Real life books. In print. To read right now.
Whether you’re a marketer, small business owner, or the CEO of a large company, it’s always a great idea to upskill and increase your social media and marketing knowledge.
Fortunately, there’s no shortage of fantastic books to read and resources to reference. But with so much content, it can be challenging to know what’s worth reading.
That’s why we’ve done the leg work for you when it comes to books to read. Check out our list of the best social media and marketing books to read in 2024.
TLDR; Every book you need to read
Books to read about the fundamentals of marketing
Dive into the core principles that have shaped the marketing world with these essential reads, laying a solid foundation for any aspiring marketer.
The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users
by Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick
This book is the go-to guide for getting started in social media. It will give you an improved understanding of building followers on different social media sites, integrating blogs with social media and improving overall connections online. This book offers a beginner’s step-by-step guide to increasing your social media presence.
Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing
by Eric Butow with Mike Allton, Amanda Robinson, & Jenn Herman
Do you need help to create compelling social media campaigns? The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing is worth picking up and not putting down.
Packed with valuable tips and information about social media marketing and how to conquer it, Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing offers game-changing insights from multiple perspectives. Whether you’re looking to grow your social media team, build your business, or simply understand today’s social media platforms, there’s something in this fantastic book for everyone.
Social Media Strategy
by Keith A. Quesenberry
There are approximately 3 billion people worldwide using some sort of social media platform. If you want to guarantee your company’s success in the present and the future, it is essential to have a social media strategy in place. With all the different social media platforms emerging, this can often seem like a very daunting task. Social Media Strategy presents a comprehensive step-by-step social media plan for your company. This book covers theory and practical examples of how social media fits in marketing, advertising and public relations. Quesenberry offers 25 social media channel breakdowns, including blogs, forums, microblogging, geolocation, ratings and reviews.
Myths of Social Media: Dismiss the Misconceptions and Use Social Media Effectively in Business
by Ian MacRae & Michelle Carvill
Have you ever found yourself wondering, should my business even be on social media? Well, you’re not alone. Many businesses struggle with the very idea of social media. Some even find it difficult to see the point of being active online.
Ian MacRae and Michelle Carvill’s Myths of Social Media: Dismiss the Misconceptions and Use Social Media Effectively in Business look deeply into the reality of social media, avoiding all the myths and fake news. Instead, MacRae and Carvill focus on the best practices for using social media for business.
This well-written and well-researched book is an absolute must-read for anyone trying to avoid all the pitfalls and traps that go hand in hand with having your business active on social media.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
by Gary Vaynerchuk
If there were an iron throne for the ruler of social media marketing, Vaynerchuck would be the rightful heir. A social media pioneer and advisor to Uber, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr – Vaynerchuk knows his stuff.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a New York Times bestseller, highlighting marketing strategies and tactics that you should engage in and avoid to be best heard in an overcrowded digital environment.
Run with Foxes: Make Better Marketing Decisions
by Paul Dervan
If you’re choosing a book to read with the sole purpose of upskilling and expanding your knowledge, it’s essential to make sure you’re getting your information from someone who knows what they’re talking about. And with 20 years of experience working in marketing for some of the world’s biggest brands, Paul Dervan certainly knows what he’s talking about.
Conversational Marketing
by David Cancel and Dave Gerhardt
If you’re choosing a book to read with the sole purpose of upskilling and expanding your knowledge, it’s essential to make sure you’re getting your information from someone who knows what they’re talking about. And with 20 years of experience working in marketing for some of the world’s biggest brands, Paul Dervan certainly knows what he’s talking about.
Podcasting Marketing Strategy
by Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers
Podcast popularity continues to grow each year. Podcasts are perfect to turn on when driving or doing housework; the list goes on.
But have you ever considered how podcasting can drive your business to success?
Podcasting Marketing Strategy details how to record, edit and promote your podcast with their digital marketing toolkit.
The book offers some great insights on just about everything there is to know about podcasting, including why you should be podcasting, how to build genuine personal engagement through podcasting, podcast advertising and monetisation and more.
Books to read about content marketing
Explore the art of crafting compelling narratives and engaging content that resonates with audiences in these insightful books on content marketing.
Content Inc.
by Joe Pulizzi
Today’s markets are getting more and more dynamic, and customers are increasingly fickle. Meanwhile, the COVID-driven economic crash has made mitigating financial risk more critical.
From one of today’s leading experts in content marketing, Content Inc. is the go-to guide to building a solid small business by establishing a loyal audience before you sell any products or services. In these pages, Joe Pulizzi provides a lower-risk, better way to build a successful business by re-engineering the process that often leads to failure: You’ll learn how to develop valuable content, build an audience around that content – and then create a product for that audience.
