When Stefan and I wrote the Swanepoel Social Media Report 2010: A Field Guide for Real Estate Professionals, one of the things we originally envisioned was to include tutorials for each of the social media platforms we mention in the book. Some of these were the usual suspects: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging. But, additional honorable mentions also include: twellow.com, hashtags, tagalus, hashtags.org, alerts, RSS and a slew of others.
Given all the number of tools, platforms and quick-start activities we mention in the book, we saw early on the potential there was for it to quickly turn into a heavy user's manual by including tutorials. We felt that if we indulged that itch, the details of "how to" would drown out the bigger picture for real estate professionals trying to wrap their heads around this medium. And, while we both still agree about the soundness of the direction we ended up taking, I think there's still a piece of us that wishes we could have fit those tutorials in somehow.
So, that's what got us thinking: why not use the medium of social media to extend the book into the virtual space? They make audiobooks to go with hardbacks and paperbacks, right? Why not a video book (vbook)?
So here we are. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the vbook project I'm working on to complement the text of our book. The idea is to make the complete vbook available for free (when it's completed next month) to all of you who purchased the hardcopy. In that sense, we hope it will complement the paperback with additional graphics, visual references and online sources while also supplementing it with many of the "how tos" that didn't make it on paper. We're toying with the idea of making it also downloadable, but the jury's still out on that.
Anyway, let me know what you think. Is it a bust before it starts? Dumb idea? The coolest thing since Swiffer? I'd really value your (constructive) feedback.
In the meantime, I'm on track now to get the complete vbook rolled out on MindBridj.com by the end of next month. I'll keep ya'll posted.
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