Presence sense and the social media age The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise? By Chris Brogan and Julien Smith Portfolio/Penguin $26.95/£14.99 The first step to becoming a social media expert is calling yourself a social media expert. It's often the only step. Accordingly, the web is crawling with spivs, charlatans and chancers willing to show you how to tweet your way to success and influence. The Impact Equation, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, is the latest book to emerge from this hit-and-miss oeuvre. Brogan and Smith are no social media charlatans or spivs, however. Brogan has about 225,000 followers on Twitter. Smith, meanwhile, has a much-coveted first-name-only Twitter handle, @julien. Their previous book on online influence, Trust Agents, was a New York Times bestseller, as the pair mention. ("You may have read it," they write in The Impact Equation. "A lot of people did.") If Trust Agents was "how to make noise on the web," then The Impact Equation is "how to get heard" - and not just on the web but in business and life. It does this through algebraic self-improvement. IN Business Books The eponymous equation is as follows: impact = C (REATE) or contrast x (reach + exposure + articulation + trust + echo). Over 257 pages of the large type and short chapters favoured by publishers aiming to make bookbuyers feel like quick readers, Brogan and Smith define these terms and explain their concept. In the process they are not afraid to say the unsayable and lay down a few home truths about life online: "There's a lot of information all over the internet about every possible subject." Some junk philosophy is thrown into the mix. Not just anyone can be a doctor from Harvard, because if they could, it would mean nothing. Rather like that sentence. Assaults on the English language are frequent. The authors use iPod as a verb and mention something called an "ideator," which I'm still trying to get my head around. Some sentences, however, are just weird. "You don't have to try to emulate human behaviours," they write on how to communicate clearly online. You have to actually be human, in every possible way. Paradoxically, their advice on the importance of being able to write to make a splash online is solid, even if their first point ("Learn to freaking spell") suggests a rather low estimation of their readers. The advice on taking criticism online - suck it up, don't let it grind you down and be polite - is one of the stronger sections, too. Although it takes a certain chutzpah to declare yourself an expert on something that barely existed 10 years ago, when it comes to building a brand online Brogan and Smith have been there and done that. They bear the scars of their mistakes. When Brogan experimented by posting less frequently on his blog, they confess, he went from five to seven in the Advertising Age Power 150. Is this earth shattering? No," they write, "but it means something to some people." The pair are also willing to share their successes. In a section on how to build "echo" - highlighting stuff you have in common with others - Brogan reveals how he built a connection with Bob Iger, Disney's chairman, during an interview. Iger asked Brogan if he had sailed around Searsport in Maine. By sheer fluke - Brogan had sailed only once in his life - he had. "Chris magically put his only sailing experience into play with Disney's top guy," write Brogan and Smith. Although the book is not about social media per se, The Impact Equation's most clear-headed advice is: "If there's a way for someone to say you're doing [social media] wrong, they will. There are a few ways that you can use Twitter that aren't ideal but, for the most part, you'll experiment and learn those for yourself. There is rarely any reason to pay someone £500 for a half-day seminar on installing Tweetdeck. The lasting impression Brogan and Smith give is of pathological self-confidence. There is little room for doubt in The Impact Equation and plenty of room for blagging, as the book's final two sentences attest: "Give this book to someone. It may help them a lot. Well, it might. No harm in trying.