Check out my book reviews on all the books I’ve read on career changing.
I have also read a bunch of books on writing!
But this is not the spot for reviewing of my own works. I call those self-reviews.
I suppose I’m a glutton for my own personal punishment for reviewing myself. But hey! How else does one get better, hmm?
Are They Honest Book Reviews?
Why yes, yes they are!
I would not post them if they were not. I mean, after all (seriously, folks!) what good would it do me, or anyone else for that matter, for me to sugarcoat stuff? Seriously.
I most definitely do not love and gush over every single thing I read. And I do not think everything I have ever written is priceless and precious, either.
I do not dish out to other writers anything that I am unable to take myself.
But I do try to be kind about things. I know what it is like to be critiqued. It feels like some random person is telling you that your baby is ugly.
Okay, so I will just, maybe, kinda, sorta, tell you that your baby needs a makeover.
Or at least a toupee.
All Kidding Aside…
I do my level best to tell you what I think about the things that jump across my desk. I do so because, let’s face it, I have just (perhaps) taken one for the team.
For if I disliked something or other, I am not about to make you suffer through it as well.
White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen
I read White Space is Not Your Enemy on my own, and then for class.
White Space is not your Enemyby Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen is a beginning design book. And I purchased it because I definitely need assistance with design. While I (at least I think I do) have something of an understanding of which color goes with which, it is sometimes difficult for me to make something look good. Seeking some inexpensive professional help, I turned to this book.
Practical Help With Your White Space and More
So apart from the obvious title, the book offers tips on color combinations, font selection, focal points and even how to prepare a document for a professional print job. And the chapter on design sins really resonated with me.
I have seen poorly designed advertisements (both online and offline) and websites, and have never really been able to adequately articulate just why they were so hideous. So now I can.
Exercises
The exercises in the back of each chapter seemed, I thought, somewhat superfluous. However, I did find myself beginning to look at designs with a more critical eye.
For example, I noticed a print advertisement where the background photograph was of varied colors. Some were light, some, dark. The print, however, was pure white, and cut horizontally along the middle of the photograph.
Hence this would have been fine, except the copy crashed straight into a white space, so some of the print was invisible. Which part? The company’s name. Epic design fail.
Foolproof
Another extremely helpful chapter: the one on the “works every time” layout. This layout is all over the Internet and all over print media, and for good reason. It is, essentially, a full width photograph or other graphic across the top third of the screen or page, with the remaining two-thirds divided into two vertical columns for text.
A cutline (caption) goes directly underneath the visual (if appropriate; some visuals don’t need a cutline), with a more prominent headline directly below that.
Break up the columns into paragraphs and beware widows and orphans (one or two short words on a line). Place tags (these aren’t Internet meta tags), which are the logo, company name and small nugget of information such as the URL or physical address, in the lower right-hand corner. In addition, round it all out with generous margins all around. Voila! An instant beautiful (albeit somewhat common) layout!
If nothing else, that chapter has a greater value than the price of admission.
Learning Creativity
Creativity cannot, truly, be taught. But the peripherals around it can, such as how to gather ideas and nurture them, and how to place those ideas together in a coherent format. It’s like teaching pottery and smithing but not cookery: you get enough so that you can set the table, but not nourish anyone.
For that, you need to be an artist. And that, sadly, no book can ever teach you.
As a (hopefully) former data person, I can relate to the idea of needing web analytics. E. g., the measurements of how your website does. Why do you want to measure with web analytics? Why, you need to see whether your message is actually going anywhere.
For e-commerce sites, the ultimate test is, naturally, whether you’re getting sales. But it’s hard to tell – particularly in a complex organization – whether the website drives sales or offline marketing efforts.
And even measuring orders via these channels may not tell the entire story, as customers may see offline advertising and then come online to buy, or they may do the reverse and buy in-store after researching a product online.
Or they could just be coming online to think about it and compare and mull it over and could convert to a paying customer days or weeks or months later. Or never.
What if You’re Not in e-Commerce?
And what about sites (such as my own) where nothing is offered for sale? My ultimate customer becomes, of course, someone to hire me, either permanently or temporarily.
And this would mean as a consultant or a partner or a founder or a director or whatever, but that might be months away. What happens in the meantime?
I might be able to dope some of that out with SEO and seeing where I am in search engine rankings, but just because people can find my site doesn’t mean they’re going to convert into hiring me or are even in a position to do so.
My mother (I miss her) could find my site and read it, but she wasn’t going to hire me at any time. Unless I wanted to come and clean the gutters or something.
How do you or I know what’s happening?
