Social Boom

I am never sure how much personal information to share on my blog. My usual formula is 10% personal and 90% business/self development. And of course lots of book reviews.

I realize how lucky I am to be healthy. It is a privilege to be able to walk, run, carry things etc.

I had minor surgery on my knee Wednesday and now have to keep my leg straight to let the stitches heal.

So - no running or gardening for a few weeks. Cannot even do pushups. And what weight lifting I do at least for the short term will be light. Will have to make up for that with more reps. I have always short cutted on ab workouts. Perhaps this will be just the thing to kick me into gear on that.

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I read a great little book by Jeff Gitomer called Social Boom.

Of course it touches on most of the common social medias like Twitter, Linkedin, Blogging and Facebook. I realize from reading it that I am semi-active in most social media except for Youtube. Perhaps I am not a video guy?

His message is "social media is huge". People are going to Google you so you may as well control part of the message by "being out there".

He correctly points out that social media is not free even though most of the tools you use are. Social Media costs time. He suggests spending an hour a day on it. Perhaps I am too much of a time management person to spend that much time. I deliberately only blog a few times per week and I use tools like Hootsuite to automate my updates. I also work hard on having systems and process to make me fast.

I did not realize until I started to write this review that the book includes a series of articles by different authors. Perhaps the crowd sourcing aspect of the book is what makes it so good. It provides a good variety of ideas.

The chapter by Sally Hogshead has an interesting part on "getting unstuck". I think most people who start to engage in social media get stuck on what to contribute from time to time. One of my favorite quotes is "Do not speak unless you can improve the silence" so I try hard to add value when speaking which includes blogging or tweeting.

There is one thing Gitomer says that I am not sure I agree with. He tweets quotations but primarily his own. My tweets/updates are 90% quotations (see my motivational business quotes section on my blog which is just my twitter stream). And all of them are other peoples' quotes. I have always felt arrogant tweeting my own quotes and even say anonymous when I have something good to say. May have to reconsider my position.

I have invested in a number of companies in the social media space. One that I think has some legs is Honestly Now. Would love it to go viral so click here register please. Is that blatant enough promotion? (Interestingly, one of the contributors to Social Boom, Mitch Joel says "Don't sell. Don't push. Blog to be knowable")