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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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Funeral Costs: How to Keep it Inexpensive, Without Being Cheap

Finance, Life

MIAMI - JANUARY 24: A pallbearer for Poitier ...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The average funeral costs $6500.    Many people die with absolutely no savings.   Even if there is life insurance, it takes weeks to get the money, while a funeral is completed within a week.

Funeral homes have an easy sales pitch.  Nobody wants to sully the memory of their loved ones.   The tiniest hint of a guilt trip will have most families upgrading to the silk pillow in a second.   Here’s a secret: Your loved one doesn’t care.  I’m not recommending using garbage bags and a dumpster.   By all means, treat your loved ones with care, but don’t go overboard.

Not everyone is comfortable with cremation, and some religions don’t permit it, but it is probably the least expensive way to process a body.   It costs approximately $1400 to cremate a body and you can get very attractive urns for under $100.  Compare that to a $3500 casket and storage & transportation fees, and–from a strictly monetary standpoint–the choice is clear.

Don’t worry too much about decorating.   Flowers aren’t cheap and florists don’t tend to offer discounts to people who aren’t emotionally prepared to negotiate and who are in a time crunch to find the flowers they need.   Get a few bouquets for a small display around the casket or urn, and let the rest take care of itself.   Many of the guests will bring flowers, so the entrance will soon be decorated for free, and that’s the part that makes the first impression.

Shopping online can save you a lot of money on an urn.  Funeral homes will try to sell you a $500 urn, which may include a 1000% markup.    If you buy online, you will have to pay for overnight shipping, but that’s a small cost compared to the standard markup.  You can also find a huge discount on attractive caskets by shopping outside of the funeral home.   Federal law prohibits funeral homes from requiring that you buy a casket from them or charging you a fee for getting one elsewhere.
This may be the most ghoulish part of this article, but you can dig the grave yourself.   It’s probably not worth it for a full-size casket, but for an urn, you can save hundreds of dollars.   An urn generally only needs to be buried 18 inches deep, as opposed to the 6 feet required for caskets.  Just be sure to check with the cemetery and get the burial location right.  If you think it’s ghoulish to dig the grave, just picture digging it up.  Not fun.
Planning a funeral is never enjoyable, and it’s often expensive.  Nothing you do will make it fun, but it is possible to make it affordable.
Have you had to coordinate a funeral?  Did you take the funeral director’s recommendations, or did you cut some costs?

 

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Two Reasons to Save And One Reason Not To

Finance, Life

I’m a fan of saving money.   I’m not doing as much of it as I’d like, but that’s because I’m focusing on killing my final credit card, first.    I postpone saving, knowing that it’s

English: Nursing home in Crick
Image via Wikipedia

something that I need to do the moment my credit cards are paid off.   It won’t wait any longer than that.

Why do I care so much about saving?  It’s because I’m risk-averse.  If I can avoid risk, I do, in most situations.   I don’t want to risk going hungry if I lose my job, and I don’t want to risk eventually(very eventually!) having to fight the cockroaches for the right to drink my fiber supplements.

There are a couple of excellent reasons to save:

1. Peace of Mind.   There is a certain calm that comes from having enough savings to weather a few storms.    If your car dies when you’re broke, it’s a tragedy.  If it dies when you’ve got some cash saved up, it’s a minor inconvenience.  Knowing that the vagaries of fate aren’t going to shatter your life against a cliff is a reward all its own.

2. Cheap nursing homes suck.   When I get old, I want to live in a comfortable nursing home.  One with extended cable, nice beds, and attractive coeds in charge of the sponge-baths.   That’s not too much to ask, but I have to save up for it now.  Medicaid doesn’t cover homes like that.  Those are strictly a private affair.   To make that happen, I need to save and invest now, or I won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors then.

And, of course, there is one shining reason not to save:

1.  You’re living your life now.   Saving everything you’ve got, to the detriment of your current life, isn’t healthy either.   Life is short.   Do you really want to be curled up in bed, trying to enjoy a sponge-bath, shivering at the regrets you’ve built by denying yourself everything?  I’m certainly not suggesting you waste all of your money on coke, hookers, and video games, but it is important to take the time to build some memories, or your final years will be hollow.

You have to find the right balance between your future and your present.   Every moment of your life is important, not just the ones that haven’t happened, yet.

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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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Can I Sell My Lottery Payments for a Lump Sum?

Finance

I took this photograph of a lottery document I own
I took this photograph of a lottery document I own (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a guest post.

Winning the lottery is everyone’s dream. You hit the lotto, cash in your ticket and kiss all your troubles goodbye, right? Actually, that might not be true. Just look at the number of lottery winners who’ve ended up worse off than they were before they hit it big. There are several problems here. One problem is that people often spend their money unwisely, without learning how to manage it properly. Lottery annuity payments were designed to help with this. However, those annuity payments might not actually be enough to make a significant difference in your life. If that’s the case, you might be wondering if you can sell your payments for a lump sum. The answer is, yes, you can. But there’s a catch. Actually, there are a couple of catches.

Buyers Matter

First, let’s talk about buyers. They’re the ones who’ll be paying you a lump sum for your lottery payments. Now, you can’t expect a buyer to offer the full amount you’re owed from the lottery, but you should be able to expect a significant percentage of the winnings. That’s not the case with many buyers. They recognize your desperation and have no qualms about taking advantage of your situation. That’s not true for all buyers, though. You need to recognize qualified buyers from those better left alone. Obviously, that’s tough to do on your own. Most people have never been in the position of having to sell lottery payments before, and it’s easy to get lost in a world with which you’re not familiar.

Sell Only Part of It

Another important consideration is whether you need to sell all of your lottery winnings or only a percentage of them. You can easily sell just a specific portion of your winnings, enough to cover your immediate needs, and retain the remainder as regular ongoing payments. This ensures that you have the money you need right now, as well as a financial cushion for the future.

Work with a Go-Between

The ideal solution to your quandary is to work with a firm that acts as a go-between. The company will vet and investigate buyers, ensuring that you only have the cream of the crop to choose from. Not only that, but working with a reputable firm will also ensure that you get the highest percentage possible of your winnings, rather than leaving you with a mere pittance.

Of course, not all such firms are the same, and you need to recognize a reputable company. Look for a firm that’s been in business for a number of years – one with an established reputation and a list of satisfied clients. Second, make sure the company doesn’t work for the buyers – the firm should work for you, the seller. This ensures there’s no conflict of interest. A company that works on behalf of the buyer has no incentive to go above and beyond to ensure you get a fair deal. One that works for you certainly does.