Scott Stratten, author of UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging, has two new books out. It’s kind of a buy-one-get-one deal; see, one book is just flipped upside-down and glued onto the back of the other one.
Good Vs. Evil: Stratten's competing book covers side-by-side
OK, maybe a teensy bit gimmicky, but it comes off as a pretty cute idea, really. The front-facing Book of Business Awesome explains “how engaging your customers and employees can make your business thrive.” Flip the book over and upside-down, and you’re faced with awesome’s yang: The Book of Business UnAwesome: The Cost of Not Listening, Engaging, or Being Great at What You Do.
Much like the cartoon angel/devil duo from Warner Bros. cartoons, each side addresses the same subject (in this case, “the awesome,” as Stratten insists upon putting it), but from different perspectives.
As you may have noticed from previous reviews, I am a fan of any business writer who can bring a little humor and lightheartedness to their work. Stratten achieves this and then some. Unfortunately, he goes a little overboard with the parentheses, and seems to think that sarcasm is utterly undetectable in the written word (therefore requiring him to point it out every time he uses it).
Aside from these minor irritations, though, this is an entertaining and insightful book(s). One area in which Stratten especially excels is making points that are both unsaid and forehead-slappingly self-evident. These alone make this book a satisfying read; after all, the best tip is the one that makes sense before you begin to implement it. Some examples: Continue reading »
The following excerpt is from the book “Social Media 101 : Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online” (Wiley 2010) by Chris Brogan. The book gives insight on effective use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, and how to utilize them to grow your business.
Social Media Starter Moves for Real Estate
Disclaimer right up front: I’m not in the real estate biz, so I’ll write this from the perspective of what I’ve observed and what might be useful. Some real real estate pro can come and fix this on his or her own blog, and it’ll likely be better. Why would I ever let a simple thing like inexperience get in the way of sharing my opinion?
SHOW ME THE HOUSE The first and most obvious thing I think the real estate world can (and should) be doing is buying video cameras and shooting their own walk-throughs. You don’t have to be a pro. You do have to know how not to make something look horrible, but that comes with trial and error.
PICK UP A VIDEO CAMERA If you don’t yet own a video camera, here are a few thoughts: Most still cameras have a video feature, and that’s nearly good enough. The Flip camera is the easiest and often the least expensive video camera to use. Kodak’s new Zi8 (and related) models have more flexibility than the Flip, but are a bit more complicated as a trade-off. Continue reading »
By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
- By next year, Generation Y will outnumber Baby Bombers. And 96 percent of Gen Y has joined a social network.
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest in the world.
- YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and has 100 million videos.
- Approximately 25 percent of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
Erik Qualman uncovered these startling statistics and more, which he lays out in his new book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business (Wiley, 2009). Social media has created a fundamental shift in how people communicate, Qualman says. One only needs to look as far as Qualman’s Socialnomics YouTube video that went viral just weeks after its release, topping out at nearly 1 million views. He believes that soon people will not have to search for news, products, and services — but rather news, products, and services will find them via social media. Thus, in order to be successful in business today and in the future, the social interaction with potential clients must be embraced.
What was your first social media experience and what were your thoughts at that time?
Erik Qualman
QUALMAN: I joined MySpace, like a lot of people, in 2005. An 18-year-old introduced it to me and it was like she was addicted to crack. She’d always have to check her MySpace to see if she had more friends or to see in anyone commented. It was obvious to me that it was something big, especially for someone to be so ingratiated with it. I hopped on and it made sense to me right away. It wasn’t a surprise once Facebook opened up their platform to go beyond just college students that Facebook became so popular. Then the world was turned on its head when they opened up their application program interface to allow anybody to write applications for Facebook. That decision was so far reaching that it actually caused Apple, which has typically been a very closed environment, to open up and allow others the ability to code applications for the iPhone. That was really the game changer. Continue reading »
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