Internet Searches for Vetting, Investigations, and Open-Source Intelligence Review

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Internet Searches for Vetting, Investigations, and Open-Source Intelligence ReviewI have been a private investigator for more than 25 years. When I started in this business computers were scarce and the Internet had not yet been commercialized. Everything was done with a pencil and telephone. I have a lot of experience so it is hard for me to find books that are useful. I buy books hoping to learn one or two new things. Edward J. Appel, a retired FBI agent is the author. His company has done work for me so I knew the quality of his work and assumed his book would be at the same level as his investigative efforts. I wasn't disappointed.
The book is 320 pages and broken into 4 sections. Appel begins with a chapter about behavior and technology which orients the investigator/analyst on the growth and use of the Internet. He discusses the usefulness of the Internet as an investigative tool and the transformations the Internet is making through social and technological advances. Along with the benefits for investigators comes the darker side of the web, and Appel examines its criminal exploitation.
The first section provides a great introduction and is geared toward corporate investigators and security personnel tasked with monitoring IT systems, vetting employees and guarding company intellectual property. In Section 2 Appel outlines legal and policy issues related to using information from the Internet in investigations. He identifies liability and privacy issues and laws addressing these concerns such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act. He also dedicates a chapter to litigation, defamation, and invasion of privacy torts.
Appel develops a framework for preparation and planning of successful Internet research. He covers basic information about search engines, metasearch engines, social networking sites and search terms.
I found the chapters Automation of Searching and Internet Intelligence Reporting to be the most enlightening. Reducing time spent searching and analyzing information, seems like a no-brainer. But I would bet the number of investigators who have looked for automated solutions to their collection efforts is small. The Internet Intelligence Reporting section recommends the format and organization of a report as well as what to include and how to cite sources.
Internet Searches for Vetting, Investigations, and Open-Source Intelligence, like many trade publications, is on the pricey side. However it delivers with content and is an easy read. It met my criteria for a successful investigations book because I learned much more than two new things.
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Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods Review

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Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods ReviewI live in Silicon Valley and thus I am exposed to many new emerging technologies and with them the usual parade of so-called gurus and experts who parade around acting like a bunch of techno divas. A friend sent me an invite to a book signing event called Twitterville. I was interested in going yet a bit reluctant lest I encounter the typical fare of pseudo geeks too young to understand the internet's impact on society and too arrogant to admit their own shortcomings. So I decided to attend anyway and drag my reluctant wife along who did not like twitter and thought it was a mass of frivolous chirps from the socially incompetent in our society.
I made it a point to observe the book's author Shel Israel and witness his interactions with the people who stood on line to get their copies signed. I notice his warmth and authentic interactions with people on the line and to my amazement he engaged them in conversation. No made up smile and next, no rushing. He was enjoying interacting with people and sharing their perspectives on twitter. The line was growing longer so I decided to buy the book. I thought that someone as engaging as this, a true listener would have insights on Twitter that I may be interested in reading.
I was not disappointed. I purchased the book at the Twitterville event and I have been enthralled ever since by his brilliant insights and observations. The book reads like a fine novel with the story telling prowess of any of the best in the fiction genre. He recounts without adornment the way people have used Twitter in real life situations. He weaves the tales of twitter user wield it as a new weapon against the biggest most dangerous bureaucracies in America, Corporate behemoths, such as the airlines and retail establishments who have long ago ignored their customers who they treat as mere objects. He is careful to show how some corporations such as Dell have begun to use Twitter to serve their customers and build traction for their product introductions and on-line venues.
We are now hearing the new buzz words: real time web, anytime anywhere Internet, and most recently groundswell, a term coined by Charlene Li who along with Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research, released a book with that name. Groundswell is becoming the most important book in this emerging genre. Charlene Li wrote the forward for Shel israel's Twitterville. In it, she says "Twitter is not a technology. It's a conversation". If this is true, then Shel's book will become the pioneering work that shows how the groundswell of people building relationships with each other will be the turning point in human communications on this planet. These conversations will begin to define how we respond to our world and how we begin to assert the power of people to make true change sustainable.
So please read this book. After you read it pass it along to your friends and get others to realize the magic of the twitter phenomenon for themselves. if you were as impacted as i am , please tweet about it. The author's twitter handle is @shelisrael. Let him know as well. He will respond to you. If you appreciate this review, you can follow me on twitter as well. My handle is guarionex88. I write about subjects relevant to emerging technologies such as WiMAX, Google wave, Apple's iPhone and most recently Twitter.Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods Overview

