Why you need to read Platform: Getting Noticed In A Noisy World

Book Title          Platform

Book Author       Michael Hyatt

Publisher            Thomas Nelson

Pub. Year           May 22, 2012

Pages                268

Genre                Non-fiction

My Rating          ♥♥♥♥♥

Ease of Read      easy to read, but a lot of information

ISBN                978-1595555038

I was attracted to this book because...

    I follow Michael's blog and find him trustworthy. Having done a great job of building his own platform, I knew he would have valuable content to share. I pre-ordered the hardcopy book, but I also bought an electronic copy to start reading it as soon as I could. I finished the initial reading before the hard copy book arrived. 

This book was about

   Platform covers most of the major elements which comprise today's platform in a straight forward, here is how you do it manner. These elements cover content, goals, brands, media, website, blogging, subscribers, marketing, twitter and tribes. While every suggestion is understandable, the overwhelming amount of information can be paralyzing.

Things I liked about this book

   Michael is transparent about his success in all areas of his life. A lot of the content comes from Michael's blog, so I was comfortable with the writing. Michael shares his recommendations of books, software, hardware and processes that have worked for him, I find that very valuable.

   I quickly read through my kindle version, when the hardcopy arrived. I spent the rest of the summer reading, highlighting and creating checklists of the things I want to implement on my platform. If I had spent the same time studying my college text books, I would have those Greek letter on my degree.

   It will be a while before I’ve checked everything off my lists.

Why you should read this book

   If you have a message to share with others, you will want to read this book. With Michael's publishing background, it is easy to consider this material is for authors. The principles scale and will work for communicating to any type or size group.

  I've seen some criticism of the material coming from many of his blog entries. Even though this is true and I have a file folder of Michael's blogs, the ease of using the book, the table of contents and index are worth the cost.

  There has also been criticism of the lack of Facebook information. While Facebook is a viable part of the current platform, Facebook has such an organic composition that changes frequently, I would be leery of anyone who tried to documented Facebook techniques in a printed format.

This book lived up to the back cover copy

  This book fulfilled every promise included on the back cover. Michael Hyatt's following and platform gives the book great authority.


Michael Hyatt

Look for information on the Platform Conference, Nov 3-5, 2013 Dallas