The dirty little secret of buzz

The Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz.
I chose this book because the title intrigued me. The talks about the buzz marketing strategies which reiterate many topics discussed in this class. This book drives home the point of marketing one's self to get famous without spending any money, and mentioned way to profit off the fame. I liked it, it was an easy read, and it contained a lot useful information. I would recommend it to general public, but as for anyone who has taken this e-commerce class would probably get alot of the same information in the text..

Jin Lee

This book Blogging for Profits was written to help individuals understand what a blog is and start their own blog with the intention of making a profit. It thoroughly delves into the appeals of business blogging and the advantages of blogging for your business whatever it may be. I selected this book because my group project is on monetizing a blog and I know absolutely nothing about blogging. I have never blogged before or even followed one for that matter. I understand the concept, but not the ins and outs of how to create and monetize this media.
I have learned a blog is a journal-like website that displays its entries in reverse chronological order. Common characteristics of blogs include an informal writing style, frequent updates, and a focus on strong community interactions between blog writers (known as bloggers). Blogs started as a form of online diary. Today, blogs are used for very diverse purposes. For example: Experts use blogs to provide news and commentary on specific subject areas. Businesses use blogs to promote their goods and services. Mainstream media and journalists even use blogs to provide real time coverage of breaking news events. Blogging is now one of the most popular forms of Web publishing which I was not previously aware of.
Dale Anderson the author of this book writes EZ Guides or “how to” books. He has another related book on Writing Articles for Blogs. I’m not sure if I would consider him an expert on the subject; some of his other EZ Guides include: How to Hypnotize Anyone, Swing Trading: How to Earn High Rates Safely, and Trading Skills. It seems he just writes basic how to books on easily accessible information. Nothing I learned in this book was any big secret or all that innovative, it was simple and generically informative. There are no complaints from me since this is exactly what I was looking for to learn about. The primary audience is simply anyone who wants an “easy” read for learning the basics of blogging and discovering the reasons why it would be beneficial for their business.
The primary values delivered in this book discuss the advantages of blogging for profit. Whether you are a small business, big business, from home business, or corporate business blogging can significantly improve online brand imaging according to the book. The biggest advantage with blogs is that there are no fixed rules when it comes to writing them. It is an open medium and as long as what you are writing is interesting, it can get you the money as well. Unlike other writing mediums, blogs don’t need expertise and it is all about short articles. Hence, the effort that you may have to put in is comparatively lesser than when it comes to writing a novel or other forms of writing.
There are other advantages with blogs as well when it comes to blogging for profit. With a high level of traffic, and using tools such as Max Banner Pro you can automatically even get the advertising revenue as more companies will line up to advertise their products and services on your blog. The number of hits to your website is in direct correlation with the companies’ marketing interests and or course the bottom line of sales. Also, you may even garner a name for yourself. As you rise to fame, more people will line up to offer you the opportunity to write for their websites or magazines. Your fame can earn you a lot of money as well. In fact, many bloggers have moved on to other mediums and there are cases where avid bloggers are featured in TV shows or make news for themselves.
I had hoped to gain from this book a better understanding of how blogs work and the strategy behind making them profitable. I primarily learned the basic functions of a blog. There was not as much information around the strategy of monetizing the blog or all the ways that are available to go about getting ads and traffic. The major weakness of this book was the fact that it didn’t not get into specifics of profits or the numbers behind how much others have profited from blogging successfully.
Overall, I enjoyed the content of this book and would recommend it to anyone who needs a brief, simple, clear explanation of what blogs are all about. The book does not use too many technical terms and it is an easy read. However, if you are truly interested in getting a better understanding of how to make profits and some strategies to use, this book is not going to give you all of that detailed information.

FaceBook Marketing

I selected the book "Facebook Marketing, Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business" because it is on of the fastest growing social media sites in the world and having a good understanding of how the site works can help tremendously when looking to market through it. I was also hoping that the book would increase my knowledge of how the site functioned so that I might have a better understanding of it when it came to using it for my social gain. The book was definitely not a fun read, but more so a very educational one, in that it introduced me to features and tools I didnt know about on the Facebook site.

Twitter Revolution

The Revolution of social media. It is no longer a fad. It is coming and you can't stop it. That is the premise of this book. And it is a guide to see you through setting up a Twitter account and making it useful in many areas of life, such as personal to business. This book would be valuable for a novice, and someone who needs to have online formats explained to them in detail. Like another blogger stated, 25 pages of useful info...crammed in 250 pages.

