I appreciate what you say about reputation being about how others see you and brand being about what we want others to see, that's why I think it would be a good thing if we could work on bringing these two more into line..

Business dealings are greatly improved when people base their brand on their reputation because they are far more careful about how they represent themselves. It's a slower but ultimately far more effective way of promoting yourself.

Shouldn't we be aiming to create a business environment where what we want others to see = how they see us? It's possible to achieve this if people live up to the brand they are creating for themselves and refrain from over exaggerating or over inflating their advertising…

Thanks so much for your comment. For me brand and reputation are different sides of the same coin.

But reputation is how others see you while brand is what we want others to see. Therefore, reputation is key and unless I can trust somebody's judgment, verdict or opinion, statements made to endorse a product or service are difficult to judge.

I appreciate your comment – you can read more comments about this blog post here:

http://commetrics.com/articles/following-best-p...

Debs, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

“A lot of marketing is about how easy and effortless the solution is, if you take this silver bullet – Insert what ever is being pushed here. This taps into people wanting to get something for nothing or very little. Truth is that very little is gained through little effort.”

Especially the latter part about little being gained by doing little is right on the money. Even with the pull strategy (or pull readers to your website/blog Twitter account), without good content and comments of the calibre you write, a blog (or Twitter account) has little to offer to its target audience. Hence, without content one will never ever draw in the masses. Creating good content that pulls people requires that we invest time.

Alls I find the following point you make quite enlightening – to me for sure:

“For those of us who are not in the “club”, it is extremely important that we support and recommend people, products or such like, where we can really vouch for them, product and delivery. Any backlash can leave some mud on the referee or supporter.”

Again, this refers to your personal reputation and if I trust your assessment. It is easier to trust people one knows better and have a reputation of calling a spade a spade.
This requires that we know people which again is based on time having exchanged e-mails, comments or shared ideas in groups on social networks like LinkedIn or Xing. The easiest but sometimes more difficult way in a global world is doing it face-to-face:

http://commetrics.com/articles/twitter-wake-up-...

If I trust a person's review or assessment of products and services this person's work can help me a great deal when making a purchase or other kinds of decisions at work and elsewhere.
I conclude from your insights that we need to develop our trusted group of people in cyberspace as well as off-line whom we trust.
In turn, we can all benefit from each other's wisdom and honesty. Surely enriches our lives as well I would say.

Karen, thanks so much for taking the time to write this very interesting comment.

There’s a mass marketing effort where endorsements help the lesser known to become better known.

A lot of marketing is about how easy and effortless the solution is, if you take this silver bullet – Insert what ever is being pushed here. This taps into people wanting to get something for nothing or very little. Truth is that very little is gained through little effort.

I see this is part of a game played by people who are in that “club”. And, would I play the game too? If I was there – possibly. Providing the [silver bullet] offered value because it raises my credibility while it raises the credibility of the [silver bullet].

The fact that you have written a blog post about it, people have commented and we are discussing it here has meant that the book and endorsements have possibly reached people who it might not have done otherwise.

But the book/silver bullet has to stand on its own merits. Some people will love it while others won’t. The people who love it may go on and buy other products from the author or not depending upon who else is serving them at the same time.

Personal branding and building a reputation is very important and, increasingly so.

Do I believe the list of testimonials on websites? No. For the simple reason is that I have googled the names of people endorsing and their websites to find that they do not come up in the listings. I do take more heed of testimonials where it can only have come from the person eg Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook to name three.

For those of us who are not in the “club”, it is extremely important that we support and recommend people, products or such like, where we can really vouch for them, product and delivery. Any backlash can leave some mud on the referee or supporter.

So, while recommending others becomes more difficult. The flip side is that people are able to demonstrate their own worth, depth and values through the content they post. And, this is coupled with endorsements helps with raising credibility and positioning within the market.

This brings me back to employing a pull strategy rather than push.

thanks for your comment. I think I probably failed to make my point clearer. Your comment got me thinking but it did not mean it started me to distrust you as a commenter.