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Histories of Social Media Review

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Histories of Social Media ReviewWith all the hoopla and self-absorbed insanity surrounding social media today, it was refreshing to hear it all put into a more sane - and insightful - context by author Jonathan Salem Baskin. This differentiates the book from 99% of everything else being written about the value of social media today. While everyone else is falling all over themselves flush with "social media euphoria," Baskin uses the history of human and social behavior to illuminate that only today's technology is new, the behavior is centuries old. A sharp counterpoint to all the subjective editorializing about social media today, the current "crack" of communications. If you like history, social psychology, and communications, you'll probably enjoy this book a lot.Histories of Social Media Overview

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Well Connected: An Unconventional Approach to Building Genuine, Effective Business Relationships Review

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Well Connected: An Unconventional Approach to Building Genuine, Effective Business Relationships ReviewThis is an extraordinary book that presents a completely new approach to developing and using business relationships in a dramatically more effective way. I've been a client of the author and familiar with his approach, but I still found the book to be a fantastic and enlightening read.
The book presents a kind of a "unified field theory" in which the author explains why typical networking usually doesn't work and often erodes business relationships, all as a predicate to offering a values-based approach that shows respect to one's current and prospective colleagues and allows networkers of different personality types, including shy people like me, to play to their strengths in a much more natural way. Having made the case for pursuing business relationships based on mutual advantage and clear strategic objectives, he then presents a step-by-step framework with cogent illustrations that bring his new way of seeing things to life.
The author has a much more realistic and mature understanding of the challenges we all face when engaging in such complex activities as looking for a job, clients, funding, or vendors than any of the many books I've read on the subject. His advice is particularly astute for experienced workers with significant accomplishments under their belt, but who face intense competition at higher levels of career advancement. There are no cliches or fads or silver bullets in this book, just an exceptionally thoughtful and original approach to a set of problems we all face and a lively and realistic roadmap for making it your own.Well Connected: An Unconventional Approach to Building Genuine, Effective Business Relationships Overview

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The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business Review

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The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business ReviewIn 18 chapters this book places the rise of social media in several contexts: generational, technological, and economic. Chapters address how adopting social media affects a company's marketing and sales, customer service and support, platforms and IT infrastructure, employee responsibilities, recruiting practices, and the duties of the chief information officer and chief marketing officer. The 21 contributing authors explain why social media policies must cross departmental boundaries and isolated practices. They discuss how marketers and business analysts need to adopt new measurement methods to account for the streams of brand-related information consumers constantly post to the web. A company can define its ROI in social media from many angles, including an consumer attitudinal perspective, a behavioral perspective, and an organizational standpoint, as well as from a transactional or conversion standpoint. The book recommends that companies adopt an emerging online communication discipline called Social Community Marketing. From this perspective, brand-building efforts evolve from a mass-marketing model (which aims to acquire as many customers as possible) to a more targeted, tailored approach that initiates and maintains genuine conversations with customers.The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business Overview

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Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility and Accelerating Relationships (Wiley Professional Advisory) Review

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Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility and Accelerating Relationships (Wiley Professional Advisory) ReviewMichelle Golden's book, "Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms" is incredibly valuable and worthwhile, right from the start. It may be the definitive book right now to use to understand what "social media" really means and then implement and apply it to your professional firm.
The book is written in a very conversational, informative style, which will be extremely helpful to those new to "social media," as well as those already actively using Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and blogging for business purposes, who want to learn more and go to the next level.
The book is full of real examples, definitions and adaptable suggestions. It will help you to think about your "strategy" and how to implement social media into your business. The book is very well designed, so that it can either be read through, or used as a reference tool to learn more about a specific topic. Michelle clearly explains the rationale and issues regarding social media in general (which is outstanding), then provides the What, Why, and How to use each of these tools, as well as Tips for each. She has even included a very detailed footnote section, for those interested in further reading or support for her content, as well as a thorough Glossary.