Enter Analytics.
It is, admittedly, still an imperfect science. But Mr. Kaushik breaks it down and describes the reports that you need to understand what’s happening with your site. He talks about what is essentially a Trinity strategy: experience, behavior and outcomes.
User Experience
It’s not enough to just track sales (outcomes). It’s also about user experience and behavior. This is much like in the offline world, if you think about it.
Going to a restaurant is an experience and many of them are packaged as such. But it is a far different experience going to a McDonald’s or a Chik-Fil-A versus a Bertucci’s.
And that experience differs from going to Legal Seafood’s which in turn is different from Blue Ginger (celebrity chef Ming Tsai’s restaurant).
You can intake the same amount of calories. You might even be able to get in the same quality and types of nutrition. And you might enjoy a Big Mac as much as you enjoy one of Chef Tsai’s specialties. Aside from price, what are the differences?
These are Web Analytics for What Sort of User Experience?
When you go to a McDonald’s, a part of the price is wrapped up in the experience. For chain entities in particular, it’s about sameness and predictability. If you find yourself in rural Oshkosh and have never been there before, you see the golden arches and you realize what to expect.
For Bertucci’s, even though it costs more and there’s table service, there’s a similar vibe. You go there because you can depend upon it to be a certain way.
And Blue Ginger is also dependable in the sense that it’s very upscale so you know you are going to be treated a certain way and it will look a particular way and presumably the food will taste in a way that reflects that kind of investment, both by you and by Mr. Tsai and his team.
Enhanced User Experience
Mr. Kaushik shows how understanding analytics can help you to enhance user experience. And this, ultimately, drives user behavior. While conversions (sales) are the ultimate in user behaviors, he doesn’t forget about other valid behaviors.
Hence for the e-commerce site, product research is a valid and valuable behavior. So is printing a map to a brick and mortar store. Or comparing prices.
And for a non-e-commerce venture (again, I’ll use myself as an example), valid user (reader) behaviors are things like reading my writings and getting to know me.
I put myself out there in order to be known, because that’s a piece of the hiring puzzle (why are there interviews — it’s not to know about skills, which should already be known. It’s to see if there’s a personality and a culture fit).
Plus it enhances networking. Know me, think I’m worthwhile (at least, I hope you do) and you might think of a place where the company might need me, or someone I should meet. And I do the same, in turn, for you. And cosmic karma gets us both into better places.
Back to the Book and More Web Analytics
But I digress. Let’s get back to the book.
The book has a lively, engaging style. It’s long but I sailed through it. And Mr. Kaushik (who is very gracious and seems to be very approachable, by the way) is clearly having fun and loves what he does. It’s a refreshing joy to read a book where the author is constantly delighted.
Read his book. Learn about analytics. Make the web a better place.
May your bounce rate be low, and your conversion rate high!
Rating
5/5
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First of all, written in a straightforward and engaging style, Mr. Fleischner makes his point: in order to dominate search engine listings, you need to make yourself known.
Furthermore, you need to get your keywords into your website (but not stuffed there!) in a logical and natural manner.
Yahoo and MSN
Mr. Fleischner’s sole focus is Google but he does talk a bit about Yahoo and MSN. Furthermore, the reason to zero in on Google is made immediately apparent by the fifteenth page: Google is dominant. Here’s how the percentages of search stack up (he got his numbers from comScore for SearchEngineWatch.com)
Hence Google matters – but so do Yahoo and MSN, particularly when you consider that, combined, their share is nearly identical to Google’s. Yet don’t worry: many of the techniques Mr. Fleischner advocates will help with your placement on those search engines, too.
White Hat
White hat techniques abound, everything from adding unique keywords on each page to making sure that your page’s overall design doesn’t keep the spiders and crawlers from doing their thing. And that’s just on-site optimization. In addition, he also covers off-site optimization, e. g. writing and distributing articles, or generating press releases.
Furthermore, interestingly enough, there is little to no information on working the social media angle, e. g. tweeting the existence of new blog posts or announcing page updates, adding similar information to one’s LinkedIn or Facebook statuses, or creating a fan page for your work (or, better yet, getting someone else to do that).
However, that is, in part, a function of this being a book and not an e-book – there’s a time lag between going to press and the actual production of a paper book. Hence information is sometimes not as fresh as desired.
Instincts
However, there’s still plenty in here, for the serious web entrepreneur and the hobbyist. In addition, for someone like me, one great piece of it was some validation that I’ve got pretty good instincts when it comes to my own social media website. Oh, and if you’re paying attention – you’ll see that I just practiced two of his techniques in this very paragraph.
