Social Media Bookreport

Likeable Social Media

How to DELIGHT YOUR CUSTOMERS,
Create an INTERESTING BRAND,
and Be Generally
AMAZING ON FACEBOOK
(and other social networks)
Written by Dave Kepren, Edition 1, Published by McGraw-Hill (May 17, 2011)

Likeable Social Media, written by Dave Kepren, was an outstanding book. Dave is defiantly an expert in social media and word of mouth. He has his own business, Likeable Media, and uses it to illustrate his points throughout the book. The book begins by talking about how to define your target audience and goes right into how to communicate with them. Dave will go through and show you how to, very effectively I might add, communicate with your friends, fans, followers, or even employees with common situations that might give a person pause. This includes comments (both good and bad), questions, and authenticity for whatever social media site you might be using. Not at any point will this book “teach” you how to use social media sites. What it does is give you a bit of an overview of all the major players. He is literally trying to show you how to be likeable and build relationships with these major social media tools.

The author is a very talented writer and compliments his discussions about what it means to be a “likable” brand as he says, with both positive and negative, and yet quite funny, anecdotes. I love the fact that the book is only 260 pages. This is including the actual book, the appendix, and even the index. It makes it a very quick read for the amount of information you get from it. He has very easy to reference content headers all through the book, screenshots from Facebook and easily-digestible highlights to share with others. One of my favorites is “10 Reasons Why Consumers Like Fan Pages on Facebook”. I never thought about this, but the number one reason, “To receive discounts and promos”, is something that I find myself doing all the time. The last reason however, “For education and company topics”, I NEVER do. Gimme free stuff, I don’t care how many people Nike helps throughout the world, I just want some discounts on my shoes.

I got this book from the library, and now I am seriously considering purchasing it. No matter what might happen in the next 15 years, the concepts in this book will be credible and useful. Knowing how people think, and how to use that make them want to know what you are all about is priceless. If Facebook gets replaced next year by some other amazing social networking site that revolutionizes the way we can communicate with others, it will still not help with the WAY we communicate with that new media. Knowing what people like is not always common sense and the author gives you many examples on how to help with just that.

I think this book would be as beneficial to someone who is just getting into social media sites such as Facebook, as well as those who might want to double-check on the knowledge they already have in this market today. Those already familiar with social media will find that the Dave discusses many nuances and intricacies that they might not have realized before. You will learn many things about Facebook you might not have known before picking up this book, and at the least will gain a new appreciation for the way this author cover some of the material. One example is Facebook Ads, and who they target. The author explains through the use of case studies and specific examples of the ways you will choose your target audience. This is GOLD for anyone who is not necessarily new to this concept, but is to new social media networking.

A few, somewhat negative, things I would say are, to begin with, the lack of anything that was REALLY earth shattering for me. At times, Dave will repeat himself, especially when you get more than half way through the book. When I was done with the book, or at any time throughout reading the book, I did not change anything that I was currently doing with any of the social media sites that I use. That does not mean it will not be that way for someone else who has less experience with social media applications, it just was that way for me.

All in all I think this book was worth the time I put into it and I would recommend it to anyone that was interested in the betterment of their marketing strategies for Social Networking. Also, it would be an obvious choice for those who are looking to broaden their knowledge of making Social Networking move their business forward in the market as it stands today, prepare for what might be available in the future, and to help strengthen an employer’s training materials, cross group communication, and online help. This book is by no means a “one stop shop”. There are other books out there that can help with the same subjects. This book however is written well, very informative, and easy to follow. Just for those things alone, I would have to give it two big thumbs up.

Had no idea what to make a ScreenR video on...

I must admidt, this assignment had me STUMPED. I looked EVERYWHERE for my photos that I had taken back when I started making Raw Food, but all I could find were ones that were the end result of the dish, and none that showed the process of making the food. So what I decided to do was a quick run through of Windows Movie Maker for Windows 7. I had spent a TON of time making these videos for my wifes mother and thought it might be something interesting to go through. So I made a ScreenR video of a video editing/movie making software. (0.o) It is rough, and this was by far the best version of the video. I kept deleting and starting over, deleting and starting over. Scripting it made it worse and I finally just relaxed and tried to fit as much info in a 5 minute video. So here it is. Hope you all are not too bored out of your minds.

The Slideshow of Good Stuff

So this is a slideshow of the photos that I have uploaded to Flickr. Most of these pictures were taken with our Camera and one is a piece of Art, drawn by yours truly. As I thought about what kind of photos expressed the way I am trying to move in my pursuit of healthy living, I remembered all the photos I took of the food that my wife and I were eating as we became Raw Vegans over three years ago. Since then, I have let my diet lax and now am trying desperately to get back on track. As I remembered all the time and effort that went into these foods, and also the many hours of design and creative thought that went into the art, it gave me more momentum to keep moving in the direction that I need to for myself, my wife, and my children. I decided to add the Art because my wife and I had been trying to have children for over 6 years before going Raw Vegan. One year later, my wife got pregnant. I will always believe that what we put into our bodies is what we are, and it struck me that it is also what our children will start from as they grow in their mother’s womb. Pretty deep yo!

