The Zen of Media, by Shama Kubani bills itself as ‘The last social media guide you’ll need.” It’s not. Like it’s author, though, it’s an excellent guide to new initiates.
Zen of Social Media has the amount of wisdom you might expect from a new author in their twenties but Kubani’s basic understanding of social media principles — and her enthusiasm for the topic — make the paperback a good guidebook for beginners. It provides a good overview of social media and does it better job than many books putting it into a broader digital marketing context.
Although (even moderately) experienced readers will experience many ‘well, duh’ moments instead of Zen moments when exploring the book, this could become one of my favorite ‘go-to’ book for beginners. The writing style, layout, organization and tone of the book is reminiscent of Wiley’s successful ‘QuickStart Guide’ series for learning traditional software products like InDesign and Photoshop.
The website accompanying the book over promises. It claims to be ‘The First Official Living Book on Social Media.’ It’s not. At present, the site is lifeless: it contains a poorly-formatted version of the printed book. It doesn’t include any recent, timely or essential content on Facebook privacy, Facebook’s Open Graph protocol or mobile devices.
Like the book itself, the website is filled with good baseline content and well-intentions, but doesn’t deliver on the publisher’s ‘EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW’ promise.
Kubani is an interesting author. She rightfully deserves the 2009 recognition she obtained from Business Week as one of the Top 25 under 25 entrepreneurs in North America. And, She represents everything I like about Gen Y: She’s entrepreneurial, motivated and passionate about her profession.
My disappointment with the book rests solely on the books publisher, BenBella Books, which did a poor job marshaling Kubani’s spirit into a writing project. Had the book been properly titled something like ‘Social Media Guidebook’ or ‘Quick Start Guide to Social Media’ it would be praiseworthy. Even better would have been a panoramic glimpse of the social media world through the eyes of a Gen Y leader.
Instead, reading the book is like being sold a Lexus (‘The last social media guide you’ll ever need”) and being delivered a Ford Focus. It’s got a lot of good things going for it — but it’s not what you were sold.
About Troy Janisch