This book was an easy read and had fantastic content. The information inside this book is relevant to anyone studying marketing or any other business related topic. The authors are fun-loving and have a great writing style that keeps you from getting bored while reading. The focus of the book is to analyze why some ideas are 'sticky' and others are not. The authors discuss 6 main topics:

• Simplicity
• Uncertainty
• Concreteness
• Credibility
• Emotions
• Stories

"SUCCESs"

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in marketing. As business students, it would be wise to add the content of this book in to your knowledge base in order to give yourself an advantage as you journey through the business world.

Check out my Xtranormal video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Sii-fTUWc

It's not hard to notice that our society is getting to the point where everyone has a cellular phone. I picked Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are by Cindy Krum because I believe mobile marketing will become the primary form of marketing.
    
     The author discusses the following topics:

• Getting started with mobile marketing
• Targeting and tracking the fast-changing mobile demographic
• Leveraging mobile advertising, promotion, and location-based marketing
• Performing search engine optimization for moile sites and applications
• Building effective mobile mobile affliliate marketing programs
• Integrating online and offline mobile marketing
• Avoiding mobile marketing spam, viruses, and privacy violation
• Previewing the future of mobile marketing.
• Understanding the international mobile marketing landscape 

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about mobile marketing.This was a very easy read with very useful information on mobile marketing. Based on the book's case studies it looks like only well established companies are engaging in mobile marekting. Since mobile markketing is an emerging field, I would use this book as one before starting a mobile marketing campaign.

Below is a link to a blog that pertains to many of the topics discussed in the book.
http://www.mobilestorm.com/category/mobile-marketing/

-Diana Molina

Everything I Know About Marketing I Learned From Google

I would totally recommend this book as it ties in true stories from industry leaders and fortune 500 Companies, as they share their failure and success in emarketing. It is an excellent and easy read for anyone from small business to marketing majors to corporate executives. The highlight of the book elaborates 10 specific ways to leverage search marketing beyond search marketing, they are as follows:

• (Re)define your audience
• Competitive Intelligence
• Refine your unique selling proposition
• Adjust your product line and features
• Decide what markets to support
• (Re)develop your website
• Tweak your advertising creative
• Inform your online display media buys
• Measure performance of offline ads
• Predict elections

Meatball Sundae

I chose Meatball Sundae for my e commerce book review. The book is written by Seth Godin, a marketing guru. I loved this book it was a very easy read and full of great information. The most important point he covered was that the average attention span is short so keep your message short and make it stand out. If you have an opportunity to read any of his books, do so. His books make you want to get out there and do something in the market anything that will make an impact and hopefully you some money. Check out my video on the book its short and sweet thanks. Go to you tube and look under E commerce project. MOV.

Click: What Millions of People Are Online and Why It Matters By: Bill Tancer

Click shows how Americans search trends have an effect on all sorts of marketing for firms. The main subject of the book follows how internet users are using words to find information through search engines. Click was written to portray what Americans are searching for on the web and how do we find the information we seek. This book is very informational; the reader needs to have a little background of the web to fully understand everything in the book. The format of the book shows the process users go through to find desire information and seasonal trends of when information is collected.

Bill Tancer is the leading explorer into the knowledge of the process of internet users on the web. Tancer is the leader in online research of search engines so he sheds so very important light on the motives of users of search engines. Bill Tancer has an extensive background work with search engines. Currently Tancer is the general manager of global research at Hitwise. He conducts many conferences around the world commanding respect as one of the leaders in market research of search engines. He is able to seen trends around the world by analyzing search results before the trends make it big. Tancer is one of the foremost leaders in internet market research and is often quoted around the world for predicting trends based off of search engine results.

Anyone can really take interest in this book because it is amazing how search engines analysis can predict markets and new customers. Although there is a quality about the book that might turn it off to average readers. It is very informative and therefore if you do not have a background regarding search engine market research it might be hard to follow for some readers. It is very information oriented and takes a lot to continuously follow all the information Tancer is providing. So the primary audience of the book is for those interested in market research conducted through internet search engines. It will be very interesting for internet companies to read this book to find out if their customers are actually who they think they are. The primary value delivered from the book is that we never can actually know who is viewing your website but using Tancer’s approach companies can gain insight on the people viewing their website and maybe find more ways to market to their customer base.

