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Book Review: Social Nation

Business, Reviews

I recently had an opportunity to read Social Nation: How to harness the power of Social Media to attract customers, motivate employees & grow your business by Barry Libert.  Heckuva title.

Libert is the the CEO at Mzinga, which is a company that connects other companies–and their customers–using social media to collaborate and communicate.  Social media is, quite simply, using the internet to drive interactive communication.  This includes Twitter, Facebook, and forums.  Sometimes, it’s just discussion, sometimes, it’s sharing user-generated content.

Social Nation “will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services.”   It bills itself as a “complete toolbox” for social media.   Does it match the hype? Let’s see.

The book is broken into three sections.

Part 1: The Future of Business is Social

Libert asserts that the future of business is social.   That is obviously true, to a degree. A solid viral marketing campaign can drive more eyeball to a product than a full-page spread in the New York Time or a 30-second spot during Super Bowl halftime.  However, there are a lot–possibly a majority–of business-to-business companies that will gain no value from a social media campaign.   Would a regional supplier with an exclusive distributorship for a top-name line of faucets benefit from being on Twitter?  No.  On the other hand, 17% of our time online is spent on social applications and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 35 years old or older.  There is certainly some value to be gained by have a social media presence in some markets.

This section(all of chapter 3!) also contains a link to a test to determine your social media skills.   I haven’t taken the test, mainly because I don’t feel like registering for another site.  This struck me as nothing more than lead generation, which is a shame.  It could be a useful tool.

Part 2: Seven Principles for Building Your Social Nation

This section has seven chapters, containing 7 case studies that detail the 7 principle of social media, as defined by Libert and Mzinga.

The principles include:

  • Let the culture lead the way, as demonstrated by Zappos.com.
  • Involve your fans.  The big takeaway from chapter 8 is that, when you create a community, your job is to facilitate involvement, not to control it.  If you try to run it with an iron fist, it will choke and die.
  • Reward others and you will be rewarded. Apple lets developers keep 70% of the money they make in the app store.  That encourages developers to develop, making everyone more money.   Give.  Karma will take care of the rest.
  • There are 4 other principles, but some are just common sense, and I don’t want to give away the contents of the book.

Part 3: Start Today and Create Your Own Social Nation

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Chapter 11: How to Get Started and 10 Pitfalls to Avoid

Section 3 has just one chapter, but it’s a good one.    It explains the difference between followers and fans, the value of each and how to bond with each.   The difference?  Fans are actively involved.   Followers are far more passive.

This section/chapter also goes into some things to avoid, like abandoning a social media strategy too early, failing to market your business, underestimating the power(positive and negative) of a social network.

Is it worth getting the book?

Social Nation bills itself as a complete social media toolbox, but it falls a bit short.   The book tackles social media from a purely strategic point of view, ignoring the tactical concerns.   It’s clearly geared toward helping a company plan its social media strategy from a 10,000 foot perch.   For the people in the trenches, or anyone with a grasp of strategy that’s looking for the details on running a social media campaign, it’s not enough.  That said, if you are trying to plan a social media strategy, or you have no idea where to start, this is a great book for you.   It holds a lot of value, but stops some distance before “complete”.  Definitely worth a read if you are involved is social media planning.

Giveaway

I’m giving away Social Nation.   If you’d like to have a chance to get it, just leave a comment, telling me how you like to see companies use social media.  Fair warning, this is the book I read, so it’s “used”.   I take care of books, so you can’t tell that it’s used.

Publishers, Publicists, and Authors

If you have a book you’d like me to review, please contact me.

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Why I Hate Payday Loans

Finance

Payday Loans Neon Sign

I hate payday loans and payday lenders.

The way a way a payday loan works is that you go into a payday lender and you sign a check for the amount you want to borrow, plus their fee.  They give you money that you don’t have to pay back until payday.  It’s generally a two-week loan.

Now, this two week loan comes with a fee, so if you want to borrow $100, they’ll charge you a $25 fee, plus a percent of the total loan, so for that $100 loan, you’ll have to pay back $128.28.

That’s only 28% of actual interest; that’s not terrible.  However, if you prorate that to figure the APR, which is what everyone means when they say “I’ve got a 7% interest rate”, it comes out to 737%.  That’s nuts.

They are a very bad financial plan.

Those loans may save you from an overdraft fee, but they’ll cost almost as much as an overdraft fee, and the way they are rigged–with high fees, due on payday–you’re more likely to need another one soon.  They are structured to keep you from ever getting out from under the payday loan cycle.

For those reasons, I consider payday loan companies to be slimy.  Look at any of their sites.   Almost none are upfront about the total cost of the loan.

So I don’t take their ads.  When an advertiser contacts me, my rate sheet says very clealy that I will not take payday loan ads.  The reason for that is–in my mind–when I accept an advertiser, I am–in some form–endorsing that company, or at least, I am agreeing that they are a legitimate business and I am helping them conduct that business.

