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Book Cover Art

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Brief History of the Project

In July 2008, my computer desktop was littered with downloads. My monitor was framed in Post Its. And my document section bulged with swiped internet pages.

All this information concerned marketing to the social web. I gathered information on blogs, social sites, video, audio, widgets, podcasts, webinars-you name it as well as free and low cost software options to run it all.

Of course, I wasted time trying to access the information, so to make it useful I compiled it all in a single document. That still wasn't particularly helpful-even though my work surroundings improved.

By September, I realized I had a worthwhile reference-but it needed live links to get to the precise information I wanted. I kept adding and deleting material and in October I stopped. At that point I was determined to find a programmer to assemble it.

The Cover Art

When I realized I was constructing a useful reference book, I started looking for cover art. I found a gorgeous picture of a spider web that was free for the taking from Flickr. The photograph had been taken by a Texas school teacher.

I was mesmerized by the light refraction on the beads of dew on the web. I thought it was visual metaphor for the glistening opportunities that catch our attention daily on the World Wide Web.

Also, everywhere I look these days I see tag clouds. I made my own in Picasa 3, Google's free picture and video manager. The words and extensions that I applied to the original photograph are all found in social network marketing.

The Complaint

I circulated the book cover among friends and associates. Everyone complained: Why didn't you make the title stand out?

Well, frankly, it is another metaphor-one that I feel internet marketers can appreciate.

Call it information overload. Call it distraction. I call it the rabbit hole.

For example, you are checking your email for opt-ins. You find a boatload of offers to teach you how to create your own video; or how to get the most out of public social sites. You take the link and perhaps are persuaded to take a closer look later.

Or maybe you have a news aggregator as I do. Google Reader aggregates loads of information for me about the latest mash-ups, membership sites and consumer research. Some of it is pertinent to my particular customer base.

You do want to "try it out" but not today, so you may store the information and hope to get back to it. If the copy is really compelling, you might just take a deeper look into the recommendation. Before long your mind is racing in a new direction and that "to-do" list remains undone.

That's what I mean by the "rabbit hole."

So I let my title Social Network Marketing melt into the attention grabbers just to show how easy it is to get diverted from your immediate goals.

What do you think?

New Guestbook

  • socialmediamaven Apr 1, 2009 @ 9:28 am | delete
    I checked out your book and loved the concept. I went ahead and bought it and found it as helpful as you have indicated in your posts. Thanks for the all in one reference, I can now get rid of all my stickies too!
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by

pegarrett

I'm 63, still married to the man I met in high school. We have two adult children.
Prior to March 2008, I was retired. Then something happened which... more »

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