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan

Utilizing the new and emerging tools of the internet are crucial to survival in this new age of marketing and customer relations. As such, Chris Brogan in his book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust describes how to go about building authority and trustworthiness on the web. Broken down into 6 basic principles/characteristics that comprise of a "trust agent" overall the book describes how to create social networks based around yourself and how to ultimately utilize these networks for personal advantage.

Overall this book was a fun, fast and easy way to read about the basic underlying principles of online reputation management and customer relations. It is a delicate art onto itself to be able to professionally carry one's self in the business world and this same concept is applied to presenting oneself on the internet. As the question of authority comes to all of those who try to self-promote themselves; being a stand out and genuine person is hardly an easy task to accomplish. Thus by self consciously monitoring one's use of language, engagement of others and self-promotion the power of maneuvering social network leverage can be of unparalleled power.

I recommend this book as a read for those who want to learn the very basics of how to conduct one's self online as well as how to maneuver and create social network leverage. Trust Agent's is a fun read by a great author.


Here is my Youtube Video Review:

YouTube for Business:Online Video Marketing for Any Business

I chose to select this book because one day I hope to own and operate my own business, the book teaches you how to incorporate online video marketing for any business, this would be very beneficial information for any business owner to know.

The book is simply about taking your business advertising and helping you reach a larger, more tempting market. It covers simple things to know whether or not YouTube is right for your business or not, how to market and sell your product and what type of videos you can make in regard to your product and audience.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who intends to open up their own business, this is a great way to get started on a great advertising campaign, great read, easy to follow.

Marketing in the Age of Google

For my book review I read Vanessa Fox's instruction manual on search optimization "Marketing in the Age of Google". There were a lot of direct ties between what's in the book and the presentation we received in class regarding the industry and its benefits. I highly recommend this book one for all marketing majors because this is the direction in which a majority of successful marketing strategies and campaigns are headed, and two for anyone wanting to either start a business or a website. This book gives you direction on how to make your website value-added to both Google and most importantly you customers! It isn't a very long read in that it's only 218 pages filled with large font and a plethora of images and graphs. I initially read the reviews which not only praised the book, but commended it on it's readability and I must say they were accurate for sure! So on the smallest level if you want your website to be in the crucial top 3 spot well this book can help but there may be better suited books, however if you want to optimize your site so that you gain more customer loyalty than anyone wasting money on adwords? Then this is the book for you!

Viral Loop: "from facebook to twitter, how today's smartest businesses grow themselves"

Book: Viral Loop
Author: Adam L. Penenberg
Recommended: Ohhhh Yeah.

This book by Adam L. Penenberg was the most inspiring read I've had in a while. The book catches your attention automatically with it's black/white cover and large yellow letters. But the design of the cover was not what sold me on the the read.

Deciding on what book to read for the book review project was somewhat challenging. I maybe read a handful of books throughout the year, 4 of them were my collegiate textbooks. What inspired me on this track of Viral Marketing is a lecture Professor Gruen gave during the first half of the semester. It wasn't until that lecture that I realized how today's interconnected world (through the internet) is revolutionizing the whole business platform. I figured, "I better knowledge my self before the world leaves me behind."

Long behold, the book Viral Loop popped up in my search results. And what a find! From cover to cover Adam trickles interrelated and organized information into my brain. From case studies to his personal thoughts, Adam begins by addressing how companies and products grow by creating "Viral Loops"

I wont' give too much of the book away, but throughout the chapters you will find: how Hotmail, Facebook, Tupperware, ebay, PayPal, and roughly 5-10 other products, services, and companies have expanded by virtually spending minimal financial amounts on advertising.

More to come!

Meanwhile, please enjoy my Xtranormal YouTube video I created.