The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to use visuals, videos and social media to market your brand
by Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio
Did you know visual content is more than 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than any other content? The human brain processes visuals up to 60,000 times faster than text. In this book, Walter and Gioglio demonstrate the importance of creativity in visual storytelling to capture the viewer’s fleeting attention. The Power of Visual Storytelling explains how to combine photos, videos and infographics with social media to strengthen your brand best online. This book should be a staple in any social media manager’s bookshelf, co-written by Ekaterina Walter – 2014 Forbes World Top 40 Social Media Marketing Talent.
Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
by Ann Handley
In Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, Ann Handley delivers all the practical, how-to advice and insight you need for the process and strategy of content creation, production, and publishing.
I’m Not a Copywriter, But …
by Joshua Womack
Stand-up comedy. Speechwriting. Pro wrestling? Somehow, these oddball life choices led Josh Womack to copywriting. In his debut book, he talks about these experiences and more.
The Content Fuel Framework
by Melanie Deziel
Trained journalist and award-winning content marketer Melanie Deziel shows you how to maximise your creativity by systematising it. This simple framework catalyses the brainstorming process, making idea generation effortless and nearly automatic. No more writer’s block. No more asking, “what should I post?” No more waiting for that “big idea” to appear in its own time. This system allows storytellers from any industry to produce fresh story ideas on demand at any time.
The Context Marketing Revolution
by Mathew Sweezey
In this provocative and practical book, Salesforce marketing maven Mathew Sweezey boldly outlines this new “infinite media” environment and poses a profound question: In a transformed world where customers shape their own experience, what is the key to breaking through and motivating them to buy? It is context–the close linkage between an individual’s immediate desires and the experiences a brand creates to fulfil them. Drawing on new research and new insights into current consumer psychology, Sweezey defines the five critical elements of context.
Content Performance Culture
by Christoph Trappe
Christoph Trappe’s third content book focuses on how you can create the content performance culture you need to drive results in your organisation. Included are philosophy and tips on maximising content through podcasting and easy-to-produce videos.
Books to read about the inner workings of Meta
Delve into the strategic depths of Meta’s empire with books that unveil the intricate mechanics and visionary tactics driving the social media giant.
Facebook: The Inside Story
by Steven Levy
From one of the world’s most renowned tech journalists comes the definitive history of one of the world’s most influential and controversial companies: Facebook.
You may know the whole story of Facebook. Still, no one knows it better than Steven Levy, who spent years reporting on the tech behemoth, with unparalleled access into the inner (and outer) workings of the company.
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram
by Sarah Frier
In just ten years, Instagram has gone from a simple photo app to a $100-billion company. The journey has involved ground-breaking innovations, a billion-dollar takeover, and clashes between some of the biggest names in tech. But it’s a story that has never been told – until now.
Facebook’s decision to buy Instagram was the best investment it ever made. But we’re still learning about what it has cost the rest of us…
An Ugly Truth
by Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel
The definitive story of Facebook’s fall from grace, following the embattled company from 2011, when its power and positive influence was undisputed, to 2020, when it will face its biggest test yet-the US presidential election.
What are the ultimate ramifications when a few individuals are in charge of the technology used by half the world’s population? Can they control the technology they’ve unleashed into the world? And if not, can we, as individuals and as a society, prevent them?
Books to read about influencer marketing
Explore the dynamic world of influencer marketing through books that dissect its power, principles, and the profound impact it has on consumer behaviour.
Everyone is an “Influencer”: Building A Brand By Engaging The People Who Matter Most
by Kelly Keenan
In Everyone Is An “Influencer,” Kelly Keenan, Founder of Brand Story Experts, unlocks the code to brand story success. In this seminal marketing guide, you’ll learn how celebrating your story is a shift that builds and strengthens lifelong relationships with your team and customers.
Keenan goes far beyond short-term gains, sales gimmicks and shady tactics to provide the insight needed to inspire sustainable growth for your business. In digestible terms built upon decades of experience and case studies, Everyone Is An “Influencer” will teach you how to use brand education to differentiate and dominate your competition.
The Age of Influence: The Power of Influencers to Elevate Your Brand
by Neal Schaffer
We all know just how powerful influencer marketing can be, but just how do you create, implement, and sustain an effective influencer marketing campaign? It’s a question that leaves even the most experienced marketers scratching their heads. Fortunately, Schaffer is here to open your eyes to a world of influencer strategies and possibilities.
Whether it’s identifying and approaching the right influencers for your brand, managing resources during campaigns, or even turning your brand into an influencer itself, Schaffer offers a definitive guide to help you keep up in the age of the influencer.
Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships
by Andrew Davis
Have you ever wanted to partner with another brand but are not sure where to start?
In Brandscaping, Andrew Davis does a terrific job showing you how to collaborate with other brands and deliver content that creates demand for your products and services. He calls this collaboration – ‘brandscaping’.
This book uses heaps of case studies to show you how individuals and businesses have used brandscaping to reach new heights of success.
