Trek? -Neither! I’m not a sci-fi fan in the least, sorry 🙁
