Content creation for social media seems simple and easy, and sometimes it can be, but it is usually a bit more complex and requires a good bit of thought. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk explains how to optimize your social media presence and includes great examples of content. Even though the book is a bit dated compared to where social media stands now, it still provides great insight and can help you improve your organization’s social media.
If you haven’t read the book, you are probably thinking “What the heck does ‘jab’ and ‘right hook’ mean?” A jab is the content you put out that doesn’t sell anything or is a subtle way to promote your company. Jabs don’t necessarily have to do anything with the company, but they need to be relatable and well-liked topics. A right hook is the content that has a call to action and provokes you to do or buy something. In general, you want to use more jabs than right hooks.
Gary really focuses on the use of native content on social media which I think is very important. These are usually more often jabs than right hooks. Native content, which I hadn’t heard of before, is content that blends in with the person’s timeline or stream of content. If it is done correctly, the person looking at the post (or ad) shouldn’t realize it’s coming from a company until they look at the handle or page name.
One of my favorite things about this book is the fact that Gary added so many examples. He wanted to make sure that people know what bad, good, and great content looks like. When given a bad example, he would list what he likes about it, what he doesn’t like, and how he would change it. Sometimes he would even redesign it and put the new post in the book as well. Not only did he give content examples from real life companies, but he had chapters specially for the big platforms at the time. This helped you know the right way to make content specific to each platform.
If I had to rate this book, I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5. The content is great, but I believe some of the points could have been summed up a bit more. I really like that you could see Gary’s personality through his writing. He is a very straight forward, tell you how it is kind of guy. The way he wrote the book made you enjoy what you were reading. The only big problem I saw while reading this book was the outdated information. He included sections talking about Vine and Google+. These sections talked about the fact that they were new, and what we might expect from them. The book also included a whole chapter on Tumblr, but nowadays Tumblr is not as widely used. Also, there were only small sections on LinkedIn and Snapchat because they weren’t as popular yet. Now LinkedIn and Snapchat are major platforms used by a lot of different people.
I would really like an updated version of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Gary provides great insight and I learned a lot of information from his book. Overall it is a great tool for creating content and knowing how to make your content be appreciated by a larger number of people. I will keep this book and refer to it when I need some guidance when running a social media account.
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