DIGITAL THREADS

A comprehensive guide to managing digital marketing.

In these pages, digital marketing consultant Schaffer, whose last book was The Age of Influence, (2020), describes the altered nature of the consumer world, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. He notes what many have cited as the pandemic’s effects: “the acceleration of the digital consumer,” the primacy of digital outreach, and the overwhelming importance of handling online marketing effectively. To this end, with the goal of establishing a Digital First strategy, he proposes a “new playbook.” In this playbook, Schaffer recommends that businesses and entrepreneurs concentrate on forming and strengthening “Digital Threads,” a system of online outreach: If this system is implemented correctly, it will greatly strengthen a business; if ignored, it could lead to “the risk of being left behind in what worked yesterday”). He breaks down all the various Digital Threads that new marketers must keep in focus, such as search engine optimization, which has advanced enormously from the old “keyword stuffing” state of pre–Covid-19 days. He touches on the use of artificial intelligence but warns his readers that Digital Threads is an intensely person-oriented plan: “You should not lose the soul of how you appear to your customers and prospects,” he cautions. His chapters are distilled into key takeaways that help the reader to clarify the large amount of advice and information they’re getting here (for example, “Building relationships with algorithms is about trustworthiness and authority,” and “Backlinks create validity that your content is useful and trusted”). Absolutely everything is analyzed in terms of enhancing business.

Schaffer’s approach is a winning mixture of the personal and the professional. He opens his book by reflecting on how the pandemic affected his own business as an author suddenly deprived of book tours, book signings, readings, and so on. And throughout the book, he convincingly stresses the strongest, most important aspect of his Digital Threads strategy: people, actual personal connections (hence, his cautions about AI). When discussing the uses of social media (the book’s strongest narrative component), for instance, he advises readers, “There is no better way of becoming friends with the [social media] algorithm and exposing your business to more social media users than by feeding the algorithm what it wants: Platform Authentic Content.” He convincingly urges his readers to “embrace” social media algorithms as a means of connecting with actual human beings. “You’re telling your brand’s story,” he writes, “and you’re telling the story of the consumer within the frame of your brand” (“show, don’t sell,” as he puts it). Even on such quotidian subjects as building an email list, he stresses that mere accumulation of data is not enough; companies and entrepreneurs must “turn these connections into conversations.” Throughout his guide, Schaffer directs readers to the downloadable electronic “workbook” that accompanies his main text, which not only distracts from, but also undermines the sufficiency of the main text itself. But even so, that text abounds with practical tips and insights born of experience. Schaffer is entirely right that many small businesses only hesitantly and incompletely dabble in the digital side of their marketing—a Facebook post here, an email blast there­—and his book provides a bracing corrective to this negligence.

A highly useful, invigoratingly people-centered approach to digital marketing.