I finally read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, by Gary Vaynerchuk. If you noticed, we started reading it for the book club about four weeks ago.

I've been recommending the book to clients and friends since it came out, but here's the dirty little secret. I had not read it. I only skimmed through it once or twice, but I inherently understood what the book was about.

And talk about throwing jabs all day long. Gary has put out so much valuable content and so clearly articulated the essence of this book throughout his talks before publishing it that I knew I could recommend this book even without reading it.

How many things would you feel comfortable recommending without actually trying or using yourself?

I trusted that my clients would like the book and get value from it and everyone would come back telling me how great it was. People are still talking about it now, check out the hashtag on Twitter: #JJJRH.

Time to buckle down

But now running the book club and helping more people, I thought it was time to read it and get the details. Especially because of Snapchat. I've been using Snapchat now quite a bit more than I ever did before and I wanted to see what Gary had to say about it in the book.

The spoiler on that is that he doesn't talk much about Snapchat. At the time of the writing of the book, Snapchat wasn't a big network, so it only gets a few pages towards the end. But the whole message of the book applies to Snapchat as it does to anything else.

He talks heavily about Facebook and Twitter, on Round 3 and on Round 4 respectively. Facebook is where you story-tell, and Twitter is where you follow the pulse, where you listen.

I think everyone in the book club also appreciated the choice because many of the members are completely new at social media, and even more so when it comes to using it for business.

The devil is in the details

The book is beautiful, literally. Its body is designed in a wide format and even today is only available on hardback edition. It is almost like a coffee table book and it has a fancy jacket with a prominent old school pair of boxing gloves embossed to represent the "oo" in Hook.

The pages are thick and of high quality semi-gloss paper. Like a high-end book. I was surprised about all this when I bought the book because Crush it and The Thank You Economy were just normal books in these regards. I was also surprised at the price: $32.39, until I really analyzed it and read it.

But the book itself is a metaphor of what Gary is talking about in it. How to tell a story in the chosen medium so that it stands out in the best possible way.

In this case, Gary is using a classic format (book) to tell us stories about social media networks, but he picked the best possible format to deliver that story. This is one of those books that stands out from the rest for several reasons.

It doesn't fit your bookshelf like the other books do. It doesn't blend into the background when you take it out and it isn't something you can read conspicuously. Every page is perfectly crafted.

Full color, solid typeface and smart formatting make this a book you want to keep even after you finish reading it. All these details reflect the message he talks about in every chapter, or rather in every round. Stand out, and do it well.

Mostly Evergreen Content and solid advice

With the exception of a few mentions and predictions of Google Glass and Google Plus, the content still stands up to scrutiny, almost 3 years after it was written.

In social media, that's like 20 years!

The core of the book focuses on what Gary has been doing and saying all along in all of his videos. Learn to speak the language your customers speak. It doesn't matter if your customer is on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, or the latest and greatest hip app. You have to speak natively or you'll die.

Breaking it down

The first two rounds setup the rest of the book by reinforcing core social media principles. Gary talks about how social media is mostly about micro content and content that gives much more than it asks. It entertains, and it works but only when it's native to the platform. This is how the major chapters in the book break down.

Facebook

Then the rest of the book is all about specific networks. The Facebook section is particularly important because Facebook is the biggest social network today. The most relevant, the one with the widest demographics and arguably the one that commands the most attention.

The section is good because it talks about all the nuances of Facebook, but it also showcases short 1 page critiques on various posts by brands. Gary praises or rips each one of them apart and helps you see things as you should, from your customer's point of view but never forgetting the benefit your activity will provide in the long term, if done right.

Twitter

The Twitter section is another sizable section of the book. I still use and love Twitter, despite growing criticism and concerns for its long term viability. I even wrote a guide on how to grow it.

Gary, in classic Gary style goes all in and tells you about using Twitter to listen to your customers. How to listen to trends and make personal connections that will transcend the life of the platform.

On Pinterest

Pinterest is very underutilized, but in round 5, Gary teaches you about "glaming it up on Pinterest." This is a place where you can build community and showcase your products in a very flattering light. Just don't forget to speak the native language.

Like in the Facebook section, there are critiques of good and bad use cases for Pinterest and one of the recurring themes here is to use the platform natively, like making sure your pins have a link to the correct location.

Instagram

The Instagram section is mostly case studies like those on the Facebook and Pinterest rounds. Overall this chapter is short but the basics are reinforced. Speak the language; use hashtags, use great photos, appeal to the younger crowd with visual story telling.

Tumblr

After Instagram, we have Tumblr. One of those huge yet obscure networks. At one point in the not so distant past, Tumblr was bigger than WordPress as a blogging platform. But that's the thing. Tumblr is a blog platform. So it is everything and nothing at the same time.

