The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

What is the impact equation? No worries, you won’t have to be good in math to understand it. Instead, this book is a reflection of the concepts that shape today’s social media-focused values. I have to admit that one statement in the first chapter really hooked me: “If you’re in a small town in central Louisiana, your needs will be different from those of someone in New York City.” I was “that guy” in a small town in central Louisiana when I discovered my digital heritage legs. I’ve now lived in Philadelphia and Miami, and can say the principles described in this book review will be applicable to any time and place or stage of learning. It provides insight on establishing your platform, and then demonstrating the bravery to be different, even as you attract an audience. The book is full of simple, yet profound, truths. A philosophical complement to Kawasali’s “Art of Social Media.”

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Archive note — September 2026: The original standalone review body on this page had disappeared from the live WordPress post after an earlier site migration. The review text was recovered from a later archived Voices of the Past book-review roundup in which this same review appeared. Because that later roundup is the surviving source, this restoration preserves the recovered review text without claiming it is a byte-for-byte copy of the original standalone post.