Review of Book One for Research project-Social Media for Academics

Title of book; Social Media for Academics
Author; Mark Carrigan
Year of Publication; 2016

Biography of author;
Mark Carrigan is a digital sociologist and consultant, currently, he is a research fellow at the University of Warwick University in the social ontology department.

Name and Description of Publisher;
Sage publishing was founded in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing high-quality research and content.

Summary of contents from the books inside cover or back cover blurb;
'This practical book writes clear guides on effectiveness and intelligence using social media for the academic purpose. '

Chapter List;

1. Social media and digital scholarship
2. Social media and to Publicise work
3. Social media and to build network
4. Social media for Public Engagement 
5.  Social media and to manage information
6. Social media and professional identity
7. Social media and communicating effectively
8. Social media and finding time
9. Social media and future landscape

Read 1-3 other reviews. Write down facts you can take from the reviews;

• 'It is a useful book to understand how social media is academic'
• 'Carrigan strikes a good balance, he argues that deciding how to use social media is first knowing why we might do so.'
• '.... but looking for something more advanced, it wasn't enough.'

Does the book have the main idea or strong conclusion? If so, what is it?

Unfortunately, there is no clear conclusion is given to if social media collaborations are successful, Carrigan states that 'Its *social media* only evolving and we can only allow that, some build their careers on this and with time, we will move onto the next.' Overall, the book gives a clear positive that careers are built on social media platforms suggesting that collaborations between brands and influencers can have a positive outcome. One statistic in the book states that over 7,581,700,000 videos have been viewed on Youtube, giving a marketer plenty of opportunities to reach a demographic they want too. 

Three good things about the book;

1. Carrigan describes how to accumulate a large following and money in a world of new social status.
2. Its a mix of surveys, academics and analysing.
3. Makes a convincing argument for Social Media needing to be a key part of research from now on.     

 Bad things about the book;

1. More effort towards a general perspective could be better.
2. It is not recent enough or is too in-depth already to only brush past collaborations, it needs to be more in depth.  

Overall, this was a thrilling and eye-opening read into how to manipulate social media into a business of its own. Unfortunately for my research project It did not have the answers I needed up overall, it was an interesting read.