It's tough to build community and even tougher to use it right. Gary's tips here are to really, I mean, really, learn the language. Use animated gifs, recreate, borrow and uplift content and be careful with pushing your own stuff here.

And yes... I use all of these platforms and more. If you want to catch up with me on any of them, here you go: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr.

The Final Five Rounds are Meaty

In conclusion, you should get this book. You should read it, study it, apply it, and use it as a way to learn about what's coming. There are three sections to the book, the introduction & setup, the case studies and then the closing advice. The book is almost 3 years old now, but still relevant, even Gary thinks so.

STAY RELEVANT OR DIE | DailyVee 061https://t.co/nA44ZnoUkS pic.twitter.com/Ze4sHYfCDS

— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) August 17, 2016

The last five chapters of the book are packed with logic, motivation and inspiration. Things that should help you feel inspired to go on and take on the world. It doesn't matter if you are just joining the social media revolution (but it does matter that you do it now!).

It doesn't matter because as you'll see, there are new things coming up all the time and in contrast with the old media formats like TV, Radio, Magazines and Newspapers, social media changes daily. This gives you an advantage to stay ahead of the curve by working your ass off, by paying attention to the trends and your consumers.

One thing that I found particularly interesting was the title and message for round 10. This is something I've been telling my clients for years, even before JJJRH. You are a media company, whether you like it or not. I don't care if you sell washers and screws, if you teach driving lessons, or do wardrobe shopping for celebrities.

You are a media company now and it's up to you to be a good one. And if you don't know what I mean by that then I recommend you go and pick up a copy of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

If you already read it, what were the most salient points you took from it? How about your favorite quotes? Drop them in the comments and I'll include them in my next round up.

The post Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. – Review & Recap appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But first, my thoughts on the book... The book is pretty cool, no, it's badass. It was easy to read but it was packed full of life stories, interesting anecdotes, and it's motivational. You think you want to be like Jeremy? You wanna have Millions in the bank, girls bowing down at your feet? How about your own superhero logo in your massive swimming pool? Does that sound like what you want? Well, it wasn't always so and Jeremy tells you in his autobiography. Jeremy's had a tough life. Tougher than yours, tougher than mine. So be careful what you wish for. I'm pretty sure your life is way better than how Jeremy's life was before he decided to change it. It took a lot of time, effort, sweat, blood and tears to get where he is now. So if you're in a tough spot, this book will motivate you because this is the ultimate rags to riches story and you can do it too. If you're life isn't so bad, this will motivate you because you'll realize how easy you have it, and all you have to do is get off your ass, grab your dream and run with it.

Really, that's all there's to it. DO IT. Don't worry about the haters, don't worry about the perceived obstacles. And when you do it, do it your way. Find the angles as Jeremy calls them. The opportunities that nobody else is willing to take. That's what got him where he is right now. But like I said, his story wasn't always like this. Yeah, he makes millions of dollars per year, and is married to a gorgeous woman that is a doctor. He's respected and admired by millions and contracted by some of the biggest companies in the world. So how did he do this, how has he achieved greatness? That's the Shoemoney story.

The book is written in a very very laid-back tone it's almost as if Jeremy's talking directly to you and just telling you the story. Jeremy hasn't won any writing awards and you probably won't ever see him win any. That's not his thing, just like his blog, Jeremy tells stories. And the stories in the book are total page-turners. You will learn how he went from dirt poor, living in his dad's mobile home trailer in the middle of nowhere, and eating cup of noodles just to be able to survive. Then and racking up thousands and thousands of dollars in debt, while dodging gangster bullets. At some point he's so depressed he doesn't even think he's going to make it pass his 30th year. We've all been down in the dumps and it's tough to come back from that. You need a kick in the ass and a motivator to get you off the couch and change your life. But if Jeremy's story isn't motivating to you then one of two things are true. You're an idiot, or you've already been through a similar path and can now sip mai tais on the beach while your empire brings you thousands of dollars an hour. At the very least, you'll think about your life in a deep existencial way.

The story is riveting it's amazing to see how he went from nothing to one of the top marketers people in the world. He makes millions of dollars now doing what he loves and he achieved that because he just simply wanted to do something different. He calls what he does "finding angles" and he walks a very fine line that will question your own morality, ethics and and it was there certain parts of his life were things clicked and prompted him to take action and get office as stop being bummed out about himself and do something better with his life I'm not going to spoil the book because you have to read it but it is worth every page.

Now, you can go out and buy the book right now, you can get it from Amazon on paperback or kindle, or if you have a little bit of patience, I will give away 3 books over the next 2 weeks. You have to complete the requirements in the giveaway below if you want a chance to win the book. I will mail it to you on on my dime, so you don't even pay for shipping.