Dominate Google and get noticed. It’s that simple.
Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans was a book that I might have read a little too late in the semester. In all fairness, I read this book toward the end of my first social media class at Quinnipiac (ICM 522).
Hence it felt like I already knew a lot of what she had written, but that was likely more a function of timing than anything else.
Sorry, Li.
Been There, Done That
So the Liana Evans book is interesting. However, I had just read a ton of other works about very similar work, strategies, and ideas. Therefore, it ended up being maybe one book too many. Plus it ended up an optional read, anyway.
Furthermore, other works seemed to have said it better. So these days, books just do not get published fast enough to take proper advantage of trends and new insights. Hence blogs, in general (although not always!) end up more current and relevant.
What Was the Best Thing I Learned from Liana Evans and Her Book?
Possibly the best takeaway I got from the book was when Evans talked about online communities, particularly in Chapter 33 – You Get What You Give. So on page 255, she writes –
• You need to invest your resources, such as …
† Time to research where the conversation is
• Time and resources to develop a strategy
† and Time and staff resources to engage community members
• Time to listen to what they are saying, in the communities
† Time and resources to measure successes and failures
• Giving valuable content
† It is similar to a bank account
• Don’t bribe the community
And ~
† Rewards come in all fashions
• Research who your audience is
† Give your audience something valuable and/or exclusive
• Don’t expect you’ll know everything
† Listen to what your audience says
• Admit when you are wrong
† Thank your community
Finally, much like we’ve been telling people for years on Able2know – listen before you speak!
Rating
Review: 4/5 stars.
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Another Look at Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
This is something of an updated review of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff as, by the time I got to the ICM 522 Social Media Platforms class at Quinnipiac University, I had already read this seminal work.
But no matter. Because this is still a terrific work by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, and it remains more than a little relevant.
And in fact, I think I understand it better than I ever have.
Changing the Way You Think about Online Marketing for Good
For Li and Bernoff, the online world is a rich and diversified community. And in that large umbrella community, there are several smaller communities. But unlike in the case of the classic Matryoshka (Russian nesting dolls), there is an enormous amount of overlap.
Above all, they put forward the idea of a system called POST. And if you read nothing else, read this part of not just my review but of their book itself.
• Personae – who are your potential buyers? Who are your readers? And who makes up your audience?
† Objectives – what do you expect to get out of going online, and continuing online, or going in a different direction online?
• Strategies – how will you implement your ideas? What comes first? In addition, what must wait?
† Technologies – which platforms will you use? How will you use these differently as your strategy begins to click into place?
So the last time I read Groundswell, I suspect that I did not really understand POST.
And now I know never to start a social media campaign without it. So thanks to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff! This work is a classic for a damned fine reason. It really is that good. Because you need this book in your social media library.
Five Years Later — are Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff Still Relevant?
Social media platforms come and go. Fads rise and fall. Yet through it all, the lessons of the POST strategy, and why it’s so vital? Those are a rock, an anchor in an online world that sometimes feels like just so much jello stuck to the wall, ever sliding downwards.
Ew, sorry for that image, folks.
But never mind that for now.
I think the biggest and most vital part of POST is the first initialism, the P. The buyer persona is someone who we should be thinking about all the time. Not just sometimes, and for God’s sake not just when there’s an exam at school or the boss comes around at work.
It’s even a vital concept in a place that you would least expect it — a personal blog. And even in our own social media postings.
For if we are flinging those pixels out to the universe, then we are expecting an audience. We are wishing and hoping to be read! But if we don’t take that buyer persona into account at all (even when we aren’t selling anything and not expecting anyone to ever want to buy anything), we should still account for our audience.
Social media is exceptionally performative. We curate our photos and our words and our stories and our snark. If we want any sort of a reaction, then we have our audience in mind. Even if that’s subconsciously.
Being offensive is bad. Being unfunny is worse. But being unread? Quelle horreur! That is the worst.
So, Google Advertising Tools by Harold Davis is one of those O’Reilly books, so it’s got an animal on the cover. This one is some sort of lemur or monkey. Not that that has anything to do with the subject matter, but it ends up much nicer than the O’Reilly books with scary insects on their covers. Ick.
But I digress.
Google Adwords and Adsense
The book concerns, unsurprisingly, Google AdWords and AdSense, but it also talks about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the process of driving traffic to a website. Davis dispenses with the idea of adding significant article marketing-type content.
So he instead focuses in on getting your site onto directories. He also does not seem to get behind requests for backlinks. He does not seem to go for the other kinds of authority enhancements which seem to go in and out of style these days.