Taking guilt out of the equation Healthy=Food/Guilt*Sleep

So now I am trying to get more momentum going. I think I have realized where my down falls are, and I am now trying to cut out caffeine and get more sleep. When I have too little sleep, I get cranky and anxious, which leads me to want to eat, but all I want are comfort foods, and due to my lack of sleep, I have no willpower, only tired surrender. The more sleep I get, the more I am able to see that the food decisions I make will benefit me, my wife, and my child. This helps me choose better foods, and want to get more exercise. Who of thunk it.

Failure tastes like Capriotti's

So, as I have been going through this wonderful roller-coaster of an experience, I see that I am falling behind on one of my four classes this semester. Low and behold, it is the one that I have to face up to the failures of eating healthy. So, to make a long and painful story short, I have not been able to cut out all forms of crappy food. I have been able to stay away from meat, mainly cause I have been doing that for the last 3 years, but not entirely. Unfortunately I consider fish meat, and unfortunately sushi has fish, and unfortunately I love sushi. But that is the good stuff that is not the best, but better than most of the bad stuff. (o.0) I think I am going crazy. I have been able to control soda consumption, water intake, fatty foods, sweets, and "Fast Food", but my downfall it time consumption and nutrient density. Unfortunately I have not been ADDING a large amount of healthy food to my diet. When I get home, I have no energy, and I cannot push myself to make/juice the foods that I need to for the next day. This "stacks" so to speak, pushing my lunch and dinner in directions that are almost impossible to retrace, and get back on track. Because I do not have the right food ready for breakfast, I eat something that is quicker than normal. Maybe some sprouted Ezekiel bread with avocado and seasoning spread on the top of it. Keeps me full till lunch time, but what happens when I do not have the avocado, I fry an egg. BOTH of which are too high in fat for me. Anyways, trying to get a grasp on anything that might help with my situation, I have tried to do what one of the people posted as a response here on this site. I try to make sure that I am never really hungry. So far, this has helped IMMENSELY with my stress level, which in turn helps me not crave comfort food, which in turn helps me eat better. I have researched more of the benifits of it and some of them can be found here.

http://fitmaniaboise.com/nutrition/337/


NOT THE BEST, but defiantly better. Now if I can just overcome my little devil on my left shoulder telling me "Capriotti's veggie cheese steak has no meat, and is quick. You can run errands AND eat tasty grilled mushrooms and onions with fake meat." Man that little devil is heavy.

The Next Step

Sorry for taking so long to get a post done, but there has been quite a bit of research to do, and it seems not that much time to do it. I thought I had until today, but when I went to look at the dates again, I saw that I had until.... well two days ago.

First off, I will continue to not eat meat. I have already, over the last three years, lost more than 75 pounds by cutting out the meat, dairy, chemically treated vegetables and grains, and most of all, fast food. All the research I have found so far cannot give ANY reason why eating meat is better for my body than say Nuts, Seeds, and Raw Vegetables. So if I have to make a choice of support those who treat animals like produce or eat a varied diet without meat, I choose no meat. Here is a sweet article that speaks volumes to why I will stay away from it.

http://shoutvegan.com/wordpress/2008/11/animal-protein-why-your-body-doesnt-want-it/

With that said, I will be starting next Monday with a Juice Fast / Colon Cleanse. I have done this before, but I will be doing it a little different this time. I will have MSM water with lemon first thing in the morning to get my energy going, then a Green Juice for breakfast, a Green Juice for lunch, and then have a small dinner with my family. I will also drink fruit juice throughout the day as needed. Again, all, ALL juice will be made by me. No store bought juice. All my produce or at least 90% of it will be organic. I will continue this until I get below 360lbs, or 14 days, whichever comes first, and then take a look at how I am doing, and see if I need to make changes.  Wish me luck, and feel free to tell me whatcha think. Just try to be nice. I know people hate it when others run down thier meat, and that is not what I am trying to do. Just wanna get healthy and this is the way I chose to do it. :)

  

Here will be my initial Green Juice recipe:
1 English Cucumber
10 Carrots
1 Head of Celery
2 Apples
1 bunch of Spinach
(Makes 2 Quarts)

Here is my initial Fruit Juice recipe:
4 Oranges
2 Grapefruits
2 Lemons
(Makes about 1 and a half Quarts)

The First of Many

So here we go. This blog is for my class at CSN and will be mostly about my weight loss and researching different types of diets and exercise programs. I have been on diets since I was 11 and have been fat my whole life. Not chubby, not hefty, FAT! I weight 385 lbs. Yep! As Gabriel Iglesias  would say, DAAAAAAMN! So I decided I would use this blog to track my progress through this semester of school and also use it to post research that I find out while I am on this journey to self awareness and enlightenment. Pretty deep huh. ;)