Now Share This: PR and Social Media

Mashable has done its first ever video book review, and I have to say it’s pretty cool stuff. They manage to bang through five Social Media books in under 10 minutes, offering key insights from each one. Ten minutes normally feels like an eternity in the world of watching videos online, but I found it fast-paced and interesting enough to watch it all the way through.

Now, I haven’t read all of these books, but have a copy of Trust Agents on the shelf I want to get to, and I bought the Vook version of Crush It!, which I’ve enjoyed immensely on my iPhone. Gary Vaynerchuk is a marketing dynamo and it’s impossible not to love his passion, authenticity and enthusiasm. The overwhelming message of Crush It! is daunting but true – to emerge on top, you will literally have to work your face off, pounding on the keyboard until your wrists throb and your eyeballs bleed. But Vaynerchuk is living proof you can get there if you want it badly enough. Crush It! gives a nice synopsis of his amazing American 2.0 Success Story while also sharing the key tenets (create incredible content around the things you love and are passionate about, serve/share others and engage in the virtual communities built around that subject matter like nobody else) you’ll need to succeed.

I’m also definitely going to pick up The New Community Rules as it sounds like that book is loaded with practical tips and strategies that you can start applying immediately.

What I love about Social Media is how cutting edge all of this is. It’s communications, marketing and PR on steroids. It’s akin to how the invention of the telephone changed communications in the United States. It’s that big of a deal, and if you are in any way, shape or form involved in communications, marketing or PR and NOT using Social Media, you are like a dinosaur stopping for a sip of water at your own personal La Brea Tar Pit.