This book will definitely be helpful to professional firms (both small and large, for a partner in charge or the social media "champion"), as well as anyone else who has an interest in applying social media for their business. This is an excellent book, which I highly recommend. Anyone who wants to learn more about this topic will find this a must-have book.
Disclosure: I have no relationship with the author of this book, other than being "connected" via Twitter.
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Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era Review

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Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era ReviewI just finished this book and it does a great job describing the dynamic now in play at every organization regarding social media. It illustrated how social media is going on a whirlwind tour throughout your organization touching areas I never expected it to touch. It's not like the early days of the internet - where you can hire a bunch of coders, stick them in a corner and have them create your website and do all things web - its much more involved and truly touches "everywhere" in your organization. Because of that you need a comprehensive strategy that will involve the whole organization and leverage the human network and human capital typically trapped in organizations of all sizes. This book does an excellent job of explaining and then illustrating with real world examples how to create a strategy that will unlock the power hidden everywhere in your organization. Excellent read - thank you Larry!Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era Overview

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Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships Review

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Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships ReviewIf you work in marketing for any size company there are three reasons you need to buy AND READ this book.
1) You'll gain the knowledge you need to spend your dollars wisely.
2) You'll learn the technical terms that will let you ask the right questions in the right way with the right words.
3) You'll see that you absolutely need to stop whatever you are doing immediately and get a social media strategy. The world is changing before our eyes!
Thanks Paul and Eric for your bravery and willingness to go to market with your book first. I wish I had your foresight and your courage!
Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client RelationshipsSocial Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships Overview

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Measure What Matters: Online Tools For Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement, and Key Relationships Review

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Measure What Matters: Online Tools For Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement, and Key Relationships ReviewWe keep hearing that measurement is going to be the most important skill for social media practitioners this year. The ability to match a metric to an objective that will measure a specific outcome will start to separate the social media men from the boys, as they say. If you want to get a handle on that process, this book is for you. If you just want to measure hits, likes and retweets, you just might get a paradigm shift reading the book.
Katie D. Payne's Measure What Matters is the preeminent work in this area to date. I know I'm going out on a limb saying that, because there have been some good books written on measurement. But nothing as thorough and in-depth as this, in my view. I've read them all, believe me.
Even though this book includes some heavy lifting, it's worth the time it takes to read carefully and learn. Those of us without a business or marketing degree may have to slow down in some spots, but for the most part, this book goes at a pace that most marketing and communications practitioners should easily feel comfortable with. I love the fact that the book also offers specfic advice on measuring events, relationships with local communities, higher ed, crisis, internal employee relationships, sales and partner relationships, and the list goes on. It is thorough, and it will open your eyes to the fact that there are much more effective ways of measuring than HITS (How Idiots Track Success). Must read.
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Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business Review

