The e-Factor: Entrepreneurship in the Social Media Age

Reinders and Freijsen, serial entrepreneurs and cofounders of the social networking site EFactor.com, distill their wisdom from before and after the advent of social media and networking to guide entrepreneurs in tackling the challenges of competition, tightened regulations, restricted resources, talent gaps, financial limitations, and more. Each chapter offers insights into these concerns and provides tools and strategies that guide action. However, depth is sometimes sacrificed to breadth. For instance, in the section on funding startups, the authors advocate knowing your own worth but don’t advise on how to accurately assess that worth. Where the authors excel are the chapters on social media and virtual networking. They detail various options, from Facebook and Twitter to Google+ and YouTube, as well as incorporating fresh, detailed case studies such as Missoni’s collaboration with Target and the movie series Paranormal Activity. They highlight the hits and the misses of social media campaigns, including the use of blogs, and helpfully show how to do damage control when outreach misses its mark. These chapters alone are worth the price of admission. The book is easy to navigate and dissect, and readers will appreciate its practical organization. Agent: Raoul Davis, Ascendant Group. (Nov.)