Social Media Trade Book Review, Spring 2012

One of our assignments in our Social Media for PR & Journalism class this semester is for you to read and review a trade book on social media. In class, you will choose a Social Media Trade Book; it’s first come, first served, so if you know which book you want now, “claim” your book by providing a comment below. If there’s a trade book not on the list that you want to review, just let me know.

Due Week 10 (the week after Spring Break), your book review will take the form of a five-minute presentation in class. For your presentation, create a professional-looking PowerPoint presentation of no more than ten slides. Rely more on images to tell your story than bullet points. (We’ll discuss more in class about how not to create a “Death by PowerPoint” slidedeck.)

UPDATED 2-27-2012: The rubric for this assignment is available on rCampus.

Your presentation should include:

• Opening slide should include an image of the book’s cover
• Short bio of the author(s) of the book (perhaps with a photo of the author)
• What did you learn by reading this book?
• What surprised you in this book?
• What do you want to learn more about, now that this book has piqued your interest?
• Would you recommend other students to also read this book? Why or why not?

Optional:

• Consider uploading your book review to SlideShare and embedding the slides in your blog.
• If you’re using Twitter, search for the authors of your book there and connect with them. You may be surprised how willing most of them are to reply to you when you @ them.
• Leave a comment about your thoughts on the book on the author’s blog.
• Post a review of the book on the book’s page at Amazon.com.

(PS: If you prefer to listen to your book, rather than read it, you may be able to choose your title as a free option at the Audible website, thanks to Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty.)