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Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business ReviewQualman insightfully advises companies to patiently build relationships with customers through social media, rather than instantly getting a customer's name and e-mail address into its database. "Good businesses realize that it's not all about the instant win of getting someone into a database," he says. "Rather it is cultivating that relationship via social media. If it's done correctly, you will have a relationship that lasts a lifetime." Throughout the book he tries, but doesn't quite succeed, to show how to "correctly" cultivate such relationships.
Another insight: He says on page 111 that marketers will need to create content (news, entertainment, and how-to information, for example) for their websites, not just advertising messages.
Unfortunately, insights like those are few and far between.
Qualman's platitudinous premise is stated in the introduction, and again in the conclusion:
"It's all about the economy, stupid. No, it's all about a people-driven economy, stupid. If anything, I hope that you have learned this from reading this book."
(In the introduction, Qualman explained that the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" was coined in 1992 by James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager. Qualman merely "adjusted" that phrase to create the book's alleged premise.)
After reading the book, I still don't have the slightest idea how the "people-driven economy" differs from "the economy." Or what the adjusted phrase means.
This book is full of superficial anecdotes and miniscule case studies, platitudes and generalizations, unsupported opinions, idle speculation, specious claims, inconsistent style, imprecise language, typos, and bad punctuation.
In some of Qualman's examples, I couldn't tell whether the facts were real or hypothetical. In many of the micro-case studies, he shows how a company accomplished a certain objective through social media, but does not establish that the objectives could not have been accomplished more cost-effectively through other marketing channels.
He describes the case of Dancing Matt--about Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing around the world and put his videos on YouTube. The videos were hugely popular, so Stride Gum sponsored his further travels and video production. Stride exercised restraint and placed its logo discreetly at the end of the video (in the post roll). Qualman claims Stride earned "millions of dollars in brand equity," but does not support that claim with any data or sources. Is it his own guesstimate, or did the company tell him it earned "millions"? No clue.
He claims that social media activities "connect parents to their kids like never before." He offers no source, data, or study to support that statement, and he is clearly not qualified to offer that opinion.
Regarding microblogging, he says, "What once took place only periodically around the watercooler [sic] is now happening in real time." Huh? What can be more real-time than water cooler conversations?
He says (on page 52) that micro-blogging functions as a kind of log that you can look back on--at the end of a day or week or month--and review your posts and updates. "It's extremely enlightening because it shows you how you are spending what precious time you have." Ah, yes, it's not only improving the way parents relate to their kids, it's therapeutic as well.
As a downside of social media, he says, Generation Y and Z [are having] difficulty with face-to-face conversations." No support for that claim. Is that his personal observation? He's a marketer, not a sociologist.
He says that staying connected, through social media, to the people who elected Obama president will be the "key to his success as president." The key!
He says social media "allows for a government to be more in tune with the country and to truly run as a democracy by stripping away the politics and getting to the core of what matters." Uh huh.
He recites marketing platitudes that have been true for decades or centuries, but treats them as though social media makes them especially true. An example: "Companies that produce great products and services...will be winners in the socialnomic world."
Here is an example of idle speculation. Qualman uses an example involving NBC's failure to put its 2008 Olympics coverage online in certain circumstances. "Most likely, NBC and their advertisers...were judging themselves using old metrics..." Sorry, you can't prove a point with a "most likely." Qualman could have contacted NBC's marketing department and asked them why they didn't. But that would have required real journalism.
Regarding the concept of network neutrality (although he doesn't use that phrase), Qualman says that if Internet service providers start charging for usage ("per stream") rather than a fixed monthly fee, that would be "malicious."
Qualman devotes almost five pages (perhaps the longest case study in the book) to the Scrabulous case, where the Agarwalla brothers created an online game similar to Scrabble, which they called Scrabulous and which attracted 500,000 daily users at its peak. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble brand, issued a cease-and-desist letter and pushed Scrabulous off the web. Qualman excoriates Hasbro for being heavy-handed in the case, and he quotes several other marketing professionals who likewise criticize Hasbro for being short-sighted. Yet Qualman presents not a single quote or statement from Hasbro, nor does he speculate as to why Hasbro's believed its legal action was necessary.
I could go on, but you get the point.Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business Overview

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Counterterrorism and Open Source Intelligence (Lecture Notes in Social Networks) Review

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Counterterrorism and Open Source Intelligence (Lecture Notes in Social Networks) ReviewI anticipate that a paperback version will be offered at a more affordable price for individuals--this is the library or institutional "trade" price.
I am very glad to see the publisher make use of Look Inside the Book, and encourage all interested parties to use that feature and study the table of contents. I have to articulate my profound respect for the conference organizer and senior book editor and for those contributing to this book, all of whom I met at the conference for which this content was created.
I have never seen a better collection of scientific and mathematical approaches to leveraging open sources of information to identify precursors and patterns of terrorism. This is an original book, and the first major effort of the new counterterrorism center at the University of Southern Denmark.
Including my alternative perspective, as one other senior participant put it, "makes our job harder." One reason I particularly like Nordic professionals is because of their integrity. There is a great deal of intelligence and total integrity in this book; it is an honor for me to have been included. I am not competent in the way the other authors are, and my regard for their pioneering is unlimited.
Also just published, very US centric but a really original study, is No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Praeger Security International). I have provided a lengthy review at the Amazon page for that book.
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Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More Review