The Dragonfly Effect

Stories abound about real life people doin the thing. Workin with social media to change the world. Barak Obama using social media sites to win the election. Alex Scott before the age of 8 was able to change the world and raise $1 million for cancer research by setting up a lemonade stand. Scott Harrison asking for $31 for his birthday from all his friends and raising $15000 to build Charity: Water and continued on to raise $13 Million to drill 1,548 wells in developing nations with the goal in mind of raising $31 million in time.
Social media is a tool that can be used by anyone for the betterment of the world and with the ideas and concepts in this book the world is actually the limit. Read this book if you wish to change the world to make it a better place.
Joshua Bascom

What I Didn’t Learn From Google But With I Had!
By Jamie McIntyre
Reviewed by Lisa Peterson

This book is a great foundation for anyone who is interesting in learning more about starting their own internet business or generating online income. The book emphasizes that “Google is your friend” and using Google correctly to assist in the process of creating internet income can have a huge positive impact on a business. Anyone can create online income to displace current revenues or to add to them!

The book is broken into twelve chapters which allows for easy reading. The first chapters help to lay a solid foundation no matter what a person’s familiarity with the internet or Google is. Some of the information is very basic, but because the book is sectioned out well, one could skim through in order to gather the information they need. Some of the chapters include: The Rise and Success of Google, Internet Wealth Creators, Web 2.0 the Next Generation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Online Advertising, Blogs and Mash-ups, Tips from Successful Internet Entrepreneurs, and Google Traffic Tips. Each chapter is loaded with useful information and examples to help the reader see the theories being described and discussed.

One of the key lessons that McIntyre stresses in his book is to model other internet millionaires. There is no need to reinvent the wheel! Though everyone may be doing something slightly different, there is a formula that can help make it all work, and one does not need to start from scratch. He specifically mentions throughout the book being able to find a business mentor. While all of the work described in the book can be accomplished by a single person it is extremely useful to be able to have someone who has worked through problems, issues and successes before in order to move quickly, generate revenues, and create success.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in learning about online business. It gives foundational and useful information, provides interesting stories and backgrounds, and is kept simple and readable for anyone to access the information!

Here is a video to add fuel to your fire in reading this book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcREdkLwwWc

Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars

When I first started reading Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars, I was a little confused. I knew from reading the cover that the book was collaborated among the 22 authors and experts in social media, but I didn’t realize each chapter was written by a different expert. This is truly a unique book. Right away, I found this book to be very valuable for anyone trying to improve their business through social media.

The book is divided into two sections—the first section (chapters 1-12) covers the strategies and principles related to social media marketing such as building relationships, the psychology of social media, how to communicate, and more. The second part (chapters 13-22) addresses the actual applications and websites like blogging, Facebook, Linked In, You Tube, and Twitter.

Besides offering many tips and tactics, the book also describes the biggest mistakes businesses make with social media and how to fix them, in depth case studies, actionable plans for all areas including social networks, blogs, web TV, and mobile marketing, along with valuable tools and resources that anyone can use to get involved in social media marketing. This book was mainly written to teach people and entrepreneurs how to effectively put together successful social media campaigns in order to greatly expand their reach and grow their business.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in social media, or looking to stay on top and improve their business. This book was extremely organized and seems to be a perfect reference book. You can easily find the content you are looking for and the chapters contain very relevant and concise information about all of the aspects of social media. As I was reading, there are certain chapters and authors that stand out (I found Chapter 6 about personality and standing out on the internet very interesting, and chapter 15 about Twitter was very fascinating as well.) I liked how this book also gave me an idea on other authors that might interest me or other social media books that might be appealing because there are so many social media books out there. This is definitely a good book, and I strongly recommend it.

To see my recommendation on youtube please click the following link
http://www.youtube.com/user/SMRach22?feature=mhum

Rachael Rush
Marketing 4700

The Future of Business

Social media is the future of business.  It's here to stay.  Why is that?  Because it's personal.  No longer will businesses be seen as faceless entities.  No longer will marketing boil down to an impersonal sales pitch.  Social media will change all of this, in my opinion.

