Recently I interviewed Shama Hyder Kabani, author of the new book The Zen of Social Media Marketing. We talked about which social media sites are best for businesses, the power of online video, and where to get the best s’mores in Texas. The highlights of the interview appear at FastCompany.com.

Rich: Today, I have with me Shama Hyder Kabami. Welcome, Shama.

Shama: Hi Rich.

Rich: It is a pleasure to have you on the phone. It’s always great to talk to you.

Shama: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Rich: I saw you last when we were both at South by Southwest, the interactive conference down in Austin, Texas. It’s kind of your hometown a little bit. You went to school down there, right?

Shama: I did. I am a Longhorn.

Rich: You also know where to get the best s’mores in town.

Shama: That I do.

Rich: We’re not actually here to talk about s’mores today, although that would be a great topic for another podcast.

You just wrote a book. Congratulations! The book is The Zen of Social Media Marketing. I had a chance actually to read it on the plane ride back to Maine. I really enjoyed it. I certainly know a lot about this sort of stuff, but at the same time, I learned a lot too.

Why did you write this book? Why do you feel people should be using social media marketing?

Shama: Both are good questions, Rich. The reason I wrote this book was really as a tool for all the people whose questions I couldn’t answer singularly.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d get phone calls, or when I was speaking, someone would grab me and say, “But I don’t get it,” or “But I have this question.”

As you can imagine, my time was fairly limited, running a company and doing a bunch of other things. I wanted to be able to hand them something and say, “Here, this is how you do it. Here is the strategy and here are the steps. Here are the answers to your questions.” That’s essentially why I wrote it.

To answer the second part of your question, which is why people need social media marketing, it’s interesting because what I ask people to do is ask themselves before they do anything else, “Why do you need it?”

It’s not a fit for everyone. I’m kind of a contrarian in that sense because I actually think that social media marketing comes last. It comes after you have an established brand. It comes after you really know what your business model is. It comes after you have a really good website in place. It’s the last step when you’re ready to amplify what you’re already doing.

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