getAbstract Summary: Get the key points from this book in less than 10 minutes.

Facebook and other social media outlets have become ubiquitous tools for marketing. However, Ed Keller and Brad Fay, co-founders of the Keller Fay Group, a market research firm, challenge the effectiveness of these social modalities, arguing that face-to-face contact, word of mouth and other offline tools are more effective social marketing approaches for driving sales success. Citing their extensive research, the authors show that most brand conversations happen offline and that when firms shift their marketing focus to Facebook, sales generally fall. Keller and Fay seem to discount social media's positive attributes for most of the book, but they find a balance by the end, acknowledging that promoters should use offline social marketing in conjunction with today's powerful online tools. getAbstract recommends their study to marketing executives, social media experts and communications personnel. You don't need to close your firm's Facebook page – but you may want to rethink how you handle social marketing.

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Copyright © 2012 by Keller Fay Group LLC

Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.