Instead I began to reflect on the hype issue and if I had not done it myself. And yes, starting a discussion on LinkedIn is surely to get people to comment and if they leave interesting comments I love to also have them on the blog, of course.

I still believe that comments is what adds the color (see your comment ) as well as different views and important insights to a blog post.

I have a learned a great deal from these comments and the differences between marketing, public relations and social media marketing including hyping things up to gain attention.

Thanks and have a great day.

So dear your actions have made me cautious of where i will post. So just defining your choice of words because there was nothing wrong with my comment.

Elishia Windfohr

Thanks for this comment. Okay so we all have been guilty one time or another being part of the hype exercise.

Nevertheless, I do wonder whom am I to trust …. if a person's reputation should represent what he or she stands for, these quotes surely are not reflective of that, are they.

For me, social media marketing has not clarified this issue so far. In fact, it may have made it worse.

To illustrate, besides the people living on the alp next to ours whom I know very well and can trust, I now also have to figure out whom I can trust in cyberspace – globalization…. (e.g., different language, culture, values, etc.).

Your comment just made me more cautious.

Elishia, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing your insights in the comment above.

Thanks so much for this comment. I find your voicemail example quite interesting… But it also shows that what you point out about Chris Brogan might be very correct. Nevertheless,

1) making a comparison between two people's level of intelligence is one thing, and
2) making this relate to the book's content is a totally different matter.

So I am still left a bit puzzled and wondering if I can continue trusting what this people tout into cyberspace. Based on the above examples, I doubt it.

Thanks for sharing.

Much of this sort of talk reminds me of similar discussions eons ago when voicemail came out. There was much ado about whether it was a new vehicle for sales, how the business model would be defined, whether or not one could make money using voicemail, and what the cost/benefit ratio was to justify it.

In the rear-view mirror,it's obvious. Voicemail is plumbing. The “business model” is simple–it's an expense for the buyer, a software service for a provider. Period.

The example is an interesting one. If I see a book with blurbs from both Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan, that tells me–me, personally–a lot. I know that Kawasaki easily lends his name, and is given to puffery, as someone noted. No problem, I know the Guy-code; it's useful information to me, and most useful of all is the fact that he blurbed it. I think I understand what he blurbs and what he doesn't, and I understand what he means when he says what he says.

Even more useful is Brogan; I do know him, I've spoken on platform with him, and I follow him closely. His choice to blurb I view as quite different, more meaningful in its particular: I think he is more careful about who he blurbs, and about what he says. I could be wrong, but those are the opinions and perceptions I bring. It is all useful to me. Both I find useful information.

There is nothing particularly relevant about the fact that those recommendations came through social media. As Brogan consistently tries to point out, this is not new wine–this is old wine, wrapped in new bottles.

Charles H. Green
Trusted Advisor Associates
(author Trust-based Selling, co-author The Trusted Advisor)

We live in a world of vague statements so ridiculous and outrageous that most consumers really don’t take them seriously. The American dream is a home in a great neighborhood and a nice name brand car, People like status and status is usually hype. A few car companies Benz; Bmw, Porsche quote “successful people drive our vehicles”. But they can’t prove there the ultimate driving machines. A good friend who’s a famous producer of rap videos said to me. If sparkling ciders was more a bottle then crystal then all the rap videos would be pimping sparkling cider.

And usually a plaintiff or defendent, would have to prove that the consumer was misled in their decision to purchase. Meaning if the consumer knew the facts of the hype they wouldn’t purchase. So how can you prove misrepresentation of hype? Most can’t prove this evidence, but it does not mean that this evidence does not exist. Because the consumer in the end is the evidence. People need to stop buying into the Hype! But please call me if you got shipwrecked heidsieck 1907 I’ll buy what your selling. lol

Elishia Windfohr

Your original post raises a couple of issues:

(1) Dust jacket blurbs and quotes from movie reviews reproduced in ads are notorious for laudatory language and puffery, which is why no one pays attention to them. [Of course, Sony still managed to get in trouble a couple of years ago for inserting fake movie reviews in an advertisement.]

[If I want a more realistic assessment of a book, I typically read the longer reviews on Amazon, the Reading List on Amazon reviews here on LinkedIn, or Nil's Book Fanatics group.]

