| Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust |  | Authors: Chris Brogan, Julien Smith
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
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Seller: piano_girl_112
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 64,255
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0470743085
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.872
EAN: 9780470743089
ASIN: 0470743085
Publication Date: September 11, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Are you a Trust Agent? October 13, 2009
Jaime Steele (UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have been following Chris Brogan on Twitter for over a year and I love his style and the information he imparts to the world. When I read his tweet that he was releasing his book Trust Agents (co-authored by Julien Smith) i was straight on to Amazon to order my copy.
Chris Brogan is ahead of the game, really at the forefront of social networking and using social media to grow influence. A Trust Agent is someone who spreads influence far and wide and someone who people look to for advice. You need to become a Trust Agent in your field of business. Chris shows us how to use the web and online tools to build our influence and spread it to a much wider audience. The traditional methods of promotion and advertising are losing their effective in the new world of web 2.0 - Trust Agents gives us the formula to succeed.
If you are reading this review you are probably already a bit of a Trust Agent. You probably "get it". Get what? That you can't go on shoving advertising down people's throats. You have to be more subtle - build trust, and once it's built keep it. That's real influence, that's being a Trust Agent.
Buy the book, have a read. You may already know and be using some of the advice in it but I can guarantee you that there's a lot of thought provoking material in it that you don't know. It's an easy read, it's not heavy and it's a great reminder of what is required to succeed in social networking. One of the problems people have is being consistent and having the patience to succeed. It takes a long time and dedication but it's good fun and opens doors. Reading this book will keep you right on track.
Areas to Focus on for Having Positive Online Influence December 12, 2009
Professor Donald Mitchell (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 96,000 Helpful Votes Globally)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
"Let him not trust in futile things, deceiving himself,
For futility will be his reward." -- Job 15:31
The online world spins out ever-increasing amounts of videos, images, words, and Web sites. There may be needles in the middle of all those haystacks, they are getting harder to find.
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith look at this circumstance from the perspective of someone trying to create or improve a business and pose the useful question: How can you become and remain the person who is trusted most in your area of expertise? From there, you follow an exciting journey through lots of good stories and little tips that clarify how you can operate more effectively in the online world.
Here are my paraphrases of some of the key principles:
1. Use continuing business model innovation to create ways to develop and share useful information in ways that delight people with their novelty, freshness, and value.
2. Be viewed as someone who is just like the audience, not someone with a hidden agenda, a lot of arrogance, or a phony.
3. Energize online communities by providing them with choices they like from a point of authenticity.
4. Build genuine, positive relationships by seeking to provide value for everyone you interact with.
5. Be considerate.
6. Assemble large numbers of people to work toward a common purpose while meeting their needs.
I was impressed that the authors appreciate that the way to do these things will continually change, but the principles will probably remain the same. It's a useful book from that perspective. Most people who write about the online world assume it will always be like it is today . . . and optimize on things that don't last.
My only disappointment is that they didn't address more about what those who write book reviews on Amazon.com should be doing to be more helpful to more people. There are millions of us who would like to know.
Be trustworthy!
 If you know Social Media, there's no need to buy this April 9, 2010
Scott Gould (Exeter, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chris and Julien wrote this, as they told me personally, to introduce people into the trust economy. If you're already doing a lot of Social Media, and reading blogs everyday, you know this stuff. Don't buy it.
But if you don't read blogs, and aren't in the Social Media world, then this book will provide a create introduction to one of the foundation concepts of the emerging social world, namely the idea of trust. With examples, a few models, plenty of calls to action, and even ways to engage with the book and the community, it's a great way to get started.
 Disappointed April 22, 2010
Steven C (Newcastle Upon Tyne)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've been reading Chris's Blog for a long time now. I was looking forward to read his book. I must say I feel a bit cheated.
Let's be fair, if you lived in cave for the last few years and never used any social media (facebook, twitter etc...) then this book might come handy.
I try to review books one or two months after reading them, just to see there was important things to learn. Unfortunetaley I can't remember anything good about this book. It's been very well marketed, during the launch you couldn't miss it.
The book has no structure whatsoever, it's hard to read and never know where the book is heading. You really see it's been written by two different people, the tone is confusing, there is no style.
It also feels like re-reading the same blog post all over the books but written differently. I've read a few books written by bloggers (Crush it, Escape Cubicle Nation, Power of Less, 4 hours week, Seth Godin, Tom Peters etc...) and have always been impressed by them, you can't write a book like a blog (and vice versa), you have to construct the argument, build it and give more details than just giving some general feelings on how you should use social media.
Overall I would say that social media is just using common sense, don't spam people and create useful content. I think Chris is losing it, I can see he's struggling to renew his topics on the blog, by writing this book he totally lost me.
Remember, social media is a tool, if you haven't got anything interesting to say it's not gonna help you.
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