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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
a shot of frothy optimism, September 3, 2010
This review is from: Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First (Hardcover)
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I found reading this book like sipping a frothy latte, enjoyable but light and when it's gone, it's gone. I picked up some tips, but I found this book much more oriented towards speculative strategic thinking than practical tactics.
The book's core argument, that we're moving away from "open" web platforms that don't have much privacy or filtering, towards "closed" ones, was a useful insight for me. I don't disagree with his core premise about user behavior. But I roll my eyes when social media marketing is presented as other than labor-intensive and thus costly. The argument that just because you can use Facebook to market your business for free does not make marketing on Facebook free. The author, like many social media writers, kind of ignores the time-intensity of using guerilla tactics in social media.
Some web users barely use a search engine at all, which is the "open" web. They may spend all their time on closed platforms such as virtual reality games, Facebook, and especially platforms that work well with little mobile devices. It's a shift in user habits that is very real and it means that your future customers are going to find you inside those closed platforms, not by using the search engines. I was really impressed by the thinking on this and I think he's right about it.
That said, in the chapters of the book that cover specific types of platforms the author enthuses too much about what's great about the platform but doesn't adequately (in my opinion) address the costs of entering these new advertising and engagement media. Like many social media enthusiasts he seems to feel we should just jump into all of it with both feet. The problem is the labor-intensity of learning to adapt and the grunt work of building presences within these new platforms. Obviously we're going to have to choose a few and ignore the rest, but the author's enthusiasm for all the new platforms means that if you follow his advice you'll be buried up to your neck in new websites to join and explore.
The author addresses our concerns at the start: that social media marketing can be a big time and resource waster. He promises that he'll show us ways to always come out ahead and get maximum bang for our buck. I didn't feel he made good on the promise though.
While the book offers a lot of practical tips, the author is most interested in internet trends towards what he calls Web 3.0. He's speculating as to which media channels may get big and important. In his enthusiasm for all the new toys, I found his arguments for using these new tools became ungrounded. While the book does contain some practical advice for using things like Twitter and texting, it also ventures into areas of marketing in the new media, such as virtual reality worlds, where you would have to have staff investing tremendous amounts of time learning the platforms and networking within them.
The author's inspirations are billion-dollar companies like Zappos. These businesses have the resources to put full-time staff on projects like building a presence in "Second Life" and the 20-odd other virtual reality sites he reals off as worth investigating. I'm happy for the author that he gets to mastermind massive campaigns in these new media and direct his scores of virtual employees, but as a practical matter I found many of the tactics suggested in the book pretty impractical for a business without deep pockets.
I found a few tips I could use. The book is nicely designed and the author has a breezy prose voice. While reading I was excited about some of the methods described so I signed-up for a SecondLife account to check it out. I encountered an environment that clearly has a massive learning curve. If you had an employee or two on staff who already enjoyed virtual reality worlds, they'd learn faster I suppose - but as a solo-preneur and marketing consultant, I'm just too busy with everything I'm already doing to invest my time learning platforms that basically amount to playing with virtual paper dolls
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True "Web 3.0" Book With Dozens of Practical Applications, July 20, 2010
This review is from: Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First (Hardcover)
Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First I just want to thank the Internet Marketer who's email linked me to Michael Tasner's landing page for this Clockwork-Orange-eye-opening read (yes, like toothpicks in the eye--you just have to keep reading...it's that good. No Beethoven, though).
I turned down more pages than not in this quick, well-laid-out-and-organized book that can honestly and absolutely claim to be a Web 3.0 book. So many others are advertised as such but it's the same ol' technology they're talking about. Not here.
I subscribe to and skim through more than 500 daily RSS feeds and thought I knew everything on it's way down the tech pipeline. Difference is, Tasner is a bit of a visionary, but one who uses sound evidence and personal examples to back up his claims.
I definitely recommend reading this book at least twice. The first time through, it's a bit breathtaking (i.e., exciting, not overwhelming) when the author starts discussing hot topics quickly emerging today like microblogging over blogging and his highly informative chapter on the booming mobile industry and how to take advantage of it.
Only a few hours after finishing this book, I had already implemented several of Tasner's strategies that, as of today, two weeks later, have ALL paid off for the minimal time and effort with a) more Twitter & other Social Media site followers, b) my email subscription list has increased %175 on average per week.
I also want to say how personable and helpful the author has been to me, answering emails, offering encouragement, giving out bonuses for pre-ordering, etc.
Michael Tasner, I have learned, is an everyday "Nice Guy" who happens to be a marketing prodigy with a lightning-quick mind, years and years of creative and financial success, and author of the best web marketing book of the year, hands down.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For many businesses, Web 3.0 marketing is essential marketing, July 26, 2010
This review is from: Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
If you have even the slightest knowledge of modern communications, then a list of the capability of the latest generations of handheld devices, including the iPhone, iPad and Blackberry will leave you in awe. Unfortunately, if you are a businessperson and you are not leveraging that capability to improve your business, then you should also be experiencing some terror. The rapid advance of what is often (and somewhat inappropriately) referred to as social media has created enormous opportunities for businesses and organizations to dramatically increase the speed and content of their communication with customers.
Web 3.0 is a broad term used to describe a wide spectrum of communication channels that can be considered the latest iteration. Fortunately, it is not necessary to have been an effective user of Web 2.0 in order to begin the process of implementing Web 3.0. This is not to say that it is easy, just possible.
Tasner does an excellent job in making sure the word "Practical" in the subtitle is an accurate description. Some technical expertise is of course necessary to have a complete understanding, but nothing at the level of the techno-nerd is needed. There are many tools available under the Web 3.0 umbrella and Tasner not only describes them, he also explains how they can be applied in an ultra-modern business model. Making it possible for you to use them.
Many of your competitors are most certainly already using at least some of the applications in the Web 3.0 world. Your choice in this matter is simple, either use them or face the increased likelihood that your organization will be brushed aside. Tasner's advice will help you avoid the ultimate in brush-offs.
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