This book can be purchased at: http://www.amazon.ca/Socialnomics-Social-Media-Transforms-Business/dp/1118232658
I find that it is always a good idea to have more than one book on the go. When one book starts to drag, you can switch to the other one to keep things fresh. This is the first look at a book by Erik Qualman called Socialnomics.
In the introduction, Erik notes that the 1992 phrase that brought Bill Clinton to power “It’s the economy stupid”, needs to be updated to “It’s a people driven economy stupid.”
Here he is basically foreshadowing the topics that follow by referring to how the world has changed with the introduction of social media. There are a number of web and mobile applications that have embraced this concept and have become wildly popular as a result.
Word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing tool in that personal references from people we trust, generally result in sales. Reference sales also produce the highest return as they cost the least to secure. In the old days the math equation that described word of mouth was one where a person recommends a product to a friend. That person tells two friends and so it goes. (n= 1 + 2 + 4 + 16)
What has changed is the size of our network of friends and colleagues. Things like Facebook, Google hangouts, and LinkedIn allow us to stay in touch with more people than we used to be able to. This has changed the model in that I tell a friend and they tell 500+ friends on LinkedIn. (n= 1 + 500 + 250,000)
Both equations are exponential, but the exponent has changed from 2 to 500.
We have seen the impact of social media as it brings new things to life through mechanisms like crowd sourcing. We have also seen the shift of advertising from TV commercials to imbedded product placements.
While I was typing this I received an email from a company called Lifesize asking me if I wanted to know why Skype doesn’t work for business communications. People like these are in denial, because Skype does work for business communication and it is being used more every day.
The bottom line here is that we have to use all of the tools at our disposal to get our message out there. The tools are changing and the people are the ones in the driver’s seat. As businesses the choice is clear.
Adapt or die…
This book is about how to adapt. Stay tuned for more insights…