Not Crushed by Vaynerchuk’s “Crush It”

Gary Vaynerchuk has emerged as a social media superstar and, in the process, become a popular video-blogger, speaker, social media consultant and author, who snapped up a 10-book contract from Harper Collins.

Vaynerchuk’s first book – actually a novella at 142 pages – is Crush It!. While I admire Vaynerchuk’s energy and passion, Crush It! is, frankly, underwhelming.

It’s not oozing with new or compelling insight or ideas. Crush It!’s biggest shortcoming is its simplistic thesis – the Web is a huge opportunity, and that anyone who has passion, works really hard and generates lots of great content can be successful. It also helps if you spend nearly all your waking hours on the Web. If it was only that easy!

Crush It! strikes me as a pep talk/keynote as opposed to something that offers in-depth perspective or insight.

That said, Crush It! is probably aimed at the mainstream market as opposed to people already immersed in the Web and social media. In addition to the enthusiastic tone, it provides basic information about the tools and how to use them, which is helpful if you’re not particularly Web savvy but, nevertheless, interested in the Web.

Vaynerchuk has lofty ambitions (his ultimate goal is being able to purchase his beloved and playoff-bound New York Jets) so Crush It! could be a good vehicle to move him into the mainstream. For its part, Harper Collins is clearly counting on Vaynerchuk’s popularity and the fact he’s becoming a leading figure in the wine industry – a product that mainstream consumers can easily relate to – to sell a lot of books.

One final thought about Crush It! is how it’s just one of many, many social media books on the market. I’ve got at least six books on my desk from Mitch Joel, Dan Zarella, Darren Barefoot and Dharmsh Shah. Unless you’ve written a book that really does crush it, attracting readers is going to be a huge challenge.