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Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More ReviewThere are two types of books about Social Media Marketing. The first type is a down-and-dirty laundry list of every social media under the sun with detailed information on how to set up a page, put in a nifty background image, post a post, and every other esoterica. But very little theory. The second type is a theory book with lots of mind candy, but short on the details.
Funk's book is more the latter, a theory book. It has lots of interesting theory and tidbits, but few web links and few "how to" examples. It's a concept book, one that gets your mind thinking. It doesn't give you a plan, or a concrete laundry list of to do's. So if you buy this book, also buy a more practical book on Social Media Marketing (or take a class on SMM; I teach Social media Marketing online and in San Francisco - just Google 'Jason McDonald' to find my classes).
But, this book has one precious amazing chapter: Fails and Fiascos. It is the ONLY book I have every read on SMM, and I read a lot of them, that discusses blazing failures. I read these books on BART on my way up to my own Social Media Marketing classes in the city, and I was laughing out loud at 'Jennifer Laycock and the Pork Board,' 'T&J Towing,' and 'Monster Versus Vermonster.' Funk does an amazing job describing these 'Social Media Fails' and he gives you great feedback and food for thought on what might work, and what might blow up in your face in terms of Social Media Marketing.
Most of these books are just cheerleaders for social media. Funk actually gives you some of the down and dirty, explaining - for instance - that the vast majority of Twitter and Facebook pages for businesses just languish in cyberspace.
For that, this book is worth a buy and I will recommend it to my own students who want not to be the next 'Epic Fail' of Social Media but the next 'Epic Success.'Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More Overview

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Small Business Smarts: Building Buzz with Social Media Review

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Small Business Smarts: Building Buzz with Social Media ReviewYou always hear about the importance of social media in business. However, many small business owners just don't think it is necessary or think it's for them. This book clears up the questions behind the importance of incorporating social media into your small business marketing and advertising efforts in a simple and fun way.
It's no secret that the one thing everyone carries around these days is a cell phone and access to information is at their fingertips. This book helps you understand how to capitalize on that and not miss out on an opportunity to communicate with your customer in a practical way.
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No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing Review

