This is Social Media: Tweet, Blog, Link and Post Your Way to Business Success [Paperback]

*UPDATED FOR 2011. Including new info on mobile devices, new platforms and location based social networking.*

Anyone in business can use social media to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty and sales. This is Social Media shows you how.

You might already be social networking on Facebook, or even microblogging on Twitter. One thing's for sure though; you're too busy to muck about on these sites all day, not really knowing how to get any decent play out of them. You're looking for profitability, not gimmicks.

Many organizations, large and small, are using social media and social networking to build robust communities of followers, stay ahead of the competition and increase profits. Are you missing a trick?

This is the definitive guide to using the whole spectrum of social media in an efficient and measurable way in order to market your business. It covers Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Flickr, YouTube, Bebo, MySpace, Blogs, Podcasts, Mobile and much, much more. Each site is assessed not as an end in itself but as means of delivering a business result.

With simple, practical steps, real life examples and quick definitions to explain the jargon, you'll soon understand the world of social media and have access to a range of social networking tactics that will help you reach new customers and clients, as well as get your existing ones to do more business with you.

I wrote this book because it's the one I wanted to read. Let me explain a bit. I've been a journalist using some sort of social network - Compuserve in the 1990s (remember that?) and others before and since - all my working life. I started reading blogs early on, but everyone around me seemed to be saying social networks were invented with Facebook and Twitter.

Of course they've become bigger and more widespread. But the essence of them - somewhere you can participate and add something as well as find customers - remains constant. I wanted to write the book that said so.

I also noticed a lot of people were talking about social media and social networks only as something, well, 'social'. The business customer, who had a feeling he or she could be doing something for customers with this newfangled stuff, didn't have a guide. I'd picked up loads of business using social networks and I wanted to help other people do the same where it's possible.

So this isn't a book that tells you how to get in touch with all your friends. It isn't an in-depth technical guide. It's intended as an introduction to social media and social networking for business managers and owners anywhere. It tells you who's likely to be on which network and it tells you how to get involved and get social media into your marketing mix.

I hope it's a help.

Guy Clapperton

This is Social Media shows you how.

You might already be social networking on Facebook, or even microblogging on Twitter. One thing′s for sure though; you′re too busy to muck about on these sites all day, not really knowing how to get any decent play out of them. You′re looking for profitability, not gimmicks.

Many organizations, large and small, are using social media and social networking to build robust communities of followers, stay ahead of the competition and increase profits. Are you missing a trick?

This is the definitive guide to using the whole spectrum of social media in an efficient and measurable way in order to market your business. It covers: Facebook, Picasa, Mobile Linkedln, YouTube Blogs, Twitter, Ecademy, Blellow, Podcasts, and the rest.

Each site is assessed not as an end in itself but as means of delivering a business result.

With simple, practical steps, real life examples and quick definitions to explain the jargon, you′ll soon understand the world of social media and have access to a range of social networking tactics that will help you reach new customers and clients, as well as get your existing ones to do more business with you.

Guy Clapperton is a columnist and regular contributor to the small business and digital sections of most of the national press, as well as a consultant and media trainer.