Andrew Davis’s idea is quite simple – replace traditional ways of advertising and inauthentic endorsements with valuable content that your followers benefit from.
Hashtag Authentic
by Sara Tasker
Instagram influencer Sara Tasker divulges her secrets on how to make Instagram work for your business in Hashtag Authentic.
Sara Tasker set up an Instagram account in 2013 while on maternity leave. She began posting about her authentic day-to-day life and has seen her account grow to more than 200k followers.
Hashtag Authentic is a book of lessons learned from Sara over the past five years to provide readers with tips, advice and guidance on how to turn their personal Instagram account into a profitable creative outlet.
Books to read about consumer behaviour
Explore the psyche of your target audience with insightful reads that unravel the complexities of consumer behavior and purchasing decisions.
Hug Your Haters
by Jay Baer
Have you ever come across a negative Facebook comment on a company’s wall about poor service, and it has something like 100k likes and 8,000 comments of pure distaste for the company?
I’m sure you have, and it almost always stems from poor customer service handling. Hug Your Haters is here to help your business transition to the online customer support department. This book offers a comprehensive guide to handling internet trolls, public complaints, how fast you must reply to various social media channels and software recommendations to assist with customer support. The best part of this book is the fold-out poster of “The Hatrix”, which is your go-to guide to strategies for different scenarios. Baer explains that customer service is now a spectator sport, and we couldn’t agree more. Make sure you add this one to your collection.
Alchemy
by Rory Sutherland
Why is Red Bull so famous, though everyone—everyone!—dislikes the taste? Humans are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities flavour, price, quality). The surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random. This means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet.
To strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring irresistible ideas: alchemy.
Cult Status
by Tim Duggan
Enough has been written about huge cult brands founded last century – Nike, Apple, Red Bull. What will the cult companies of tomorrow look like? Who is amassing the kind of passionate community that makes a brand a massive, long-term, sustainable success?
Tim Duggan, co-founder of one of Australia’s most innovative and awarded new media companies, has studied hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and change-makers over the last decade to uncover what they all have in common.
Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses
by Nancy Harhut
In this book, Nancy Harhut shows how to apply behavioural science principles in crucial areas of marketing, including marketing communications, email, direct mail and ad campaigns, social media marketing and sales funnel conversion strategies. Highly practical and accessible, it includes case studies and examples from AT&T, Apple, Spotify, and The Wall Street Journal.
Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story
by Miri Rodriguez
The customer comes first. We’ve all heard it a million times, and that’s because it’s 100 per cent true. In Miri Rodriguez’s Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story, you’ll go on a journey of brand loyalty, customer behaviour, business strategy, and humanity.
Having worked with Microsoft, Adobe, Discover, Walmart, and McKesson, you may think Rodriguez is slightly out of your league, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. While she’s certainly worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, her message applies to all businesses, regardless of size: put your customers first.
How to Handle a Crowd: The Art of Creating Healthy and Dynamic Online Communities
by Anika Gupta
Not reading the comments is self-care. Where comment sections were once powerful tools for connection and community engagement, they’ve become digital seas of negativity, trolling, bots, and fake news.
Whether your business has an active community on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or any other social media platform, the ability to create, maintain, and moderate online communities is a crucial part of social media for all businesses.
Anika Guptil’s How to Handle a Crowd: The Art of Creating Healthy and Dynamic Online Communities will walk you through building online communities, encouraging freedom of speech, motivating your audience, keeping members of your online community safe, and more.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarifying Your Message so Customers Will Listen
by Donald Miller
If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners need help effectively connecting with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue.
In a world filled with constant, on-demand distractions, it has become near-impossible for business owners to cut through the noise to reach their customers effectively, something Donald Miller knows first-hand. In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers.
Superfans
by Pat Flynn
Customers, followers, subscribers. You don’t need to change the entire world to build a successful business; you just need to change someone’s world.
People don’t become superfans the moment they find you. They become superfans because of the magical moments you create for them over time.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
by Jonah Berger
What makes things popular? Why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumours more infectious? And what makes online content go viral?
If you said advertising, think again. People don’t listen to advertisements; they listen to their peers. But why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumours more infectious? And what makes online content go viral?
Prove It: Exactly How Modern Marketers Earn Trust
by Melanie Deziel and Phil M. Jones
Using real-world examples from trusted brands across dozens of industries, they’ll walk you step-by-step through the process of identifying and categorising your business promises – even the ones you don’t realise you’re making – gathering proper evidence and backing up each style of claim.
Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins
by Mark W. Schaefer
In case you haven’t noticed, consumer trends are moving quickly thanks to new technologies and social platforms.
These changes can leave many brands feeling lost in their marketing efforts. Marketing Rebellion offers an attainable and realistic framework to keep your brand moving forward in the ever-changing marketing world.