As of now, social media is a rather new phenomenon.  The internet has created a portal for people to be connected to eachother, and businesses are now using these tools to reach customers on a level like never before.  Yet many businesses are stuck in the past.  Many have no idea where to start or why they should bother.  That's where social media experts like Tamar Weinberg (Community and Marketing manager of Mashable) enter.  If you know little to nothing about social media, and are ready to dive on in, start here.  There are literally dozens of various social media portals out there like Twitter, Facebook, Mashable, LinkedIn, Reddit, Delicious, etc.  Tamar Weinberg has managed to take all of these services and explain them in detail in this book.  And not only will you finally understand these novel tools, but you'll understand how to use them to do one thing: promote your business.

For more details, check out my youtube video.

Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz

Want to be a celebrity but have absolutely no talent? Don't know where to start? Seaman offers a sarcastic, comical step-by-step guide to help! This book starts with creating an attitude and moves into the internet, television, and the radio. He ends with recognition of when your 15 minutes is up. I HIGHLY SUGGEST reading this book to everyone. It's great for both informational and pleasure reading. Seaman uses a clear tone to get his message across with several well-known examples including Tila Tequila, Michael Moore, and Donald Trump.

David Seaman is highly qualified to write this book. He is a respected PR consultant, full-time blogger, writer, and media personality. He is also the founder of Shutterline Interactive, a vehicle for rapidly deploying new publicity stunts.

BUT if you don't have time to read this book don't worry! I summarized his suggestions into 7 simple steps. Check it out!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oWmeFFN4a4

Favorite e-commerce Books 2010: Six Pixels of Separation

This book review was very informational and I'm looking forward to checking it out for myself, I'm a marketing major and this would be very beneficial, Great Review!!Favorite e-commerce Books 2010: Six Pixels of Separation: "Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel is about how everyone is connected in some form or another on the web. We are no longer connected by..."

Favorite e-commerce Books 2010: Web 2.0 and Beyond

This book seemed very interesting, and I'm interested in learning more about it, I may check it out for myself. Great Review!!Favorite e-commerce Books 2010: Web 2.0 and Beyond: "Web 2.0 and Beyond By Tom Funk is the book that I read for the book review project this semester. The book is a nontechnical guide written w..."

Web 2.0 and Beyond

Web 2.0 and Beyond By Tom Funk is the book that I read for the book review project this semester. The book is a nontechnical guide written with a business manager or marketer in mind for the audience. It's intention is to inform the reader on the many trends and technologies that are changing the online world. Rather than being a how-to book, Tom Funk focuses on giving real life examples of companies such as Google and how they have used Web 2.0 to their advantage.

I think that the key piece of information that I took with me after reading this book is the idea that the customer is now given more power than ever before. Customers now have the ability to review companies products and services in an entirely new way. They can make reviews directly on the company website or create a blog dedicated to reviews. Reviews can make or break a company so companies must also use Web 2.0 to their advantage. This may include making a personalized online experience for each individual customer because a happy customer means a happy company.

I would recommend this book to the nontechnical reader that is looking to read about good examples of how companies have used Web 2.0 to satisfy their customer's wants and needs.

The Zen of Social Media Marketing

The Zen of Social Marketing is a great book for those who are trying to improve their business through soical media forum. Kabani does a great job in creating step by step instructions on how to use different media forums such as Linkn, Twitter, and Facebook. To add to her simplied method of describing how to use each forum she also incoroporated graphs and pictures.

Kabani has an impressive background that allows for her to share her knowledge to the public and to help those who want to use social media as a tool for improving their business. She is president of the Marketing Zen Group, a full service online marketing firm, host of Shama.tv, her own video blog where she provides online marketing advice and interviews. She is also a very well known speaker in the social media circuit. She was named one of BusinessWeeks's 25 under 25 entrpreneurs of 2009.

