“You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.”
—Damon Runyon

I don’t often do book reviews here. Which is odd, I suppose. If you saw my office, one of the first things you’d be struck by is the fact that my feng isn’t even close to my shui due to the fact that the overall number of books threatens the very integrity of the structure in which I work. Sometimes I think one more book will give me an experience like Tom Hanks had when he and Shelly Long added a little more water to the bathtub in The Money Pit: The whole deal will go crashing through the floor.

But when I received an email back in August offering me a free copy of Eric Harr’s “The Real Truth About Social Media: 8 Timeless Truths Revealed and 8 Monumental Myths Uncovered,” I couldn’t resist. A free book. About, as the email described, “the best way to go about a social media campaign … [it’s] filled with the latest research, actionable insights, case studies, valuable templates and simple tips.”

Why wouldn’t I risk a Money Pit moment and add the book to my collection? After all, I’ve been doing this social media thing for a long time, so it seemed like a good opportunity to measure my own insights, case studies, tips and tricks against the author’s own. Besides, at the time I was in the midst of developing a presentation called “Dissecting Social Media: Tools, Tips and Truths No One Else Wants To Tell You,” so clearly there was some interesting mojo in the air that couldn’t be ignored.

Next thing I know, it’s three months later and the publicist who sent me my free book, bless her heart, has emailed me so many times to see if I need anything else to assist in my review, my Jewtheran guilt is becoming unbearable. The problem, though, is I haven’t read 100% of the book all the way through (hardly ever a prerequisite for reviewing a book, of course). However, I have picked it up often and read significant chunks of it here and there and now and again.

So while part of me wants to just hold off and go back and read the whole thing start to finish, another part of me says, “oh, just get it over with, already.” Which I’m doing, and which I suppose makes sense, because this isn’t the type of book you have to read from start to finish all the way through (though at just under 120 pages that’s not a difficult proposition, either). You can open to any page and spend a few minutes reading it during lunch and pick up some pithy truth about social media that’s bound to serve you well at some point in the months ahead.

The problem, though, is that for those of us who live and work online, these pithy truths are all around us. Which is not to say that it’s a bad thing to get back to basics and be reminded about those truths. As we all scramble to make a buck, can it really be said too often that social media isn’t about media, it’s about relationships? Probably not.

Another problem is that any book about social media is necessarily dated by the time it hits print. For example, Harr notes that “Facebook is fast approaching 800 million users.” Fast isn’t fast enough: That number is already in the rear-view mirror, with a billion users the expected milestone in 2012.

Probably the biggest challenge for anyone writing a book about social media is to decide on the answers to two fundamental questions: Who is the audience for the book? How much knowledge about social media should the author assume the typical audience member has?

Harr has written a book that is great for the C-suite executive who has read his or her share of articles about social media in general and wants to dig deeper into what makes social media tick. Where the book shines brightest is where he discusses the major social media platforms and distinguishes the shiny objects (a “like” on Facebook or a follower on Twitter or a view on YouTube) from the metrics that matter–and provides ways to measure those metrics along with actionable insights.

Anyone who has had to deal with someone who asks, “how come we don’t have more likes to our Facebook page?” should give a copy of this book to that someone with  these pages highlighted.

Probably the biggest criticism I could level against the book isn’t related to content, but to layout. The nature of the book lends itself to a better use of things like shaded panels, bold headings, indented paragraphs and so on that, if used far more thoughtfully than is in evidence here, could work much better with the content to make it all the more attractive and readable. There’s some use of these elements, but not much.

The real truth about The Real Truth… is that if you’ve been working in social media for any significant amount of time, much of the content will be familiar to you. However, if you have clients or coworkers (especially C-level bosses) who don’t know their Tumblr from their Flickr, you could do much, much worse than to give them this book as their introduction to what social media is and how is ought to be approached.

By the way, I’d like to add a footnote to the fourth “monumental myth,” that “there’s a sucker born every minute.” While P.T. Barnum doesn’t get named till the following chapter, my many years of working with many circuses compel me to note that Barnum himself never said “there’s a sucker born every minute.” (Here’s the actual story.)  Also, as an early signatory to The Cluetrain Manifesto, I vigorously applaud that the book (which is available to read in its entirety over here) is number one in the recommended reading appendix.

TBS will be broadcasting 24 hours of A Christmas Story once again this year. As you may or may not know, this greatest of all Christmas movies is narrated by and based on the short stories of Jean Shepherd, and represents only the tiniest fraction of Shep’s talent and life’s work. Among the many, many other things Shepherd produced was a PBS television series, “Jean Shepherd’s America.” Here’s a clip from that series. Pop a cold one and enjoy.

It’s that time of year once again.

No, I’m not talking about pepper-spraying shoppers or mall riots, though it’s certainly been the time of year for that. No, it’s time to make a bunch of media predictions for the coming year.

Social Media Explorer has detailed 5 social media trends to watch in 2012, but Harvard Business Review ups the ante with 6. Not to be outdone, Simply Zesty has 7, while Ragan’s PR Daily comes up with 8. Maybe everyone was afraid that Herman Cain has copyrighted the number 9, since I couldn’t find any “9 Trends To Expect” articles or posts, but Thirty Three Digital slam-dunks the rest of the pack with 10 social media trends for 2012.

Here’s one social media prediction you can bank on: Companies will want to do a lot more of it, even if they don’t quite understand yet what it is.

Seems that Lowe’s has become the latest case study in using social media as a damage control channel.

NPR presents an AP story on the backlash Lowe’s has been experiencing after pulling their ads from TLC’s All-American Muslim program. Reports AP:

The retail giant stopped advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” after a conservative group known as the Florida Family Association complained, saying the program was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

Over the weekend, Lowe’s posted the tweet you see in the screen grab above, and their Facebook statement reads, in part:

It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective – social, political and otherwise – and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy.

No kidding: Their Facebook statement has more than 12,000 comments as I post this, and a search on Twitter for #lowes turns up tons of comments like the following:

I guess nobody told Lowes that American Muslims have $100+ bil in spending power…whoops!

I don’t care if something is double the price at home depot ild rather get it there than ever go to #Lowes because #LowesHateMuslims

@Lowes, ignorant group of morons #FloridaFamilyAssociation threatens boycott and #Lowes caves into a #hate group ‘Shame on Lowe’s!

It will be interesting to track what Lowe’s does over the next few days. IMHO they would be smart to engage Twitter users via the #LowesHatesMuslims hashtag, but so far they haven’t. We’ll see.