Crushing It!:
How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too

By Gary Vaynerchuk

In his most recent New York Times bestseller, the wildly successful entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk reiterates his belief that a vibrant personal brand is crucial to building a successful business. You’ll find theoretical and tactical advice intermixed with inspiring stories of dozens of entrepreneurs – some well-known, others up-and-comers – who found success after following the universal principles in an earlier book, Crush It! He outlines all media platforms and guides “plumbers to park rangers” on how to leverage the platforms to create a powerful brand.

Vaynerchuk pulls from experience – he’s built his own successful brand and multimillion-dollar companies, including VaynerMedia, a digital and social media agency that develops strategies for Fortune 500 companies, as well as tech startups and his family’s wine business early in his career. (Crushing It tops Amazon’s “social media for business” category.)

One Million Followers:
How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days

By Brendan Kane

Digital strategist Brendan Kane shares his “from scratch” approach to establishing and growing your digital audience and engagement, including creating personal and valuable content. His clients have included celebrities, i.e., Taylor Swift and Rihanna, and big-name brands like MTV, Skechers and IKEA. But Kane’s advice in the book is geared for people and businesses without that level of name recognition.

In One Million Followers, Kane gives you tools to build a huge following and a multimedia-brand presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and LinkedIn, and he includes interviews with other marketing strategists and influencers, including Shazam cofounder Chris Barton, internet personality Julius Dein and Mike Jurkovac, creative director of will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas.

Freakishly Effective Social Media for Network Marketing:
How to Stop Wasting Your Time on Things That Don't Work and Start Doing What Does! 

By Ray and Jessica Higdon

This book focuses on how to use social media if you have a network marketing business or a multi-level marketing (MLM) company. The authors specialize in the MLM niche as coaches and speakers – their company offers materials and other MLM-related marketing services. There’s a lot of detailed, step-by-step information in the book, including a guide on how to reach out to someone on social media platforms, what to say, and how to follow up with them.

You’ll also get advice on the types of social media posts you should focus on when promoting your networking marketing business, and what you should and should not share on your social media profiles.

Social Media Marketing Workbook:
How to Use Social Media for Business (2019 Updated Edition)

By Jason McDonald

Author, teacher and SEO expert Jason McDonald uses the workbook he wrote in his Stanford Continuing Studies class on social media marketing. The book explains the how and why of social media marketing and walks you through how to get started. Combining theory and practice, McDonald lays the framework to teach you how to “think” about social media marketing and concrete advice on how to “do” it. He takes a “deep dive” into each platform, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. 

As expected with a teacher’s “workbook,” you’ll get worksheets, videos, and to-dos (yes, quizzes too!) as McDonald helps you put together a marketing plan for each platform. There’s also a chapter dedicated to content marketing, which McDonald calls the most important concept, and advice on how to start creating content you can feed to social media platforms.  

Social Media: Strategies to Mastering Your Brand

By David Kelly

With the assumption that your company doesn’t have a marketing team to dedicate time to every social media platform, author David Kelly advises that businesses select a couple channels or platforms. “You do not need to venture off onto every social media site,” he writes, as you risk failing to keep up with any. The book emphasizes the importance of a strategy and provides advice on how to utilize social media to maximize your earning potential.  “Many businesses fail at social media due to a lack of planning and branding,” Kelly writes.

The book is a good resource for learning how to think critically about your brand, and Kelly presents easy-to-understand steps that will help you decide which platforms to use to best meet your goals, and the how and where to focus your energy and your message.

Likeable Social Media (3rd Edition)
How To Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, & Be Generally Amazing On All Social Networks That Matter 

By Dave Kerpen

In an updated version of Likeable Social Media, author Dave Kerpen, co-founder of multiple startups and a frequent keynote speaker and Inc.com contributor, delivers 18 strategies to help you create a “irresistible” brand through online social media networks. The book has new case studies that demonstrate the latest best practices and comes in the same tone as his original bestseller –  from his perspective of a successful entrepreneur. Kerpen warns that social media is not a cure-all. It cannot make up for a bad product, company or organization; it won’t lead to overnight sales success; and social media marketing isn’t free.

What you will get is critical information about the newest social media platforms such as Snapchat, and tools and tactics around video, mobile, paid media, data, and content. Kerpen also includes a “refresher course” on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, blogs and other networks and tools that matter most.