The giveaway kicks-off today at noon. I'm running it through Rafflecopter so it should be really easy for you to enter. If you want to be notified sign up to the mailing list on the right. Also, winners will be announced via the mailing list so make sure you get on it. You can enter multiple times, each action you take gives you a different number of entries for the giveaway. Not sure how this giveaway works? click here for a short explanation.

The post The Shoemoney Story Review and Giveaway. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Beautifully written, Robert Kaplan not just catches your attention; no, that's too easy for him. He grabs you and drags you into the book, the stories are palpable and if you pay close attention you might actually feel the smells and ambiance of the stories told. Despite the seemingly dull topic, [pq]Robert has done a terrific job at making your only goal be that of turning to the next page.[/pq]

The Nothing That Is is engaging and thought-provoking. It's mind twisting. In an early chapter, after a short paragraph explaining that numbers are really representations of connections between connections, and they tend to be ghostly, even ephemeral.

...if you say there are seven apples in a bowl, exactly what does that 'seven' belong to? Not to any one of the apples taken singly (not even the last you counted, since you could have arranged them differently), nor to the bowl that contains them, but --to there being just seven of them. Many a fine head has broken on this problem.

Then He goes on to say this about Zero.

names belong to things, but zero belongs to nothing. It counts the totality of what isn't there.

Have you ever heard anyone speak of Zero in such compelling voice? I haven't, but I want to make Zero my friend after reading this book. I want to go places with it, or is it him or her? I want to have lunch together. I am infatuated with it.

Ever since I read this book, I think about zero everyday. I know, it sounds crazy but this is what the book makes you do. That is if you like this kind of stuff. I know I'm a math geek, you may not be. But if you like good story telling and a bit of history then you might like this. I'm one of the few people I know that actually loves geometry and mathematical rules and theorems. They're clear, concise, precise and involve no emotions. To be cliche, math is the universal language and this book gives you a glimpse into one of the numbers we use everyday; perhaps the most important number.

If you want to enjoy this book, you can find it for Kindle right here, or the traditional paperback format which is how I read it.

The post Comments and Thoughts on The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The Year of Living Biblically. One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

A.J. Jacobs is hilarious, this medium sized hardbound will keep you reading if not for its insights, at least for its light tone and comical nature; its hard to put down. It is a funny memoir that takes Jacobs, and sometimes his family through a year of radical changes in lifestyle. You are quickly exposed to the determination that AJ musters to bring you the results of this crazy experiment.

I must admit that the wide range of topics in this book touch on a lot of recurring themes in my life. The search for truth, the notion of spirituality, the reason behind ancient customs, to name a few all surface constantly in my life. Until I was 12 or so, I was raised Catholic, the whole shebang; kneel, sit, stand, pray, sing, eat crackers, rinse and repeat. Then after several years of freedom from religion, I chose to become a Christian. For over four years I was a firm believer in Christ. I participated in a non-denominational Christian church extensively, to the point that you could find me with some friends on the corner of Main street preaching to anyone that would listen and some that wouldn't about Jesus. That's all in the past now and perhaps topic for another discussion later on, but I wanted to point out that I'm not unfamiliar with religion, especially Christianity and Judaism. It is perhaps this familiarity with religion, faith and all that comes rolled up in that pacakge that sparked the desire to read this book.

The book has a strong contrast to Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith which advises us (and I agree) to stop believing everything you are told without demanding real evidence from a source other than that which demands your faith. A.J. on the other hand must follow almost everything he is told by the Bible and his wise guy circle as I call it --a large group of experts that help him clear up some cryptic biblical stuff. Lots of times he is told to just go along with it. A.J. opens up by explaining how he's going to do exactly what the title implies; live biblically for a year. Each chapter is a month and the whole book is narrated in journal style highlighting the most important days. Jacobs constantly is at odds with things that the Bible tells him to do and how he feels about it.

He takes us through his visit to the Holy Land, to visit his crazy uncle Gil, all the way to a meeting with Jimmy, a snake handling preacher in Knoxville, Tenessee. I love the way he enthusiastically tells a story and I lost count of how many times his narration of the ordeals made me laugh out loud. Having lived under rules from the Bible for years at one point, I can only admire Jacobs for actually completing a full year and then some of this grueling project. Julie, his wife also deserves credit if only for putting up with the lunacy of this undertaking, most of it while pregnant with twins! That's love right there.

I don't want to tell you much more about the book, it truly is worth reading, it all goes by quickly because of the way it is written. He begins with 72 pages and 700+ rules collected after reading the Bible from beginning to end. Towards the end of the journey, he collects over 100 books on biblical law, tradition, cooking and other relevant topics that help him discern these nutty laws. I think this is a great insight into what your life might be like if you truly tried to live in accordance to the Bible.