In all of the time I’ve been taking ads, I’ve made exactly one exception to that rule.   On the front page of that advertiser’s website, they had the prorated APR in bright, bold red letters.    It was still a really bad deal, but with that level of disclosure, I felt comfortable that nobody would click through and sign up without knowing what they were getting into.    That was a payday lender with integrity, as oxymoronic as that sounds.

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Payday Loans Suck

Finance

shark boy poster
Image by vonglee via Flickr

A few weeks ago, I was approached about placing ads on this site.  I was excited when I read the email.  It came from a real domain, didn’t involve any Nigerian princes or wire transfers for overpayments.

Over the course of the email conversation, it was determined that, for a fee, I would place some links in a few archived posts.  It would just be links to improve search engine ranking, without being an eyesore for my current readers.  I don’t have a problem with that.  The intrusiveness is similar to Chitika ads, which are only visible to search traffic.  It’s a nice way to advertise: monetization without alienation.

Then I saw the links.  I was being offered money to promote payday loans.

Payday loans offer to loan you–for example–$100 for the low(snort) price of just $25.  That’s not bad.  Only 25%.  I know some credit cards that aren’t that good.  The catch is that the loan is due in full in 2 weeks.  That gives it an APR(Annual Percentage Rate) of 650%.  That’s not so good.

When you payback the loan, your paycheck is pre-spent by whatever you borrowed, plus the pound of flesh fee and you are that much more likely to need their services again, digging you even deeper.

It’s not like the target demographic is terribly affluent.  These are people who not only can’t make ends meet, but also can’t acquire traditional credit.  They are left paying this insulting fee.

I consider payday lending companies to be immoral, unethical and generally, more than a bit dishonest.  These are the people who give decent, hardworking capitalists a bad name.  I’d rather go to a mob loan shark.  He’s at least honest about what he is.

They got shot down.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy making money.  I also enjoy the money I make here.

But not at the expense of my soul or my integrity.

5 Life Altering Lessons I Learned From My Debt

Finance, Life

Starting position of a chess game. House of St...
Image via Wikipedia

Several years ago, my wife and I dug ourselves into debt pretty deep.   It wasn’t as bad as some, but it was much worse than anybody could actually want.    Recognizing the problem as a problem was a life-changing event.  From there, I’ve been examining every thing else about my life.   As part of that examination, I’ve spent a lot of time really thinking about the ultimate causes of the debt and what it has taken to motivate ourselves to get rid of it.

I’ve realized a few things:

      1. The things I want right now do not matter. I own around 2000 movies.   Up until last spring, every time I went into a store that sold movies, I’d peruse the cheap rack and buy 2-3 moves.  I’d watch them all, but the vast majority were only ever watched once or twice.  The rest may as well have been rented.   I wanted them and I wanted them “right now”, but after watching them once, the value vanished.   Most things I’ve bought on a whim lost their value to me shortly after bringing them home.  Planned purchases are enjoyable longer.
      2. The things I care about do not cost money. I cannot buy a kiss from my kids, or a hug from my wife.   The school project my son did on his hero(Me!) is absolutely priceless.  The TV, the smartphone, a new car, these things are fleeting.   Teaching my kids to read or ride a bike, getting beat by a 6 year old at chess, these things will last us all forever.  It took $30,000 of unsecured consumer debt to drill that lesson home.
      3. Instant gratification is easier than security, but not nearly as gratifying. It is incredibly easy to buy what you want when you want it.    It is much harder to postpone buying something until you can afford it.   Once you build that habit, and see the savings of delayed gratification, it’s worth it.   There is a comfort in having a few months worth of expenses in an emergency fund that no amount of knickknacks can match.
      4. I like getting stuff more than I like having stuff. It’s easy to succumb to the temporary high of a quick purchase.  It’s easy to train yourself to crave that high to the point that it’s impossibly to walk out of a store without buying something.  I did that.    When I cleaned out my entire house this spring, I came to the realization that I don’t need–or even want–most of the things I own.   I wanted it once, but once I had it, the infatuation was gone.  I didn’t have many problems unloading most of my crap.  It felt good to get rid of it.
      5. Owing money sucks. The borrower is slave to the lender.   When our debt exceeded our annual income, we were working 3/4 of the time just to stay afloat.  Instead of being able to spend my time and money on the things that matter, I was forced to spend thousands of hours just covering interest and pretending to make progress on my shackles.  That’s not how I recommend spending your life.   Time is the one thing you have that you can never get back.  Don’t waste it on crap like debt.

 

Have you learned anything from your debt?

Clearing Up Social Debt in 3 Steps

Finance

Debt can be thought of as a disease–probably social.  Most of the time, it was acquired through poor decision making, possibly while competing with your friends, occasionally after having a few too many, often as an ego boost.  Unfortunately, you can’t make it go away with a simple shot of penicillin.   It takes work, commitment and dedication.  Here are three steps to treating this particular affliction.