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No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing ReviewNo B**S Social Media, a Recommended Book (Four Stars)
No B**S Social Media, Review No B**S? Really! No B**S Social Media at least has a catchy title. It certainly got my attention and hope that this would be one of the better books on Social Media Marketing. I teach Social Media Marketing in San Francisco and online (just Google `Jason McDonald' or click on my profile to find me), and so I am always on the look out for new insights into the emerging world of SMM.
Bottom line: four stars
I recommend the book as a good, fresh intro to Social Media Marketing.
The book's strength: a detailed, high level overview to WHY Social Media matters.
The book's weakness: lack of how-to-, step-by-step detail.
No B**S Social Media is 90% a conceptual book, and only 10% a practical how-to guide. The discussions of ROI / Metrics, review marketing, and how to organize your social media team in a larger company are all quite good. If you have an established product, more than ten employees, and are looking for a good airplane read on social media, this is a good book for you. If you are a start up, a single employee company, or are looking for a detailed practical manual on Social Media Marketing, you are better served by Social Media for Dummies.
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid of Social Media
Not surprisingly, given its brash title, the book's tone is no nonsense. One major theme in the book is: Be afraid, be very afraid! Be afraid, first of all, that the Social Media Revolution is here, and be afraid that you - Mr. or Ms. Marketing - do not understand it. Your company will be doomed as will you - so you had better start paying attention! Do I agree with this statement? Absolutely. Do I agree with the tone: not at all.
Should you be afraid of Social Media? If you are a large company like Nestle or United Airlines, there is certainly reason to fear the viral attack campaign of your Facebook page, or the viral video "United Breaks Guitars." For most businesses, however, the worst that happens is a) the unhappy customer review on Yelp or Google Places, or b) a complete lack of interest by your customers in your products.
Very few of us will experience a viral video assault like "United Breaks Guitars," but many of us will experience the "b" option - difficulty getting our customers to truly be excited about our brand, our products, and our news. Fear is the wrong metaphor, in my view.
Attitude is everything I believe, so despite what No B**S says, I encourage you to be open minded about Social Media rather than fearful. Expect some direct insights from your customers, good or bad, but see this revolution for what it is: an amazing, fun marketing opportunity to get to know your customers regardless of the limits of time or space. Experiment. Be innovative. For many small businesses, Social Media will start and end with Google Places and Yelp. That's OK. It all depends on what YOU make what works for YOUR BUSINESS.
My take, therefore, is 1) don't be afraid you will be left behind, there is still plenty of time to get started in Social Media Marketing. But certainly take the plunge now and start educating yourself and your company, and 2) don't worry too much about the high-visibility attacks such as those against Nestle or United Airlines. Unless you are a major brand, those viral social media messages are very rare indeed, and 3) look for focused opportunities rather than trying to do everything at once. Nigerian proverb: man who goes after two mice, catches none. So, focus, focus, focus on just the best social media opportunities, unique to your business.
Social Media Opportunities - Reviews and Review-based SMM
For many businesses the strongest Social Media Opportunity is in the review space. Fortunately this is the best part of the book - its discussion of reviews and eWOM (electronic word-of mouth). Nowadays, many customers may base their decision to engage with you on reviews posted about your company or products on sites such as ePinions.com, Amazon.com, Yelp.com, and other platforms. Small businesses like roofing companies or attorneys, in particular, are being reviewed heavily on Yelp and Google Places.
Do reviews matter to your business?
If so, what is your strategy to encourage them?
If so, what is your strategy to monitor and respond to them - good, bad, and ugly?
With respect to reviews, the authors make the obvious but necessary point that people often do NOT believe advertising but they WILL believe the reviews of total strangers. Looking for a new Bar-be-que restaurant in Dallas? Turn to Yelp or Google Places, read reviews, go to restaurant. Ready to buy a new book on Amazon? Read the reviews, like the reviewer, buy the book. Review marketing is big, and getting bigger. Reviews matter. Do you lack a review strategy? Then be afraid, be very afraid.
Here, however, is where the book falls down. We are given no easy Web index of sites that have reviews, tools or tips to encourage reviews - so we know that reviews are important, but we aren't really taught how to cultivate them, at either the conceptual or practical level. Like so many books in this sector, the book reads too much like a novel and not enough like a workbook. As someone who teaches Social Media Marketing, I know from my students that what they want are practical, step-by-step directions on issues like how to encourage reviews. In this regard, No B**S Social Media disappoints. It even lacks an appendix of great websites, or power tools for Social Media - items that in this Internet age should certainly be part of any book on the topic.
Conclusion
There's theory and then there's practice. A truly excellent Social Media Marketing book would have booth - a discussion of why reviews matter, and also a step-by-step guide to how to encourage reviews. No B**S Social Media is more theory than practice, but it's still a good book. Buying it, reading it, and most of all - beginning to embrace Social Media - is a start. That's no B**S.No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing Overview

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Social BOOM: How to Master Business Social Media to Brand Yourself, Sell Yourself, Sell Your Product, Dominate Your Industry Market, Save Your Butt, ... and Grind Your Competition into the Dirt Review

