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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

aka

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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Selling Your Car

Finance

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Pa...

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money.  Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value.  Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

  1. Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
  2. Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well.  Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
  3. Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.”  It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

  • Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses.  Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
  • Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept.  Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time.  Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
  • Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car.  That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car.  “Officer, Sumdood took my car.  He was wearing jeans.”  That won’t get your car back.
  • Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer.   A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars.  It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

 

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Multiracial Skinhead Love Triangle

Finance, Life

English: A goat
English: A goat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Honey, here on national television, in front of a live studio audience, I’ve got a secret I’d like to share.   You’re not our child’s mother.  I’ve been sleeping with the milkman.  And the goat.  Your mom is the star of my new adult website.  With the goat.  And the milkman.  I’ve got three other families, in three other cities.  I lost the house to my gambling addiction.   Those sores?  Herpesyphiligonoritis.  I got it from the foreign exchange student we hosted before I moved her to Dubuque and married her.  The goat gave her away.  The milkman cried.   Oh, and I wore your panties to the Illinois Nazi reunion.   I know how much you hate Illinois Nazis.  But I still love you.  And your sister.  Especially your sister.  She does that thing with her tongue….”

Why would anyone go on national television to share things like that?

More interesting: why would anybody stay on stage after hearing that?

Stay tuned.

I have this friend.  He bought a couple of cars.  He’s got some issues with money, partially revolving around a need to keep his assets below a certain threshold.   So he put the cars in his girlfriend’s name.  I know, it’s slightly crooked, but that makes the story more fun.

They broke up.

Recently, she called him to say she was suing him for the cars.  She wanted them.  She wanted to hurt him.  She was mean.   Somehow that turned into them agreeing to settle the case on Judge Joe Brown, on national television.

My friend spoke with the show’s producer, then last week, he was flown to California and put up in a hotel for a couple of days.   When he arrived at the TV studio, he was informed that it wasn’t Judge Joe Brown, but a new show that will start airing in the fall called, The Test.   According to CBS, The Test “is a one-hour conflict resolution talk show that will use lie detector and DNA tests to settle relationship and paternity disputes among the guests.”   Coincidentally, CBS also owns Judge Joe Brown.

My friend got on stage with Dr. Phil’s son, Jay McGraw, and was accused of cheating on his girlfriend and stealing her identity.   Lie detectors.  Yelling.  Accusations.

Why did he stay?

He wasn’t given his return plane ticket until they were done filming.

When he was done, they handed him a voucher for cab fare and the itinerary for his return flight.  Until then, he had no other way to get home.

That’s why people stay on stage.  It’s probably also why none of those shows ever have people with money of their own; they can find their own way home in a pinch.

Interesting side note:  The show paid $200  and booked the cheapest possible return flight, with a 6 hour layover.

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Emergency Fund Goodness, Reasons #491,207 and #491,208

Finance, Life

When you run a big company that handles a lot of one-year renewable contracts with the government at every level from city to federal, you tend to expect that you’ll need to do some legwork on the contract renewals before they expire.  Preferably, you’d do this a few weeks before they expire so the bureaucratic mess that is the federal government can process the renewal on their end.

That’s a reasonable expectation after 30 years in the industry.

If, instead, you wait until the expiration date on the contract to submit the renewal to the federal agency in question, you’ll have a department to shut down for a week due to lack of work.

Then, at the end of that week, you’ll be reminded that the wheels of the federal government grind. very. slow.

So slow, in fact, that the department in question gets to stay shut down for at least another 2 weeks.

If you haven’t been doing the math, that is a surprise, unpaid, three-week vacation for my wife.

Our emergency fund hasn’t grown to the size that can handle this, but it is enough to take the edge off for a couple of weeks.  Yay!

We’d already decided that we would be skipping a vacation this year, to give us more time to deal with my mother-in-law’s estate and hoarding remnants, so the vacation fund will be tapped.  That should cover the rest, assuming her job does come back.

That’s part 1.

Part 2 is the story of a cat whose butt exploded on our bed at 1AM last week.

Poo–the cat named for her coloration–has been acting funny.   She’d suddenly sprint in a circle around the room, then poop on the floor.   Irritating.

One night, her sprint crossed our bed, so my wife pinned her down, hoping to break the cycle.

The cat screamed, then sprayed blood from her butt all over the pillows, blankets, sheets, and my wife.

That’s called a midnight visit to the emergency vet.

See, cats have anal glands that they use to sign their work when they are marking their territory.  Sometimes, these glands get infected.  Sometimes, the infection gets so bad the glands kind of…explode.

On my bed.

While I’m sleeping.

Pop.

Fixing that involves sedation, an ice cream scoop, and a sewing kit.  Or something.  I wasn’t really pushing for details when my wife called from the vet’s office.

For those of you who’ve never had a cat’s butt explode in your bed at one in the morning (and if you have, I’m not sure I want to hear the story), the emergency vet isn’t cheap.   This visit cost us $500.  It probably would have been half of that if we would have waited until the regular vet opened, but…ewww.

We’ll be starting our emergency fund from about 0 in the next few weeks, but it beats going in to debt over a couple of setbacks.

How’s your emergency fund?  Is it enough to carry you through any unexpected setback?

 

My Credit Cards

Finance

This announcement is a bit premature, but not everything that’s premature has to end in an evening of disappointment.

At the beginning of the year, I transferred the balance of my last credit card onto two different cards, each with a 0% interest rate.   One card got a $4,000 transfer and the other got $13,850.  The approximately $415 in fees I paid for the transfer saved me nearly $1500 in interest this year.

The card that got the big balance is the card we use for a lot of our daily spending.    On my statement dated 2/18/2012, the balance on the this card was $14,865.23.  At the same time, the smaller card had a balance of $3,925.09, for a total of $18,790.32.  When I started my debt-murder journey in April 2009, it had peaked at just under $30,000.

When my payments clear later today, that balance will be gone.

That is nearly $19,000 paid down in 8 months.

Now, the inheritance we picked up did accelerate our repayment a bit, but only by a few months.

Starting from $90,394.70 in April 2009, we have paid down $63,746.70, leaving $26,648.00 on our mortgage.

I’m more than a little excited, which–as usual–is the cause for the prematurity.

New goal: pay off the mortgage in 2013.

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