Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick - Social Media Experts

Thursday night, Joni and I went to Kepler's to see Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick talk about their new book, The Art of Social Media.  Basically, the book gives very practical advice on how to take advantage of social media.  Since I'm trying to build my business, The Corporate Chef, as well as my blog, booksage.blogspot.com, I thought I would benefit from seeing these gurus in person.  And I was right.  Not only did I pick up the book (personalized and signed, of course, by both authors), but I also got tips on how best to use social media.  I'm definitely looking forward to reading it.  Here are a couple of tidbits that came out of their discussion (they mostly answered questions - and there were plenty of them):

1.  Guy started with Apple in 1983 and built up his brand over a 20-year period before he began concentrating on social media 10 years ago.  He has 10 million followers.  And that is NOT a misprint.
2.  Peg has a more traditional marketing background.  She started working with social media in earnest about 5 years ago.  She has a mere 700,000 followers.  It's only chump change compared to Guy, but she is, otherwise, probably one of the most followed people out there.
3.  Facebook has 1.2 billion members, but only about 10% will see a post.  Google+ and LinkedIn have only 300-400 million (only!) members, but everybody sees those posts. So, actually, it's better to have followers on Google+ or LinkedIn.
4.  LinkedIn is the most serious social media platform.  Because people on LinkedIn tend to be looking or posting for jobs (I actually belong to 2 book groups on LinkedIn, in addition to the main site), everybody uses their actual names.  Because of that, there is more self-policing.
5.  Guy's last book, APE (Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur), How to Publish a Book, was self-published.  Why did he go with a traditional publisher for The Art of Social Media? Guy said he got an offer from Penguin that he simply couldn't refuse.  This is true even though authors get about 15% of the cover price from traditional publishers vs. 70% from self-published books.
6.  Guy and Peg were introduced by Praveen, the owner of Kepler's.

As you know, I'm a big fan of author events.  But this one had a lot more practical application for me than most.  I'm very glad I went.