The Advertising Effect
by Adam Ferrier and Jennifer Fleming
This book teaches you the techniques the world’s biggest and most successful brands use in advertising. These techniques all stem from consumer behaviour and psychological theories, and this book will help you create advertising materials that are effective and alter customer behaviour. This is a must-read for anyone working in advertising!
Plays Well with Others
by Eric Barker
Eric Barker dives into the science of human relationships and why everything we know about fostering relationships is mostly wrong.
This book will teach you the impact of social media on relationships (it might not be what you think), how to change someone’s behaviour (ethically) and how to combat loneliness.
It’s a must-read book to learn more about human behaviour and psychology, which is essential in marketing practices. Still, it will help you improve your relationships as a boss, mentor, friend and colleague.
Digital Minimalism
by Cal Newport
Digital Minimalism is a book that talks about the growing addiction problems that society has with social media and other digital technologies. There’s no denying the huge role social media plays in today’s day and age, but how much is too much?
Cal Newport discusses the many benefits of social media such as connection, community, and affirmation, but highlights how using these platforms in excess and without purpose could damage our well-being.
If you want to gain greater control over your social media use, this could be the book for you. Digital Minimalism uses philosophy and plan for the deliberate use of technology that maximises its benefits while minimising its wear on our attention and time. It demonstrates a 30-day digital detox to help you identify what technology and social media is holding you back.
Books to read about business growth and development
Delve into the transformative strategies and innovative insights with books dedicated to driving business growth and development in today’s competitive landscape.
How Brands Grow
by Byron Sharp
This book provides evidence-based answers to the critical questions asked by marketers every day. Tackling issues such as how brands grow, how advertising works, what price promotions do and how loyalty programs affect loyalty, How Brands Grow presents decades of research in a style written for marketing professionals to grow their brands.
Get Sh*t Done: The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Procrastination, and Profitability
by Jeffery Gitomer
Who among us doesn’t wish they could be more productive and make more money? It sounds great, right? But with many distractions and so many ways to procrastinate nowadays, finding that motivation can be difficult.
Jeffery Gitomer’s Get Sh*t Done: The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Procrastination, and Profitability is here to help you, well, get sh*t done. Discover what causes you to procrastinate and how to beat it.
At first glance, it may seem easy to dismiss Get Sh*t Done as just another edgy self-help book with a swear word in its title, but Gitomer’s offering certainly does a great job of standing out from the pack.
See You on the Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing
by Avery Swartz
Got a great idea for a small business but still trying to figure out where to start? Well, fear not because you’re not alone. Starting a small business is challenging, but the hardest part is taking that leap of faith and getting started. With the rise of social media and eCommerce platforms, getting started is easier than ever.
Avery Swartz’s See You on the Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing runs you through a sure-fire framework to plan, implement and deliver a brilliant digital marketing strategy for your small business. From setting up your website to creating social media accounts, Swartz has you covered from A to Z.
You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters
by Kate Murphy
You have a terrific idea. It’s so powerful that it could change a life, a market, or even the world. There’s just one problem: Others don’t see its power – yet. If you genuinely value the possibility of your idea, then you’re ready to find your Red Thread – the throughline that connects your idea to your audience’s hearts and minds. The connection makes the invisible link between your audience’s problem and your solution tangible – and actionable.
Digital Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption
by Tom Goodwin
While Digital Darwinism may not be a newcomer (initially published in 2018), it’s certainly stood the test of time and remains as relevant as ever.
Digital Darwinism takes an outside-the-box approach to disruptive thinking, looking to motivate and inspire people who want to excel at digital transformation.
Binge Marketing: The Best Scenario for Building Your Brand
by Carlijn Postma
How do you build a brand in a time of information overload where the media are so fragmented that you can barely get the attention of your audience? And how do you ensure that everyone tells the same story on all those channels? Carlijn Postma takes you to where content is the product and where people know how to attract and retain an audience: Hollywood. Binge Marketing is not another stuffy marketing book but a refreshing look at marketing in the 21st century.
Killer Thinking
by Tim Duggan
Have you ever listened to someone’s idea and wished you’d thought of it first?
Killer Thinking lets you in on the art of creating and developing your next big idea. Tim Duggan gives you the lowdown on how to refine your ideas and bring them to life in both your personal life and work life.
Tim Duggan co-founded Junkee Media and wrote the bestselling book Cult Status: How to Build a Business People Adore.
Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David Epstein
In this book, David Epstein tells you the secret of how to succeed in your work and personal life. The secret? Develop a wide range of experiences, continue to experiment and try many different interests. He argues that being a generalist in many skills across life will set you up for success rather than specialising in a few interests.
This book was picked as a Financial Times Essential Reads of 2019 and is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn how humans succeed.
Enjoyed this article? Enter your email below for social media tips & tricks delivered to your inbox every Monday morning.