Emily Howard

Spectacular presentation

For those of you who are saddened that you missed class last week because you were snowed in like me and feel you were deprived my spectacular book report, do not fear! I have worked hard all night and uploaded the presentation to youtube for your viewing/learning pleasure. Please check it out and feel free to leave comments. I'd love to hear from you.

I apologize for the audio quality. My webcam isn't vista compatible, so I grabbed a new one...and it didn't have a microphone built in! I'll be returning it. What a mess new PCs are.

Alex DiPasquale's Favorite e-commerce book I'm on LinkedIn - Now What???

My favorite e-commerce book is I’m on LinkedIn – Now What ??? by Jason Alba because I put it to practical use. I’ve had a LinkedIn account for about a year and never used it. I’d been meaning to get serious about it but it seemed like a daunting task. Alba’s book made it easy. At 130 pages it is an easy read. I read through it in a few hours and began working on my account.
There’s a quote in the introduction that says Alba teaches a system to tap into the power of LinkedIn is. I don’t fully agree with that quote but it put me in the mindset that LinkedIn is not a passive tool.

The book is broken up into chapters that can stand alone so when I updated my profile I simply turned to chapter 3 and began updating my profile.
The greatest value that I got from the book is the idea of branding. Thinking of LinkedIn as a way to promote my brand influenced my decisions regarding my LinkedIn account. The LinkedIn profile is the first thing a recruiter, or a user, sees when looking for contacts, so this is where ones brand is created.

In the past I’d gotten invitations to join someone’s network and always got the canned, “I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network’ email. The chapter on connecting with others recommends not using the canned request to connect email provided by LinkedIn but rather to write a personal email that tells the potential contact, who I am, how I found you, and why we should connect. In my opinion, sending a personal email, instead of the canned one, adds to my brand.

The chapter on connecting was very helpful. The search tips not only made it easy for me to find people but they gave me ideas on how I could be found too. I ended up connecting with many people from my working past in Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Some of these people are good business contacts; in other cases I reconnected with friends. I ended up finding an old high school buddy, who I’ll see at my class reunion in July.

The section on groups was very beneficial to me. I would not have even considered joining a LinkedIn group before reading the chapter, now I am in six groups. As the book teaches, the advantages are I connect with people with whom I have a common bond. Every group that I am in gives me access to potential employers or referrals.

Since reading this book I have become the local motivational speaker, touting the advantage of LinkedIn.
I have mentored a few people and watched their networks grow. With everyone that I link to I find another contact to add to my network. Before I read this book I had 3 contacts which gave me access to 1,700 people. Today I have 39 contacts which gives me access to over 205,000 people!

I’m on LinkedIn – Now What ??? is a cross between a how to and a motivational book, it has a fair amount of administrative advice too. This is the type of book that, when the LinkedIn user becomes more comfortable with the website, he or she can reread the book and benefit again and again.

Guerrilla Publicity, Guerrilla tactics to get maximum sales for minimum dollars

I choose I hoped to gain more knowledge on the new digital age and leverage it in my own practice. I've been an investment advisor and money manager with Strategic Financial Partners for 2 years and I’m always looking for ways to better my practice through seminars, books, etc. The ability to make my practice more efficient, profitable, create more referrals, and increase traffic can payoff tenfold which is why I choose this book.

The idea behind Guerrilla Publicity is to maximize sales for minimum dollars by combining the old tried-and-true ways to sell what you do with the newer developments in publicity. In the new age of publicity, blogs or social media sites, it’s vitally important to harness this technology in your business. It’s a cheap, effective, and updated way to do business and service clients effectively as possible. The most important aspect of the book is its emphasis on the relationships that are built through your practice and how the new digital age has made this better and easier than ever.

The intended audience is small to medium size businesses or individual practices that don’t have the big bankrolls of large corporations for advertising. They are firms who place an emphasis on relationships, creativity, and drive to achieve the results that they want. The ironic part is that larger corporations are adopting these low cost ideas which have been so successful for the smaller businesses, such as community relationships, volunteering, social networking, and public relations. By creating relationships within the communities using innovation and time can be extremely beneficial for a firm that’s looking to maximize its dollars and minimize its costs.

This book is heads above the rest when it comes to general ideas on how to sell and how to utilize new technology. If you are new to promoting your business this is an incredible buy and will serve you very well, especially when on a tight budget. On the other hand, if what you do is extremely specialized or you’re a seasoned veteran then this book wouldn’t be recommended in a lot of instances. Guerrilla Marketing definitely provides incredible ideas for the digital age novice or somebody who can’t quite make the pivot from digital friend and digital client. Overall, I would give Guerrilla Publicity a 3 1/2 out of 5 because it can be utilized in so many different ways and I've personally used it in my own practice with positive results.