Affiliate Marketing
Davis also covers affiliate programs, such as Amazon and the like. For example, if you happen to check out the link to purchase the book from this blog entry, you will see an affiliate link in action. He also covers sponsored and contextual advertising.
Hence the book probably would have been better titled Advertising on the Internet. Because it explains far more than Google’s offerings. And it goes into far more detail.
While this book was not strictly about Social Media, any Social Media Marketer worth his or her salt should at least make a concentrated effort to understand online advertising. Because optimizing sites for advertising often helps to optimize them for other purposes as well. And these include important to tasks driving web traffic and even making conversions or sales.
Important to the bottom line? Absolutely. Google Advertising Tools by Harold Davis is a worthy addition to the web developer’s library.
Rating for Google Advertising Tools
Review: 2/5 stars.
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And what is this grand and glorious message? It is this: Markets are Conversations.
Um, okay. That’s it?
Yeah, that’s it. Oh and by the way, markets are conversations.
You just told me that.
And Then There’s Even More of it
Yeah, well, they are. Did I mention that markets are conversations? Oh and by the way, marketers and PR people are mean and nasty and awful. And they and other typical business people are a vaguely (and not so vaguely) sinister stereotype.
Whereas all of the other people (somehow, there are no details of who these typical business people and PR personnel are) are righteous, pure, just and true.
They are individuals and deserve to receive our communication, and our undivided listening attention, like all individuals.
Uniqueness?
Like, uh, I’m unique, just like everyone else?
No, no, no! You’re a unique and wonderful and special person with marvelous gifts and enormous accuracy in understanding good and positive and possible markets.
And you do it all while making fun of typical business people who obviously not only do not have a clue but are also, let’s face it, heartless, cold, inaccurate, not listening, not worthy of the time of day or a significant study.
And otherwise they should be ignored and forgotten, left to die on the vine.
But me, I’m a marketing type. The kind you said was evil.
You don’t even realize that I get it, this thing you are talking about, this point you keep dancing around as you keep beating the same old tired drum. Markets are conversations! Okay, great. I get that. And I have read it before although, in fairness, it was likely copying you.
But after that – and after repeating this mantra at least a good 16 or so times in your book – what else have you got to say, other than that the creature known as Business as Usual needs to die?
Fine, I get that, too. I’ve worked in traditional corporations, and I know that the work there can feel soul-killing.
But at the same time, there are people who thrive in such environments, people who seem pleasant, intelligent, respected and even, at times, hip.
Out of touch?
But, but, but, those people are supposed to be like Richard Nixon in wingtips on the beach, so cluelessly out of tune with everything that they cannot possibly be reeled in.
Reeled in, to the Cluetrain way of thinking?
And at some point, and of course I am exaggerating, but the bottom line is, the book decries business as usual and stereotypical thinking, yet it turns right around and stereotypes the very people who it claims need to change the most.
That is, of course, a lovely and time-honored way to get people to listen to you and change their methodologies to your way of thinking: make fun of them and make them feel small.
Not.
Where is it going?
So somewhere along the line, Cluetrain feels like it lost its way, like it cannot figure out how to be brief.
Like it cannot comprehend that talking down to people – while it criticizes business as usual for talking down to people – is more than a little ironic, and that they are not on the happy end of that irony.
Like it has almost become the very thing it says not to be: a business method and rule and playbook.
Some Positives from the Cluetrain Manifesto
There are interesting observations in here, to be sure. But overlong tales of this, that and the other diverting digression bog those observations down. The Internet is full of people who are spouting and selling hokum!
Yes, well The Refreshments said that before, and better: the world is full of stupid people. This is not, sadly, news.
Oh and big business is not nimble and providing individual attention is lovely and wonderful, but hard to do if you’re very large and/or if the number of individuals you’re addressing is huge. This isn’t front-page material, either.
One Nugget
There is one nugget of interest: when you’re dealing with said enormous number of individuals, you generally don’t need to address them all as individuals – you just need to work with a few and the others will see that you care about individuals. .
And then you’re pretty much set there.
This makes sense in a Groundswell (a far better book, in my opinion) sort of a way, in that there are more people online who are reading and lurking versus writing or critiquing, so a message to one can be like a message to a thousand.
All of that panning for gold, and only one nugget? Perhaps I am cynical, and I’ve clearly read far too many Internet marketing books lately for my own good. But The Cluetrain Manifesto just left me cold. Although it did, happily, remind me of this video:
Rating for the (IMHO) Drastically Overrated Cluetrain Manifesto
Review: 2/5 stars.
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