Today’s weekly roundup of books include a couple of books which are a couple years old but are ones that I have definitely added to my wishlist and I’d suggest you also check them out.

Weekly Roundup – Books

Branding Unbound: The Future of Advertising, Sales and the Brand Experience in the Wireless Age

Author(s): Rick Mathieson
Published: August 19, 2005
Summary: Mathieson takes a look at wireless technology and the future of mobile advertising.  He provides a thorough analysis of the various technologies and possible uses of this technology for marketing your brand.  Mathieson also discusses some of the problems associated with mobile marketing such as, for example, privacy issues.

Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

Author(s): Andy Sernovitz and Guy Kawasaki
Published: November 1, 2006
Summary: Sernovitz and Kawaski explain the essential steps that make word of mouth marketing work and how to use them.  They also explain the importance and purpose of blogs, viral marketing, buzz and online communities.  This is an excellent book for anyone looking to attract the most important customers, those that have been referred by someone that’s already happy with your products or services.

Weekly Roundup – PR/Marketing/Social Media Posts

• The Media & Social Media Series: The Cincinnati Enquirer
• The Bonsai Method of Social Media Management
• The Socialization of Your Personal Branding Series
• Workflow-Social Media for Marketers
• Viral Doesn’t Have to be an Infection
• Personal Branding Toolkit Series
• Startup PR: Tips for Getting Publicity Without a PR Firm
• Nobody cares about your products and services (except you)

Weekly Roundup – Other Interesting Posts and Random Musings

• Unclutter Google Reader by Analyzing Your Trends
• The Fortune 500 4-Hour Workweek: Multiplying Outputs in Groups
• Seven Tips for Successful Telecommuting
• How to Do More with Less Time
• Indispensable Tech Travel Tips

Weekly Roundup – Books

Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference

Author(s): Tim Sanders
Published: September 16, 2008
Summary: Sanders believes that companies need to make a difference through their products, manufacturing methods, environmental efforts and community outreach.  We are no longer casual consumers, according to Sanders, but instead are mindful consumers who look beyond the bottom line price to judge which companies we will purchase from.

PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences

Author(s): Deirdre Breakenridge
Published: April 2008
Summary: Breakenridge teaches her reader a host of new PR best practices including how to utilize blogs, social networks, RSS technology, podcasts, visual and social media in releases, using analytic tools, as well as several other new ways of reaching your target audience(s).  Breakenrdige also includes interviews with some of the A-list PR 2.0 practicioners including Brian Solis who posted an excellent review on the book on his blog, most appropriately named, PR 2.0.

Weekly Roundup – PR/Marketing/Social Media Posts

• 5 Reasons Why It’s the Golden Age of PR
• Old Marketing with New Tools
• PR is not Dead
• The Role of PR Firms in Social Media and Inbound Marketing
• Why Hire a PR Firm?
• Conflict. To make your marketing more interesting, add conflict
• Interview with David Meerman Scott About All Things Social Media
• The intangibles
• Newspapers cover murder trial via Twitter

Weekly Roundup – Other Interesting Posts and Random Musings

• 10 Step Beginners Guide to Blogging Your Personal Brand
• Five time-savers
• Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too
• Gmail Outage or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GTD Contexts

Weekly Roundup – Books

Title:Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs
Author(s): David Meerman Scott, Craig Stull, and Phil Myers
Published: June 2008

Title:Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Author(s): Seth Godin
Published: October 16, 2008

Title:Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke–the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific
Author(s): Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Published: May 2008

Weekly Roundup – PR/Marketing/Social Media Posts

• Putting the Meaning Back in Social Media
• Link Building vs Content Promotion for Links
• Optimizing the Right Content for the Right Audience
• LIVE with David Meerman Scott at Podcamp Boston 3
• Introducing the Conversation Prism
• Empower & Inspire with Content Marketing
• A List of Social Media Resources

Weekly Roundup – Other Musings

• 7 Tips for Building Better Business Relationships
• Search Challenges Email As Most Popular Daily Online Activity
• Mobile Search: This is not your father’s search
• When in doubt, (don’t) follow the money
• The Philosophies of Work: A Conversation with Derek Sivers of CD Baby

That’s it for this week’s roundup.  Lots of ideas to write about this week!

I also wanted to take a minute to say thank you to Josh Whitford of the Unconventional Marketing Blog.  Earlier in the week he showed the blog some love by posting an excellent review on his site.  If you haven’t subscribed to Josh’s blog yet then you should subscribe now and take some time to dig through his archives.

Currently Reading
Since I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to reading, I’m still busy reading Scoble’s Naked Conversations. Once I finish with his book, I’m going to pick up one of Seth Godin’s Meatball Sunday: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?

I’m curious what everyone else is reading.  So, in the comments section let me know what books you are currently reading or have recently read along with a quick review.

Interesting PR/Marketing/Social Media Posts

• Social Media 2015
• Project Dogfood / New Marketing Summit
• 12 Creative Secrets to Beat Writer’s Block
• Tweetpoll Results on Social Media and Management
• Branding & Blogging-Bigger Impact in Smaller Business Cards?
• Insanely Brilliant or Just Insane?
• Online Reputation Management 2.0
• Comcast Cares and Why Your Business Should Too

Ok, that’s it for this week’s roundup.  Short and sweet.  This coming week I’ll be conducting a few interviews which I’ll be posting soon so keep a look out for that.

This is a way for me to expose you to other blogs that may be of interest.  I hope that everyone enjoys and please leave any interesting posts and articles that you may come across in the comments section.

Currently Reading

Title: Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
Author(s): Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
Published: January 2006
ISBN: 047174719X
Summary: “Robert Scoble, author of the nation’s best read business blog, and veteran consultant Shel Israel believe blogging is already changing the face of business.  They show you how employee bloggers altered the public’s perception of Microsoft.  How an outspoken NBA team owner uses his blog to connect with fans.  How small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike can benefit from blogging, and how failing to use it properly can be disastrous.” -Inside Cover

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late in reading this but I finally picked it up and am enjoying it so far.

Interesting PR/Marketing/Social Media Posts

• The Blog Card, Unconventional Blog Marketing Tool
• Not All Social Media Fun & Games
• New Communication Theory and the New Roles for the New World of Marketing
• Business-to-business ebooks: Spreading your ideas for free
  
• The Long Tail and the Dip
• The Nirvana of Personal Branding is to Become Indispensable
• 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky
• Top 50 PR Blogs in the World
• Social Networks – Business or Pleasure?

Other Interesting Posts and Random Musings

• Bagging Lunch: The Inflation Effect (thanks to @tmonhollon for the article)
• On Peanut Shells and Email Archiving

That’s it for the first weekly roundup.  As the weeks go on and I get the formatting down, I’ll continue expanding this with more and more content.