A guest post by Annabella Pollina.Â
World-class marketers aren't born; they're made! Marketing and boosting engagement is something you will learn better every day with new experiences.
But there's no need to make your own mistakes. You can learn from the mistakes of the marketers who are currently thriving in their field. Or you could directly apply their winning tricks and formulas for driving in more engagement to your marketing efforts to achieve the best results.
This is where these engagement marketing books written by experts come in. They have worked the entire process and exactly know what works and what doesn't.
Many of our book recommendations are based on complex concepts like the effect of human psychology on marketing and social media engagement on posts. Winning the likes, shares and comments of the audience is not an easy game to crack. Your content has to be interesting enough and relevant for them to engage.
So reading these books will widen your horizons in this field.
1. There is no B2B and B2C: Human to Human: H2H
What is the purpose of such super-specialised market segmentation like B2B or B2C? Don't you feel it only does the job of confusing the consumers even more?
The author of this engagement marketing book, Bryan Kramer, says there is no such need to target groups of consumers specifically. Ultimately the brand's message would be consumed by no one but humans.
It is humans who are going to comment and engage with your posts, since communication is basically human to human.
Too many technical words like "synergy" and "speed and feed" distract the marketers from doing their job. Marketing, at its core, is all about telling stories to motivate the audience enough to share your posts.
The message of engagement marketing should be human and having a special touch. Marketing lingual only spoils that.
Kramer says not to hard-sell consumers but to create engaging conversations around the value or experience received from a product or service. Marketing sophisticated English full of jargon and synonyms is bound to ruin their connection with the brand.
The book's message is marketers should learn to get into consumers' minds and blur all market segmentation lines to make things more relatable for ordinary people. Until you get into your customer’s mind, you will never know what kind of content they are likely to engage with.
Communication need not be complicated. It should be simple yet effective. The ultimate goal is to know more about individual customers' preferences and offer them personalised experiences and services.
2. Hug your Haters: How to embrace complaints and keep your customers
Is your brand's consumer complaint inbox filled with offensive messages and rude complaints? Do you feel you can't deal with such negativity?
The author of this book, Jay Baer, aims to change your mind. You are supposed to see these complaints as opportunities. He explains the consumer psychology behind these complaints and what mindset is needed when engagement on your posts is low. Learn how to convert customer service complaints into a marketing advantage.
A lot of research has been done on the science behind consumer complaints or bad engagement. You need to realise your customer service is not as excellent as you imagine. Research shows that almost 80% of companies guarantee this, but only 8% of customers think so.
Kramer discusses the main reason behind customers' rising expectations and decreasing engagement. This is due to a giant shift in customer service in recent years. Everyone has a busy life and no adult spends all of their time on social media. Your brand content needs to be so exciting, your target audience can only pay attention to it and engage.
All entrepreneurs need to give this book to their sales and marketing team. They will learn how to handle the customers better, appreciate hate comments, both in reality or virtually, and give less prominence to consumer praises or good comments, which tend to be overrated. You will also learn the secret behind improving customer engagement.
This engagement marketing book is also an interesting read. It has numerous engaging and funny case studies which are customised to match the relevance of the book. The main message is, "Haters aren't your problem, ignoring them is", taken, of course, in context to marketing.
3. Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges
Did you hear about the famous Ted speech by Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy on 'power poses', which got almost 35 million views? This book is an extension of her speech. She talks about a unique and interesting concept of 'presence' which can overcome both professional and personal hurdles. Now you must be wondering, what does the author mean by 'presence'?
She means the psychological tactics and nudges we apply to feel more confident in meetings, presentations, public speaking events or any other anxiety-inducing events. This will also help marketers to converse better with your social media followers so that they engage better.
She mentions all her research on social psychology and explains power and presence concepts. Such as how you use your presence of mind to comment and engage on posts relevant to your niche or brand. This boosts your brand’s reach and exposure on social media, causing your content to automatically gets a lot of engagement.
4. Invisible Influence: The hidden forces that shape behaviour
Want to cultivate leadership qualities and influence other people? Want to learn how to make quicker and smarter decisions to lead better? This book, written by Jonah Berger, will help you create a better engaging community with your audience.
Once you start behaving like a team leader, your engagement will skyrocket, as you will be making better decisions. You'll learn how to monitor the kind of response you get from your social media posts.
Are the social media comments you receive fun and unique enough? Berger says there are no motivated and unmotivated people; there are only motivated and unmotivated days. There are some days when we feel like being super productive, and others when it's hard to get out of the bed. However, understanding the psychology and science behind this can give a lot of perspectives.
You need to become a better person, both professionally and in personal life. Gaining influence can be a very empowering tool to boost engagement on your content. You'll learn the insight of how to launch successful products and ideas. Once you've finished reading the book, you will start perceiving your behaviour and human behaviour very differently.
5. Think-engage-thrive: Marketing actions to skyrocket your brand in the digital age
This engagement marketing book has been written by Philip Masiello, an acclaimed marketing genius. He shares every single marketing and engagement thought and insight, such as his success journey and the steps he took to achieve it.
This book talks about the primary keys to marketing, with tips on how to boost likes, shares and comments on your posts. And Masiello shares his personal and real marketing experiences to make the book more relatable.
It includes case studies of successful brands such as Rolex, who sell their brand rather than their products. Their premium prices don't focus on the quality of the product, but on their brand's perception as a 'status symbol'. You will learn how to start conversations around your brand to encourage an automatic rise in engagement.
There are many practical tips you can use, such as Google trends or Google correlations. However, the best thing to note about this book is it's so casual, easygoing and informative to read. If you want to become a pro in engagement marketing in the digital age, you have to pick this one.
Have you read any of these engagement marketing books?
These are our best engagement marketing book recommendations. We hope you find everything you were looking for to explore how to increase your engagement reach. Why not tell us your stories about your successes (and failures) and pass on any helpful tips you've gained in the comments below.
About the author
Annabella Pollina is an extremely dedicated writer who is very passionate about the topics she chooses to write on. Her commitment and personal touch in her articles are what makes them so interesting to read. You will find her very informative audiobooks articles on 10 audioz. Make sure to check them out. Also, you can check her latest post on the best fantasy audiobooks.
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