jab, jab, jab, right hook – ROUND 1

BOOK REPORT

Title: “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World”
Author: Gary Vaynerchuk

Intro

I have been following Gary Vee’s career as a social media influencer for a while now, and when it came to choosing a book for my Social Media Marketing (MARK9057) class at George Brown College his name stood out. Besides bringing an interest method as to explaining one of social media’s Achille’s heels – content – the author’s analogies to boxing caught my attention as well. But it wasn’t until I started reading the book that the subject really captivated me. Vaynerchuk’s storytelling approach made the sometimes fastidious non-fiction book more relatable and engaging.

Summary

“Jabs are the lightweight pieces of content that benefit your customers by making them laugh, snicker, ponder, play a game, feel appreciated, or escape; right hooks are calls to action that benefit your businesses.”

That is how the author explains, right from the start, his chosen analogy between making relevant content posted on Social Media as a powerful marketing tool and boxing. And he doesn’t stop there. Throughout each chapter, here called “rounds”, he dissects the most commonly social media platforms and their peculiarities and explains, with detailed examples, a way of creating native, consistent content for each tool.

Key Takeaways and Standout Quotes

1. Social means social. “This means that you need to fold a social element into all of your creative, including for traditional media, and into every interaction with your customers, whether by commenting on Tumblr, gamifying a banner ad, engaging on a news aggregator, or sending people to Facebook at the end of your thirty-second radio spot. From now on, every platform should be treated as a social networking platform.”
2. Good content is native content. “Today’s perfect right hooks always include three characteristics: They make the call to action simple and easy to understand. They are perfectly crafted for mobile, as well as all digital devices. They respect the nuances of the social network for which you are making the content.”
3. A brand is a brand. “Whatever story you tell, you must remain true to your brand. Native storytelling doesn’t require you to alter your identity to suit a given platform; your identity remains the same no matter what.”
4. Good content is meaningful content. Content for the sake of content is pointless. Tone-deaf posts, especially in the form of come-ons and promos, just take up space, and are justifiably ignored by most of the public. Only outstanding content can cut through the noise. Outstanding content can generally be identified because it adheres to the following six rules: (1) it’s native; (2) it doesn’t interrupt; (3) it doesn’t make demands – often; (4) it leverages pop culture; (5) it’s micro; (6) it’s consistent and self-aware. Content is king, but context is God. You can put out good content, but if it ignores the context of the platform on which it appears, it can still fall flat.”
5. It’s the little things … “Be generous. Be informative. Be funny. Be inspiring. Be all the characteristics we enjoy in other human beings. That’s what jabs are all about. Right hooks represent what is valuable to you—getting the sale, getting people in the door. Jabs are about what is valuable to the consumer.”
6. Know when to hit. “The emotional connection you build through jabbing pays off on the day you decide to throw the right hook. Because when you jab, you’re not selling anything. You’re not asking your consumer for a commitment. You’re just sharing a moment together. Something, anything, except a sales pitch. The emotional connection you build through jabbing pays off on the day you decide to throw the right hook.”
7. Facebook. “Facebook wants users to see things that they find relevant, fun, and useful, not annoying and pointless, or else they’ll abandon the site. Which means you’d better create content that’s relevant, fun, and useful, too.”
8. Twitter. “There’s a lot of talking and selling on Twitter, but not enough engagement, and that’s a travesty, because Twitter is the cocktail party of the Internet—a place where listening well has tremendous benefits”
9. Pinterest. “Find opportunities to talk to people with interests that align with yours. Be genuinely interested in other people’s pins and find ways to add context through conversation”
10.  Instagram. “…if you take out the editorial content in between the ads, a print magazine is, in essence, a small-format gallery of beautiful, provocative, or tantalizing images. It’s a consumption platform, and that’s all Instagram is, too. It’s a slightly more interactive experience than a print magazine, because users can like an image and offer comments.”
11. Tumblr. “Tumblr has always been more of a publishing platform than a consumption platform, but people do consume there, just at an incredibly rapid rate. That’s why it’s perfect for mobile: because users can just scroll and scroll and scroll and feed themselves with an endless stream of beautiful, even haunting images.”
12. Context, context, context. “Content is king, context is God, and then there’s effort. Together, they are the holy trinity for winning on Facebook, Twitter, and any other platform, and even for winning in any business.”
13. Know how to stand out. “People are usually astonished when a brand puts in extra effort to make them happy. That’s how rarely it happens, and that’s where you, whether you’re an entrepreneur or a big business, can separate yourself from the rest of the pack.”

Conclusion

“Marketers who put in the effort to really understand the nuances and subtleties of the platforms explored in this book can and will dominate.”

Knowing your audience and knowing your tool is basic to any marketers. Social Media marketers have to go one step further: learn how to relate to your audience in a personal, emotional level, give them what they want from you and each social media platform you’re using to engage with them, before you can ask for anything else in return. It isn’t easy, but once you’ve connected and you’ve fought hard to, jab after jab, you can throw a right hook and win!

leading with the chin

:: when you lead with your chin in boxing, you’re ‘sticking your neck out’, or leaving yourself unprotected

:: speaking or behaving incautiously

As my first move I’ll retract, right away: what you see as the title for this post and the (conventional) meaning for that particular expression is the opposite of how I usually behave. I don’t normally take huge risks or do anything on a whim.

But I am a writer and technically writing is exposing yourself, putting yourself out there in a way that’s raw and vulnerable. So, in the end, the expression fits. Dropping your guard as a lack of technique is reckless; doing so as part of a strategy is smart.

And here I am, once more starting a blog* and leaving my chin open for future blows.

*The idea for a blog has always been here, on and off, but this particular one has been created as part of a Social Media Marketing class and it will be used as one of the platforms for my final assignment: a book review of “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” by Gary Vaynerchuk (hence all the boxing metaphors). Also, I love boxing! 🙂