The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani

the zen of social media marketing An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue by Shama Hyder Kabani.

This is very much a motivational book combined with a social media book. It is designed to convince you to go out and join social sites. The first part very much feels like a motivational speech.

After the initial pep talk, when the writing starts to describe social media sites, it becomes quite practical. The book focuses on three main sites, Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook. The writing convinced me to update my Facebook profile as well as my Linked In profile. It has clear steps on what to do and what to avoid without any pie in the sky promises.

It does not just cover pure social media sites. It also reminds you that if you are in social media you should take the time to learn how to include digital photography and digital video. Podcasting and pictures are very important to build an online social presence. The pep talk was convincing enough for me to consider getting a digital camera as a first step.

Shama Hyder Kabani includes a lot of screen captures of pages from Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In to show you what she is doing with the social sites. The descriptions are extremely easy to follow. They also lead to a very clean, professional look.

Because this book is very much a business book, she also discusses policies for using social media inside companies as well as gives a number of two page case studies of how people successfully improved their business with social media.

The motivation to convince me to update my site was useful. The description of how to use the tools was at a beginners level. This would be useful for someone starting out in social media. I recommend this as an introduction to using social media for business. The author clearly has a fairly large online presence.

Shama Hyder Kabani is using her book to sell her social media business. The motivational style with a strong sense of sweetness might not be for everyone. I found it interesting and very convincing. http://zenofsocialmedia.com/

Daily Thoughts 7/10/2010

Simonsstraße in Wuppertal, created 29. May 2010, Frank Vincentzm Gnu Free Documentation License 1.2

Daily Thoughts 7/10/2010

I am being asked to look over Digg and Reddit by a friend to see if I can come up with suggestions for a business. He is looking to create several niche sites. I am thinking about how to do niche media oriented sites. I have a number of ideas which should be interesting. I suggested a book called Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam L. Penenberg (Hardcover - Oct. 13, 2009). I also mentioned two human powered directories for him to look at Mahalo http://www.mahalo.com/ and Finding Dulcinea http://www.findingdulcinea.com/home.html .

I read some more of the Zen of Social Media Marketing. It convinced me to go back and update my Linked In profile. I am working on making it better. It also convinced that to improve my blog I have to learn a little bit about digital photography and web video. This means, I might have to invest in a digital camera and learn how to use it. There is a little bit of money which is from Amazon affiliates. I think I might use that to buy a cheap digital camera so I can learn to shoot and upload photos and learn to use flickr. This would be a first step before learning how to use digital video.

I have decided to not review Dean Koontz Frankenstein Lost Souls. It had a kind of blase quality to it which was neither good or bad. It was designed to be popular and was written in a vernacular that I found rather boring, not bad, just boring. It is hard for me to think it was terrible, just not the book for me. Other people may like it, but it did nothing good or bad for my reading experience.