Overall I would reccomend this book for those who are willing to learn how to use the different media forums to improve the quality of thier business. However, Kabani clearly states that those who are looking to become overnight millionaires will not get much from this book. This book's purpose is to educate the basics of Twitter, Linkdin, and Facebook. In addtion to shed light on the importance of e-marking in todays ever growing technoligical society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdQy5VHFUZY

Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Over the last few months I have been reading ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. Throughout the book, the authors stress becoming successful at blogging doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and an abundance of hard work is put into it. Rowse stated that “There are no magic wands, hidden tricks, or secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success in the blogging world, but with time, energy and determination you can get there” (ProBlogger p.6). Rowse and Garrett divided the book in chapters and limited the technical jargon, allowing it to be an easy and enjoyable read, while focusing on useful tips and techniques that help you become successful at blogging. Subjects throughout the book are:
1. Blogging For Money
2. Niche Blogging
3. Setting Up Your Blog
4. Blog Writing
5. Blog Income and Strategies
6. Buying and Selling Blogs
7. Blog Networks
8. Blog Promotion and Marketing
9. Secrets of Successful Blogs
10. Creating Something Worth While
Overall, I enjoyed reading ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income and felt it was very informative to those who are new to blogging. It’s defiantly a book that could be referenced to, as one begins to blog. No matter you expertise in blogging, this book has something for everyone and most importantly it tells you the secrets to making money by blogging.


Make sure to visit:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvLeFFs0Dk

Social Media 101 Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online

YouTube intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxtvnLbWSq8

Social Media 101 is a collection of several blog posts that originally
appeared on the author's blog (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/). Chris Brogan presents tactics and tips that business owners, marketing directors or managers can utilize to increase the presence of their company online. He explains the importance of building online business relationships through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. He also discusses a number of other social media platforms businesses can use such as blogs, podcasts, video and many others.


Strongest aspects of this book include:
*The many different free web resources and tools listed throughout the book including; audacity to create audio files for podcasts, windows movie maker to edit video, YouTube to host video, and Flickr for photo sharing among others

*The organized lists throughout the book including; 50 Blog Topics for Marketers, 10 Ways to Make Your Next Conference Better, 50 Ways Marketers Can Use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing and 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice

*Throughout the book the author references his blog where he has sections set up for different topics and invites readers to leave comments, suggestions and/or dispute his opinions. This is a great way to tie in a real life example of how to use social media

Weakest aspects of this book include:
*Lacks depth in regards to how businesses can benefit from using many of the types of social media he names

*The author's main focus seems to be on blogging and twitter

*There is a lot of repetition of the same information throughout the book


I would mainly recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about the possibility of starting their own blog and wants to get perspective on the subjective from someone who does it because this book would be a great resource to learn how to approach writing a blog and how to get it in front of people. Since the book also offers information about other social media, it would also be useful for someone who wants to learn a little about this in addition to blogging.

Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?

NEURO Web Design is a book written by Susan M. Weinschenk. The author has a Ph. D. in Psychology and she has made a career in applying her knowledge about people into technology design. The book is not like many other design books. It is not about how to build a website, add colors, layout,etc. It is about understanding people's behavior and what drives them to act in a certain way.

The book is divided in several sections. At first the author explains how the brain works and how people tend to make decisions. The following sections explain a different aspect of people's interests and she applies them to web design. The sections include topics of feeling indebted and encouraging people to feel like they need to return the favor, using stories and pictures in advertisement and building customer commitment.

I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in getting information about web design from a different perspective.

The link to the you tube video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1omLQNNvkaA

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

This book was a great read. The authors include Charlene Li, who was the main analyst at Forrest Research, and Jeff Burnoff, who also worked for Forrest Research. I choose this book because the authors seemed to have the knowledge to write such an item, and it had a ton of great information. Groundswell is where people get things they need from other consumers through social technology, instead of directly from the company. The book describes how companies can work with the groundswell, use it to their advantage, and be a success.





