SOCIAL SCIENCES

Share, Retweet, Repeat

Get Your Message Read and Spread
by John Hlinko
Share, Retweet, Repeat: Get Your Message Read and Spread. Prentice-Hall. 2012. 240p. index. ISBN 9780735204614. pap. $18.95. COMM
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Some 20 pages into this first book by Hlinko, an early staffer at MoveOn.org and former Democratic campaign strategist, with its talk of messaging and multipliers, readers may feel a sinking sense of déjà vu—sinking because it reads like Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point-lite and because any new book about social media should sound a lot fresher than one published in 2000, four years before the advent of Facebook. Hlinko uses many of the same concepts that Gladwell employs, like viral messaging and types of messengers, but with fewer interesting anecdotes and less meaningful analysis. He attempts to relate examples of successful viral messaging campaigns, but many of the case studies he uses to make his point are based on forgettable pop cultural and political memes.
VERDICT Advice to readers to use sex appeal and read emails twice before sending is hardly novel in the age of Web 2.0. Those who are absolutely new to social networking will be best served by this book. Everyone else (any ten-year-old with a Twitter or Tumblr account) needn't bother.
Reviewed by Stacie Williams, Harvard Medical Sch. Lib., Boston , Feb 15, 2012
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