(This post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure.)

Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World is a fabulous tool for anyone who is in business or social media.  (And really, can you be in business without being in social media these days?)

It’s aptly called “a step-by-step guide for anyone with something to say or sell”.  The first section, on creating a wow effect, is great perspective for every company and business.  Then it gets a bit more personal, with branding tools, professional headshots, and elevator pitches.

Part three is full of great info for bloggers: writing posts faster, protecting your intellectual content, the importance of good landing pages, even creating video interviews.  Then Michael Hyatt delves into the nitty gritty of social media and expanding your reach, with a big emphasis on Twitter (7 chapters on Twitter, 1 on a Facebook page) in part four.  The final section on engaging your tribe wraps things up, with everything from how to deal with rude commenters to monitoring and defending your brand and a final chapter on monetizing your blog.

I suppose it’s expected that a book on social media read like a collection of blog posts—and the format works well for Platform, because you can read the applicable chapters and skip the rest without feeling like you’ve missed something.  But I still couldn’t help feeling that there was some repetition and some holes that mightn’t have been there in a book that started out as a book, not blog posts.

That being said, >Platform is a resource I highly recommend to anyone who’s working on a product or brand, or starting out in business social media.  Combined with Twitter for Good—which is a fabulous resource for organizations on Twitter—Platform will be indispensable for every business and organization.  My Kindle clippings are full of highlights from Platform—so many pithy, quotable tidbits about social media, marketing, and Twitter:

However, for those who are just beginning to write, >Platform might be a bit overwhelming.  It’s written by a man who knows the publishing and social media world well, but he started blogging when he was CEO of Thomas Nelson—and I can’t help but think that did lend a bit of help to the phenomenal growth of his “platform”.

So for my beginning writer friends, I’m still recommending You Are A Writer and the companion Writer’s Manifesto.  Jeff Goins wasn’t a name anyone knew a few years ago—he truly started from the ground up in building his platform.  And he put the emphasis on the writing—which is where every writer needs to put their time and energy.

When you’re looking for more in depth info about building your brand and promoting your speaking and writing—not to mention finding out how the pros use Twitter—then it’s time to pick up >Platform.

But don’t get so overwhelmed by building your platform, so distracted by expanding your reach, that you forget the most important part: writing. 

And of course, Michael Hyatt agrees: