By Amanda Montgomery On yet another Soutwest flight headed to a speaking engagement about social media that was taking place at my alma matter (Roll Tide!); I stopped by the airport bookstore and picked up a title that had been on my ‘To-Read’ list for a few weeks. I finished REWORK by Jason Fried and David H. Hannsson at 35,000 feet about 20 minutes before I landed in Birmingham.

It took 2.75 hours to read and in that time changed my life- to say the least.

I know you avid readers out there hate when someone reads something awesome, recommends it, and then ruins it for you by telling you what it’s about. I don’t want to be that guy, rather that gal.

However I am also aware that if you are working relentlessly (like we all should be within reason according to my new favorite book), you might not have time to sit down with REWORK and work through it from cover to cover due to your schedule.

In the time-honored tradition of the ‘Top 10’ list (thanks David Letterman, my list is shorter) I am going to outline below the 5 takeaways that I absorbed on my first read through of this amazing work; However like Seth Godin says in commentary of REWORK, ‘Ignore this book at your own peril…’

TOP 5 TAKE AWAYS FROM REWORK:

ASAP IS POISON Reserve your use of emergency language/resources for true emergencies; the kind of emergencies where there are direct, measurable consequences to inaction; Social Media makes it easy to combat that knee-jerk reaction; and handle it with control.

PUT EVERYONE ON THE FRONT LINES No one in the company should be shielded from the observations/thoughts/criticisms that are coming from your target audience customers

Social Media allows a organization to share that information amongst the internal team; work on improvements together, which will satisfy your customers and lead to a trusting relationship

EVERYBODY WORKS Across the board it’s vital that everyone’s got to be producing; NO ONE can be above the work

HIRE GREAT WRITERS Hire the best writers; it doesn’t matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; they’re writing skills will pay off.

Social Media’s essence is contingent on generating (aka WRITING) great informing, entertaining, and interactive content – the writers you hire should exemplify that.

BUILD AN AUDIENCE By speaking, writing, blogging, tweeting, making videos that are informative, educating, and interactive; an audience returns often – on its own – to see what you have to say.

If they like what you have to say, they’ll probably also like what you have to sell. Social Media simply allows you to reach that audience faster and more effectively than ever before

Pick Up the book at your local shop or purchase online here: http://ow.ly/1RfEv; REWORK is truly a great read!

Go Forth and Market Smartly. - AM

E: Amanda@socialmediadelivered.com.s209167.gridserver.com T: Twitter.com/acmontgomery L: LinkedIn.com/in/amandamontgomery