The book touched on so many aspects of social media, blogs, network sites, communities, and others. The main thing that set this book apart from the competition was the real story examples in the chapters. Here are two that stood out to me below:

• Dell Forum- Dell had scanned sites and seen that consumers had bad opinions of Dell laptops, and Dell finally took initiative and joined the forum. Dell was responsive and turned consumers more loyal again, by fixing the problems consumers were having with their computers and being honest. Honesty is a huge part of connecting with customers, always stay open and honest.


• Lego- Lego discovered consumers talking amongst themselves in a community online, they were known as AFOL's, Adult Fans of Lego's!! Lego choose some people from the site to become Ambassadors and chat up new Lego products to their own social networks, causing buzz for the company.

Groundswell was a great book for anyone, but especially businesses who need help with social media, and those you might be lost in how to connect with the groundswell, or consumers connecting with other consumers.

YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_WvNzRZSxY
Sarah Radke

Socialnomics

Socialnomics written by Erik Qualman was one of the best books I have ever read. This book gave endless examples of how social media has change the world. This book is written to create awareness of the power of social media – more or less there is a need for social media. There are examples from small business owners to large corporations to athletes that touch on different ways social media
The examples I thought were interesting include the following:

• Comcast. They have been known for bad customer service. A customer had no service for thirty six hours straight and could not get the problem resolved after making so many efforts. He decided to make a Tweet about Comcast’s customer service being horrible. To his surprise, a customer representative contacted him immediately and the issue was resolved the next day. Comcast has incorporated micro blogging into their business and manage all blogs that have Comcast in it. They have hired a person to only watch blogs with their name Tweeted on Twitter and to fix all problems or negative comments written by others.
• Social media saves time. The example the book talks about is being able to go onto websites to plan a full trip – from rental car, plane tickets, hotel, etc. Being able to plan a trip through sites like: Travelzoo, TripAdvisor, GoAhead, Orbitz, or Travelocity has decreased the need for travel agencies. People can go on whenever and research – it is build around convenience and this is why the social media has “taken off”. Convenience!

I recommend anyone to read this book see how Qualman illustrates the importance of social media.

Thanks for reading!

Watch the video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv89bhs0Wkw

Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read by Scott McNulty

Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read is about the blog hosting site, TypePad, how to use TypePad, and advice and suggestions on how to make your blog a success. The book is essentially a how-to guide on how to use the TypePad site and all the features in it (as of publication). McNulty walks the reader through the website on paper, detail by detail, allowing for a deep grasp of the concepts and features of the TypePad website. The bulk of the book discusses topics such as: creating a blog, settings, using TypePad's interface, and managing comments, posts, and trackbacks. McNulty wrote this book with the intention of teaching readers how to create a TypePad Blog that others will actually want to read. Ultimately, he missed the mark. Based on the title one would expect that the book would be about more than just creating a blog, but making it interesting enough to make people want to read it. This is why I chose the book because I wanted both things out of it. Yes the book is excellent as far as teaching you how to make a blog on TypePad, and if that's all you're looking for than you should definitely dig in and read this book. But if you were also hoping for that second part of the title, making a blog people want to read, then you should look somewhere else.

Make More Money without Spending More......It's A Google Adwords Marketing Campaign

As I opened the book for the first time, it became apparent that all the chapters were aimed at achieving one goal, How to force prospects to your website when performing a Google search? This involves the right mentality. Instead of the old strategy of sales where you push a product onto a prospect, you need to realize prospects are searching the internet for their needs. At this point a new strategy is adopted to pull these prospects to your products. In order to do this, create attractive Google Ads that rank in the top three results for organic searches on Google. Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords explains how to master this, starting with the creation of keyword rich landing pages, to developing campaigns that rank high in Google’s organic search results, to tracking where your business is coming from to optimize your efforts.

The book is intended for individuals who want traffic directed to their site and want to learn how to accomplish it. It’s for the do it yourselfer who is willing to take the time to understand the process. I believe anyone can master this art with a little dedication and research. Every business and website can benefit from the traffic Google has to offer and anyone can learn the system.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J7u-VMKbUQ