Social Strategist | Speaker | Author | Content Creator
As you know, I regularly review books around here. 
Since there are always so many great books that I want to read, I usually have to decide which ones capture my attention right now. To help make that decision, Amazon allows you to read information about the book, about the author, reader reviews and a growing number of books include sample pages. The ability to read what the book is about and then read a few pages is awesome. It usually helps to hook me. But, now, what if you could read the first 10 chapters of a book to see if you wanted to read the rest? Would you read it?
That is exactly what J.C. Hutchins is doing. J.C. Hutchins is the author of 7th Son: Descent
Want to know what the books is about? Check out this description taken from J.C.’s site:
As America reels from the bizarre presidential assassination committed by a child, seven men are abducted from their normal lives and delivered to a secret government facility. Each man has his own career, his own specialty. All are identical in appearance. The seven strangers were not born, but grown — unwitting human clones — as part of a project called 7th Son.
The government now wants something from these “John Michael Smiths.” They share the flesh as well as the implanted memories of the psychopath responsible for the president’s murder. The killer has bigger plans, and only these seven have the unique qualifications to track and stop him. But when their progenitor makes the battle personal, it becomes clear John Alpha may know the seven better than they know themselves…
Once I read that, I was hooked. I love government thrillers so I started getting excited as I read the above description. I’m in the middle of reading the PDF now and I already know that I’ll be buying a copy of the book. The book is definitely getting some rave reviews. How about you? Want to check out the first handful of chapters for free and decide for yourself?
To download the first 10 chapters for J.C. Hutchins new book 7th Son: Descent, you can find download the PDF.
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A few weeks before the Inbound Marketing Summit took place, Chris Penn and I were discussing what he should speak about. Of that discussion came the decision to do the presentation on how to determine the ROI of social media. Figuring out social media ROI continues to be a very hot topic not only for the social media geeks but also for big brands that want to determine success measurements of their investment into the space.
Outside of this conversation I had been bugging Chris to analyze my restaurant, Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse, for some time now. Other case studies have focused on what we’ve done but not tearing apart the metrics. Chris is a genuis at analysis and analytics. So, I really wanted him to expand my knowledge and ability Google Analytics and other tools to properly analyze our efforts at the steakhouse and determine our ROI. For those that don’t know, approximately 1.5 years ago we cut out 80% of our traditional marketing budget and turned our focus to our website, SEO, social media and other digital initiatives as a way to drive sales. Surprise, surprise, it worked. Since then we have seen a minimum of 20% increase in sales when comparing the same month the previous year. But, one thing we never did was break out and track those individual efforts between the website, social media, and other areas we were spending our time online.
As part of his presentation Chris asked if he could use the restaurant as an example and do an analysis of our ROI. What Chris found, in terms of hard dollars, surprised me and I think it will surprise you too.
You can check out Chris’ presentation, both slides and videos below:
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.
As I said, I was surprised at the actual dollar values but I wasn’t surprised at the result that Chris found. For us, our entire focus has been on SEO. We have used social media as a tool to augment that but not as a primary vehicle to drive revenue for the restaurant. For instance, we have made a conscious decision to not set up a Twitter account where offer discounts. It is something we’re considering doing in the future, but right now we aren’t utilizing social media in that way.
While this presentation gives you some information about my brick and mortar and the decisions that we face and have to make, have you taken these steps to determine the ROI of your efforts on your website, blog, or social media profiles? If you have done this exercise, did you change anything about the way you spend your time post-analysis?
Note: This is the first post of many highlighting videos from the Inbound Marketing Summit that was held at Gillette Stadium on October 7-8, 2009. All posts will be tagged ims09 for aggregation purposes.
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A few days ago I saw a tweet fly by from Todd Defren mentioning something to do with Jay-Z and Rhapsody. Since I’m a HUGE fan of Jay-Z I followed the link. The link took me to this amazing Rhapsody commercial promoting Jay-Z’s new album, The Blueprint 3. If you’re not a fan of Jay-Z then it will be a little hard to understand why this commercial is so cool. BUT, any true Jay-Z fans will notice that, in the span of one minute, the commercial seamlessly takes you through most of Jay-Z’s album covers.
I think this is a great example of a brand thinking outside the box. Most commercials, especially for upcoming music albums, are sheer promotion for the album. This commercial takes you back to all of the fantastic albums that Jay-Z has released over his career. While showing you the previous album covers, the new single, Run This Town, from The Blueprint 3 is playing in the background thus hyping you for the new album.
The commercial ends with a call-to-action to head over to the specially designed section of the Rhapsody site dedicated to the album release. There you can listen to the album, send updates to Twitter and Facebook of your favorite songs from the album, comment on the commercial, sign up for a subscription to Rhapsody and a whole bunch more.
There is so much that I think is cool about this but I want to know what you think about it. If this was a commercial for an artist you really liked, would the commercial and landing page make you any more likely to try Rhapsody and/or buy the album?
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If you need yet ANOTHER reason why you should buy Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, today I explain what I’ve seen these two friends of mine go through over the past year to ensure that the best possible book that they could write hits bookshelves.
If you can’t view the video, you can also find it on YouTube.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.Note: Apparently I was tapping the laptop as I was recording so my apologies that it’s a little bumpy 
To pick up a copy of Trust Agents, head on over to: http://bit.ly/buy-ta. I really hope that you’ll support them and pick up a copy of 20 of the book.
If you already received your copy, what did you think about it? You can let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or better yet, write/film a post reviewing the book and tag it #trustagents.
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