(2) The quotes that you identify in your original post fall into the category of statements that American law refers to as “puffery.”

Puffery is a defense to fraud in the US. A fraudulent statement is false statement regarding a factual condition intended to induce the hearer to take some action to the hearer's detriment (typically enter into a contract for a purchase of goods or services). In contrast, puffery are statements that the hearer could not reasonably have believed to be true. “This car runs like a dream” is an example of puffery.

A person reading the Zarella book is intelligent enough to know that Kawasaki's statement that “reading this book is the equivalent of month of Internet research” is not true and is intended as hyperbole.

(3) I think part of this issue may be cultural. In the U.S., there is an emphasis on “authenticity” in social media. In part this means being yourself, even if your real self is something of a joker.

For example, if I wrote review for a book it might go like this:

“Stories of a New Jersey Boyhood” is an exceptional and poignant tale of the authors's Garden State childhood, proving once again truth of the Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”

***

But to go back to your original question, it sounds to me like the three people you singled out were doing favors for a friend/acquaintance and providing blurbs for the book. While it is possible that someone who hangs on Guy Kawasaki's every word could be disappointed in the Zarrella book, I can't see these blurbs making a difference in a person's opinion of Kawaski unless the Zarrella book is unreadable dreck.

Your original post raises a couple of issues:

(1) Dust jacket blurbs and quotes from movie reviews reproduced in ads are notorious for laudatory language and puffery, which is why no one pays attention to them. [Of course, Sony still managed to get in trouble a couple of years ago for inserting fake movie reviews in an advertisement.]

[If I want a more realistic assessment of a book, I typically read the longer reviews on Amazon, the Reading List on Amazon reviews here on LinkedIn, or Nil's Book Fanatics group.]

(2) The quotes that you identify in your original post fall into the category of statements that American law refers to as “puffery.”

Puffery is a defense to fraud in the US. A fraudulent statement is false statement regarding a factual condition intended to induce the hearer to take some action to the hearer's detriment (typically enter into a contract for a purchase of goods or services). In contrast, puffery are statements that the hearer could not reasonably have believed to be true. “This car runs like a dream” is an example of puffery.

A person reading the Zarella book is intelligent enough to know that Kawasaki's statement that “reading this book is the equivalent of month of Internet research” is not true and is intended as hyperbole.

(3) I think part of this issue may be cultural. In the U.S., there is an emphasis on “authenticity” in social media. In part this means being yourself, even if your real self is something of a joker.

For example, if I wrote review for a book it might go like this:

“Stories of a New Jersey Boyhood” is an exceptional and poignant tale of the authors's Garden State childhood, proving once again truth of the Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”

***

But to go back to your original question, it sounds to me like the three people you singled out were doing favors for a friend/acquaintance and providing blurbs for the book. While it is possible that someone who hangs on Guy Kawasaki's every word could be disappointed in the Zarrella book, I can't see these blurbs making a difference in a person's opinion of Kawaski unless the Zarrella book is unreadable dreck.

In my blog post I was trying to refer to the fact that people provide what the FTC calls 'endorsements' but I am not sure if I can trust them. If personal brand matters I should be able to trust a person that says something is wonderful or fails the acid test. Put different, if she says the book is good I would like to believe that she really means this. In turn, I go out purchase the product and will hopefully also enjoy reading it.

There is no question that the people providing the testimonials I referred to in my post above are real people. In fact they, are all social media gurus I read and admire for their insightful work they do. I am certain you know them as well.

Nevertheless, this still leaves the question open if I can trust such statements and if it does not damage their personal brands.

If product endorsements or quotes for product reviews are meaningless (e.g., Dan Zarrella is smart than Brad Pitt, okay but what does this have to do with the book), what usefulness do personal brands have for people like us.
And if stupid remarks do not have consequences (e.g., being unethical and breaking the law got Martha Stewart in jail but her business is doing better than ever now), who cares about the concept of personal brand

Maybe those those pushing their workshops or books on the subject?

What you think?. Karen, thanks for sharing.