21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The book I chose from the second half of the assigned list for this particular reading reflection was "The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users" by Guy Kawasaki. The general theme from that I conveyed from this book was how to treat social media like a business in order to effectively build up your personal brand.


2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

In my opinion, the book was able to connect with and enhance what I've been taught in this course as we've gone over the ways how you should put yourself out there. Self promotion and increasing your social capital are some of the general concepts we've gone over and they tie into the book's central theme of using social media to build your brand and maintain its presence. We've also gone over the importance of utilizing your resources and social media is a vital resource entrepreneurs can use to their advantage when exploiting a business opportunity.


3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I were to design an exercise based off of this book that was tailored for this class, I would make all ENT3003 students create at least one professional social media account but they would have the option to create other accounts on multiple platforms for additional credit. Students would use this account to create their brand specifically for their company or product they've proposed from the past assignments we've already done this semester such as the Elevator Pitches. Students would also interact with each others accounts. The reason why I would design this specific exercise because it gives a glimpse about the importance of using a platform to showcase your business opportunities.


4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The biggest surprise I got when reading the book was learning the relative simplicity of social media of how you don't need to display some special talent in order to gain a big following. I always assumed popular creators on social media sites had some kind of talent that made them known such as Youtubers displaying editing skills and being comfortable enough on camera to come up with new and interesting content, or you had to be talented in music to make it big on Soundcloud. What I learned was that small tips such as sharing your content across all platforms, advertising and posting content of what consumers or your audience like instead of what you like, and even the use of hashtags show it's not complicated nor requiring major talents to increase your social media presence.