1.  Burn it, bash it, torch it, toss it, disinfect. Get rid of the things that enable you to accumulate debt.   If you keep using debt as debt, you will never have it all paid off.   That’s like only taking 3 days of a 10 day antibiotic.   Do you really want that itchy rash bloodsucking debt rearing its ugly head when you’ve got an important destination for your money?   Take steps to protect yourself. Wrap that debt up and keep it away.

2.  Quit buying stuff. Chances are, you have enough stuff.  Do you really need that Tusken Raider bobble-head or the brushed titanium spork?  They may make you feel better in the short term, but after breakfast, what have you gained?  A fleeting memory, a bit of cleanup, and an odd ache that you can’t quite explain to your friends.   Only buy the stuff you need, and make it things you will keep forever.  If you do need to indulge, hold off for 30 days to see if it’s really worthwhile.   If it’s really worth having, you can scratch that itch in a month with far fewer regrets.

3.  Spend less. This is the obvious one.  The simple one.  The one that makes breaking a heroin addiction look like a cake-walk(My apologies to recovering heroin addicts.  If you’re to the point that personal finance is important to you, you’ve come a long way.  Congratulations!).  Cut your bills, increase your income.  Do whatever it takes to lower your bottom line and raise your top line. Call your utilities.  If they are going to take your money, make them work for it.   If they can’t buy you drinks or lower your payments, get them out of your life.   There’s almost always an alternative.   Don’t be afraid to banish your toxic payments. Eliminate your debt payments.  This page has a useful guide to debt and how to clear it off.

Update:  This post has been included in the Festival of Frugality.

Consolidating Student Loans

Finance

This is a guest post.
If you owe on multiple student loans, you may have heard of or are considering consolidating your student loan debt. Whether you are fresh out of college or struggling with making multiple student loan payments, consolidating your debt can relieve you of that burden in exchange for one manageable monthly payment.

What is Student Loan Consolidation?

Student loan consolidation is one personal loan big enough to cover the amount owed on multiple student loans. The loan amount you receive is used to pay off the other student loans which leave you with a single monthly payment to make. You can consolidate all federal student loans with a debt consolidation program through the US Department of Education. Although FFELP, or Federal Family Education Loan Program, no longer offers debt consolidation, you can still be eligible through the US Department of Education. You may also still qualify for the federal student loan consolidation program even if your college does not participate in the Direct Loan Program. Many private lenders also offer student loan consolidation options as well.

Eligibility Requirements for Student Loans

You may be eligible to consolidate student loans if you are enrolled at part time status or less or if you are no longer in school. You would also be considered eligible by most lenders if you are within the loan’s grace period or are currently paying on your loans. You should also have your loans in good standing and have at least $5,000 owed in student loans. Each loan consolidation lender may have their own eligibility requirements, so it is best to check with the specific ones you are considering.

The Benefits of Loan Consolidation

There are numerous potential benefits to consolidating student loans including streamlining multiple payments into one affordable monthly payment. You may have multiple due dates on loans and you may be struggling to remember which one is due on which date. Streamlining your student loans is simpler and easier to remember, it also allows you better control over your budget.

Another benefit of choosing to consolidate student loans is extending the repayment terms. Many student consolidation loans can be obtained as long-term debt. Although it will require you to pay your loan for a longer time period, it does reduce the amount paid each month into a more affordable payment.

You will also pay a lower interest rate with a consolidated loan. The interest rate is determined by weighing all the interest on your loans and finding the average rate. You may have variable interest rates on your student loans and consolidating them can give you a fixed rate which is highly advisable given the uncertainty of the US economy.

A lowered interest rate and a longer repayment term mean a lower monthly payment than what you were currently paying on multiple loans. A smaller monthly payment leaves more money in your pocket at the end of the month and allows you to use that money elsewhere.

The Disadvantage of Debt Consolidation

It is important to be aware of all aspects of a student debt consolidation loan in order to make the best and most informed decision. There are some drawbacks to consolidating debt including having a higher repayment term which means you, in the end, will be paying more than if you paid it off sooner. You will also end up paying more in interest on a long-term loan than a short-term as less of the monthly payment is applied to the principle. You may also have to pay prepayment penalties depending on your original student loan terms. There are some student loans that prohibit paying them in one lump sum or ahead of the schedule without incurring a monetary penalty. You may also be required to repay any waived fees or rebates. Check your current student loan contracts to find out if you may be penalized for paying off the debt through a consolidation program.

Unfortunately, there are countless fraudulent and unscrupulous lenders trying to talk you into consolidating your student loans with enticing introductory rates or temptingly low monthly payments. However, it is essential to read all the small print before signing any contract in order to avoid the numerous scams out there. You should be wary of any lender that is promising really low interest rates. You can determine your potential interest rate by compiling all the student loans, adding their interest rate and determine the average. You may have to round up to the nearest one-eighth of a percentage. Beware a lender that promises an interest rate significantly lower than that interest rate.