Customer Reviews

What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Yesterday I read Blogging for Business (ISBN: 1419536451) also written by Mr. Demopoulos. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read the instant book being reviewed that he just had published. Let me tell you, I wasn't disappointed to read two books in two days by the same author on the same subject. I highly recommend both to people who run their own small consulting practices and are comfortable using Internet tools to help market their practices. If you use article writing, book writing, seminar/workshop presentations, public speaking, and Web sites to promote yourself, then do yourself a favor and get these two books to help you incorporate blogs and blogging into your marketing repertoire.

Between the two books I actually liked the instant book being reviewed better. Both books seemed to cover the same material, but from a different perspective. I regularly tell my clients to read three books on any subject they want to become expert on. Usually that means they need to get three books on writing business plans, but if someone wants to become an expert on blogs and blogging for business these two books will fit two-thirds of the reading requirement.

The "blog entries" in this book are grouped into 8 topics:

1. The basics
2. Some business uses of blogs & podcasts
3. Planning your blog
4. Making money
5. Promoting your blog & tracking statistics
6. Podcast specific topics
7. Other blog & podcast considerations
8. The future

My favorite topics were 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. I especially loved Topic 3 regarding how to plan your blog or blogs. It's very difficult to just throw together a blog and expect it to help your business get and retain paying clients. You have to write content for your blog that your clients and prospects will like and value. If you do, then those people are more likely to seek your services that you sell for a fee. If you don't, then chances are your blog won't benefit you financially. Of course, it takes planning to be able to hit your targets with your blog(s).

I was happy to not see a topic on building a blog in this book. I would have liked this book more if it had included more stories on how bloggers get their content AND THE INS AND OUTS OF WRITING THEIR BLOGS. Just think, if this author were to write a book just on that subject, then I could recommend THREE books on blogging for someone to read who wants to become an expert on blogging. Writing three great books on the same subject would be quite a feat. 5 stars!

This guy can gather text from a webpage, throw it together with a few glowing reviews from the self-publishing circuit and make a pile of money from nothing.

Save yours (money). There's very little in this book of value. It's not even a handy guide or a time saver---you'll get more infomation from a single Google search than you will from this book.

Unfortunately, this book is like so many books on blogging and other Web ventures:

1. It promises "insider information."
2. It's a thrown together compendium of the writings of Web marketing "gurus," most of whose only real experience is in marketing their own purported expertise in Web marketing.
3. From reading it, one does glean a few good ideas.

... and like all the others, it will be useful to those who are new to the field. To use an old saying, it's like a Texas longhorn: a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.

This book will take most readers about 101 minutes to read. It is designed in 101 very short chapters of about a page each. In fact each chapter it much like a Blog post. It is a series of interviews with commentary based on the author's discussions with 101 blog writers/experts. I got several ideas from it. It sent me off to the computer to find some of these bloggers. It inspired me to make a post or two. The content on podcasting is a handful of these short chapters. It is well worth a look, but it is not likely something one would read a second time.

As a new podcaster, I found the information in the book and all the interviews full of great information. I implemented 5 of the ideas already and feel like I've jumped light years ahead of where I would have been without this book!

I'm an active blogger (including business blogging) at http://www.instigatorblog.com for example...and if I was going to write an introductory guide to the benefits of blogging and podcasting, I would have written Ted's book. OK, so technically Ted didn't steal anything from me, he just beat me to the punch.

I was already a big believer in blogging and podcasting, but I still found a ton of great examples in Ted's book about how people are succeeding with blogging and podcasting. The examples span industries and show a variety of successes which is important - blogging and podcasting aren't just for tech geeks.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about blogging/podcasting or has just started. I'd also recommend this book to any experienced bloggers that feel burnt out, or feel like they're starting to lose their focus.

Ted's book is a quick, inspirational read.

A book like this isn't about chewing through pages merely for the purpose of consuming knowledge on social networking. It's for the impassioned evangelist seeking to inspire others to action with nothing more than the seed of thought. The author has taken all these great relationships he's cultivated with winning bloggers around the world and compacted them into tiny, bite-sized chunks of expert advice. Based only on what I read in the book I've developed a blog (..) that within three weeks has attracted about 600 visitors including the attention of more than a few key industry people. And, the book is a great resource to review every once in a while to keep you focused on what works.

Ted Demopoulos, recently crowned "the King of Blogging" by writer James Malinchak, has added a useful new addition to his work on blogging & podcasting. This book is primarily made up of brief case studies highlighting specific blogging and podcasting applications and related topics. Sometimes the focus is on well-recognized gurus like Seth Godin, other times the author turns his spotlight on the various ways ordinary businesspeople like me are using blog information to advance strategic objectives. These individual snapshots build on each other to create a compelling high-level overview of where net-based media are headed and how they are being used to achieve business results.

The message is clear; if you're not already maximizing the value of the digital media, your competitors are - and here's how some of them are doing it. The clear, practical advice peppered throughout the case studies makes this a useful guide for novices like myself who want to develop a better understanding of how to leverage the blogosphere and what it has to offer from a business perspective.

A worthwhile read and easy to get through. The author's recent "Secrets of Successful Blogging" tip booklet makes a nice companion piece for those who want to dig a little deeper.

I just finished reading the fun and fast book What No One Ever Tells You About... Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos. This is a great read for anyone looking for some encouragement and case examples of real people who blog and podcast. Unlike some books that focus on celebrity bloggers such as Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman and his Fast Lane blog, Ted profiles "regular people" and also spends some time on other aspects of blogging such as why you should be monitoring blogs to find out what people are saying about you and your organization and its products and services.

With real-life advice from 101 people who successfully leverage the power of the blogosphere, the book is made up of very short chapters that can be devoured on planes, trains, and hopefully not while you're driving your automobile (but as a passenger is OK). Read it in snippits when you need some encouragement.

Ted has a blog The Ted Rap: Ted Demopoulos' thoughts and musings on Technology, Business & Their Intersection that you should check out for more details.

Disclaimer: I am profiled in chapter 31 "Marketing with Content: Don't interrupt people; instead, attract them with value." Thanks for including me, Ted.

Blog on.

As a person with an interest in blogging and podcasting, this book gave me enough information and anecdotes to keep me entertained and informed.

The book uses individual stories from a diverse set of people in the industry as jumping off points for each given topic area. Grounding each theme in a real person's story provides useful context. The short chapters keep things moving without any unnecessary clutter.

If you are a techno-savvy reader, not everything in the book will be new information, but the author has probed enough nooks and crannies of the topic to unearth more than a few gems.

It's well worth your time if you want to stretch your brain in this area.