Social Pollination by Monica O’Brien is an easy to read book that can help small businesses effectively utilize social media. This 224 page book focuses on small businesses, but O’Brien’s book can also be applied to your own personal brand.

A few of the chapters that really stood out to me as a reader were “The Psychology of Online Sharing,” “Optimizing your Content” and “Social Media Tracking and ROI.” “The Psychology of Online Sharing” explains why people share online content as well as why people don’t share online content. People don’t often think about the psychology behind sharing, but it is definitely a point social media users should understand.

“Optimizing your Content” and “Social Media Tracking and ROI” are chapters that provide tips and tools on how to understand and evaluate search engine optimization and quantitatively measure your brand’s social media impact. Both are tools social media users need to understand to take their social media ability to the next week.

Case study and “buzz tips” throughout the book apply O’Brien’s lessons to real-world companies to make the tools discussed even more easily understandable for the readers. O’Brien commonly uses a summary and learn more section at the end of almost every chapter so the reader can easily pursue more information on the topic discussed. She makes it very easy for you, the reader, to understand social media and I’m happy to recommend this book to others.

What are your thoughts on Social Pollination?