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Social BOOM: How to Master Business Social Media to Brand Yourself, Sell Yourself, Sell Your Product, Dominate Your Industry Market, Save Your Butt, ... and Grind Your Competition into the Dirt Review
It is kind of surprising that the author of this book, who has quite an online following, has only come up with 8 reviewers for his book to date. Normally a "connected" Internet guy will leverage his or her followers through blog posts, tweets, and ezine messages to get positive reviews posted on Amazon for his book. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I wonder why???
I first heard of Gitomer in 2004 when I was working down in Charleston, SC for a nonprofit fundraising-consulting firm. The lead consultant loved getting Gitomer's "Sales Caffeine" ezine and clicking through to the sales rants Gitmer penned and starred in. David would holler into my office and say: You gotta check out Gitomer on this rant. I'll have to admit some of those rants were pretty commical.
Now, about the book at hand. I'm a tough grader when it comes to social media books these days. I've read a ton of them (and posted reviews for some) and there rarely is much worth reading printed these days. Social Boom is better than most, though. Not because the book is particularly enlightening. No, because it is NOT all that enlightening. What makes this book different is the author has written a book about what he does with regard to social media. And he has been pretty successful with it I might add. I recommend you read the book, but more importantly you should study everything the author has done online to build his Internet presence. It's all there to be found, looked at, studied, analyzed, and interpretted. It's the combination of the book and the author's online presence that make the book worth something.
Gitomer is basically a sales trainer who has become an expert at self-promotion. I suspect his bread and butter money come from large corporations that hire him to do in-house sales training sessions. He's a public speaker, an author, and in my humble opinion a digital video star. Does he really provide value like he claims? Not really. He's a mouthpiece and an entertainer. But that is what self-promotion is all about.
The core to Gitomer's self-promotion empire is a basic Web site, an ezine mailing list, You Tube videos, and his books. The linkedin, twitter, and facebook are all add-ons. Linkedin is a nice place to look for prospects. It might be a good place to find CEOs who can pay for sales training. Twitter is just a mini ezine mailing list. And facebook, that's a joke unless you are looking for business in Africa or some other 3rd world country. 4 stars!
PS. I don't think Gitomer would be nearly as successful at what he does if he did not write, produce, and star-in his You Tube videos. I think if you took his videos out of the mix he would not have nearly as much to talk about in this book as he does. Having said this, I thought the book should have had more on how to write, produce, and upload videos into You Tube. He doesn't go into much detail about that and without that you won't have the success that he has had.Social BOOM: How to Master Business Social Media to Brand Yourself, Sell Yourself, Sell Your Product, Dominate Your Industry Market, Save Your Butt, ... and Grind Your Competition into the Dirt Overview

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The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media Review

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The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media ReviewI really enjoyed reading "The Digital Handshake" and learned quite a bit about how to use Social Media to grow my business. I've read other books about Social Media before but they were geared toward corporations and very large businesses.
I found there to be much more information that was relevant to my small business. This book not only gave me specific ideas about how to use social media for marketing my small business, but also taught me more about the nuts and bolts of each medium so that I can better understand how to create content.The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media Overview

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Social Network Data Analytics Review

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Social Network Data Analytics ReviewThis is a very interesting book for both researchers and practitioners in computer science who work in the area of data mining and want to learn the state-of-the-art in social network data analytics. The book provides good coverage of the subject area by focusing on popular research topics, such as the study of the statistical properties that are apparent in "typical" social networks, the problems of community detection and social influence analysis, the expert-location discovery problem, the privacy issues that arise in the context of social networks, as well as visualization techniques, text mining techniques and social tagging. The emerging area of integrating sensors and social networks is also examined. Each chapter of the book contains numerous bibliographic references that will guide readers who are interested in particular topics to explore these topics in more depth. Overall, I highly recommend this book!Social Network Data Analytics Overview

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Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance Review

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Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance ReviewA great guide for building, accelerating or transforming your organization's Web 2.0 strategy.
Don't miss out on the social media revolution sweeping the corporate world.
There are great case studies along with tips to build your Web 2.0 strategy.
It's a bible for Web 2.0 at the workplace!Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance Overview

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The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business Review

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The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business ReviewI've become increasingly accustomed to ideas best captured as magazine articles being extended into books. It's sometimes a bit offensive to be sold something long when something short would have done.
"The Whuffie Factor" is something else entirely -- a sentence or a paragraph expanded into a book.
Here it is: Your social reputation is important, so cultivate it well.
Save your money. This book is insulting.The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business Overview

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Social Networks and Health: Models, Methods, and Applications Review

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Social Networks and Health: Models, Methods, and Applications Reviewi have read a lot of network books. there are always some books which are too math centric and some too superficial. This book presents math concepts in a very clear manner and does not lose out on any rigor. highly recommend it!Social Networks and Health: Models, Methods, and Applications Overview

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