Book Review #3: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

Good things come in threes, so here we are with a third book review. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World  by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck is a knockout of a social media strategy book. It is humorous, helpful and entertaining. The book is broken down into 12 rounds, which are the chapters. Boxing terminology is used throughout because as Gary says, boxing lingo is used in the business world more than any other sport.

In the context of this book, a jab refers to lightweight content from a company that doesn’t try to sell anything, but rather builds relationships with customers, while a right hook is the next highly anticipated sale or campaign. Gary suggests that a mix of jabs and right hooks are crucial to a business’s success when marketing on social media.

Vaynerchuck’s career began working at his father’s package store. He created Wine Library TV in 2006 to talk about his interests, including wine and the Jets. The YouTube show was a big hit and increased his father’s store profits to $60 million a year. Vaynerchuck has since become a New York Times bestselling author and owner of a digital consulting agency, VaynerMedia. He is also very active on Twitter.

The book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is seen as the third installment of his trilogy on social media marketing strategy. His first book, Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, explained what great content should look like, and his second book, The Thank You Economy, focuses solely on jabs and how they increase conversation rates and boost ROI. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook pulls the best elements from both books and is filled with memorable quotes like, “Content is King but Context is god” and “We have to be the entertainment.”

One of my favorite aspects of the book are the footnotes. They instruct the reader to buy his other books, check out a page on his website for more content, or just add a dash of humor. Round three covers Facebook, and it is the longest chapter in the book by far, which makes sense because of Facebook’s size as the number one social networking platform. Chapter two titled “The Characteristics of Great Content and Compelling Stories” where Vaynerchuck discusses six rules of outstanding content was perhaps the most useful chapter of the book. The tips are as follows:

• It’s native, meaning the content should look like the rest of the content on the platform. For example, an ad traditionally used for print media should NOT be put on Instagram, where aesthetically pleasing, visually stimulating images are shared, not copy-heavy black and white text posts.
• It doesn’t interrupt, meaning people go to social media to escape and be entertained, and ads shouldn’t take away from that.
• It doesn’t make demands – often. Asking your customers to buy, like or follow shouldn’t happen with every post.
• It leverages pop culture. Engaging content is relevant and follows trends. Memes have come to dominate our pop culture. Currently the “Baby Yoda” meme is ravaging the internet.

• It’s micro. Think of content as tiny, unique nuggets of information, humor, commentary or inspiration. Micro-content can take many forms: video clips, top 10 lists, graphics, GIFs or memes, cartoons, audio/mp3 files and photos.
• It is consistent and self-aware. Your company has different sides to its personality. Show off its witty side on Twitter and its artsy side on Pinterest but keep a consistent brand image in mind across all social media platforms.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook was published in 2013, making it about six years old. The content isn’t necessarily dated, but it could use a little updating. Overall, I’d give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It was an entertaining read and incredibly helpful for anyone who manages social media for a business.