Here's one of my favorite days. Simply because of the way it starts:

Day 181, afternoon. I was on the subway today, sitting a few seats down from a Buddhist monk. He looked at me, with my white raiment and bushy beard, I looked at him, with his orange robes, and we exchanged a knowing nod and smile.

It was a great moment. I felt like I'd been let through the velvet rope at a holy nightclub.

On another one of my favorite passages he actually stones --if you can call it that, an old guy in NY. It cracked me up.

I think the great sense of humor the A.J. displays is a big part of what gets him through this endeavor. Coincidentally as I found out just today when I finished this book, he is also the author of another book that has been in my sights, The Know-It-All, and the now famous article My Outsourced life. If you haven't read that article, I recommend you take a peek, I read it a long time ago on Steve's website, and it is definitely funny and informative. On a side note, lately have been actually testing the whole concept of outsourcing your life; mainly thanks to that article.

Two thumbs up for this book and its author, I now want to read his other book, The know-It-All.

The post The Year of Living Biblically completed appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Into the Wild was touching, sad, inspiring, and most thrilling throughout. At the end in a couple of parts, I must admit that my eyes swelled up. Krakauer does a great job of explaining what Chris must have been thinking. I enjoyed the narrative of the book and how Jon mixed in his own memoirs into the story. I can't help but feel compassion and comradeship towards Chris McCandless.

He did what we all talk about around the water cooler, but very few of us ever do or even try; live our dream. Unfortunately for him, his adventure as you find out in the book was not successful. At least not by most standards. Please don't think I'm spoiling the story, his tragic ending is revealed before the book even starts in the Author's note in the First Anchor Books Edition, Feb 1997:

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.

As I read the book I kept thinking to myself "I know what he must be thinking now" or "I bet I know what he felt right then" and the truth is that Jon's writing makes you believe this; he makes you think you can understand what was going through Chris' head. In all reality, few of us will probably fully understand the thoughts and emotions driving Chris as he sets off in a canoe down the Colorado river, or when he embarks on his last trip into the wild.

The book is easy to read and I found myself immersed in it right away, I was almost a third of the way into it when I put it down for the first time and I completed it in a couple more sittings. Some of the chapters begin with a simple map of the area which you are about to travel through. Constantly I found myself flipping back to review the maps to see where McCandless was and this gave me a great idea of the relative distances he traveled. Sometimes he made his way through on foot, other times hitchhiking but I absolutely think that if he had the choice, he would have used his little Datsun all the way to Alaska.

Half a dozen pages over 200, the book is definitely easily digested in a weekend and I definitely recommend it. Most of the books I like to give me a new piece of the puzzle to the great experience of life; this was certainly not an exception. I'll spare you the details of the emotions stirred and the dreams that it evoked in me, but I can tell you that I would recommend it to anyone.

Seems like I feel that about all the books I actually finish reading. Besides the new perspective in life that it presented, I was introduced to a new author. Jon Krakauer also has written other well-known books that have now been added to my list, namely Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven.

There are a lot of pictures on Flickr on the topic of Chris McCandless, and the story that became this bestseller. Here are links to some of the ones I found interesting; read some of the comments to understand more if you haven't read the book.

by Akfirebug, Into the Wild set

by Chriso2000, Chris McCandless. Jon mentions this picture on his book, and this flickr member has several other ones on there.

There's also a movie for the book Into The Wild, here's the trailer.

The post Into The Wild Book Completed, Review and Comments appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I spent the next hour or so reading the last 60-70 pages. I actually was going to read only a few pages, but little did I know that I would spend the next hour reading through until the last page sans the footnotes.

This book is awesome. Sam points out so many fallacies in our belief systems, our traditions, our political structure. In addition to pointing these out, he holds no punches when describing the absurdity of certain ancient dogmas that have been passed down from generation to generation. A huge part of the book appeals to the logical nonsensical little voice inside of all of us, while the rest of the book is used to enlighten us in what can be done to remove many poisonous creeds that are deeply ingrained in our societies. He closes the book with an invitation to challenge yourself, and those systems that are hurting us as a whole, and with an apocalyptic warning: If we don't change these things, humanity could very well will cease to exist as we know it.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, it uses reason to make its arguments and it does it well. Whether you believe in god, God, many, or none, whether you are a man of science or a mix of all of the above, this is good reading and it is bound to expand your mind. It uses reason and facts to do this; not fairy tales or imaginative folklore. In fact the last quarter or so of the book is made up of footnotes and references, expanding and making cross references to all the facts that Sam Harris uses to support his view points. Check back in a week or so for a complete review and commentary. I just wanted to let you know I finished it.

If you want to see the other books I'll be reading soon, visit my reading list post.

The post I finished the first one! The end of faith. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.