750 word book review: Socialnomics by Erik Qualman
07 September 2009 | blog,Book Reviews | Comments Off
I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth and forgot the Deep Listening project walkthrough. I did what I do from time to time and got absorbed in work and a book. Given that I couldn’t leverage my Immersive Reading (posts on that will be coming soon) it took me more than a few hours to read the book I’ll be reviewing in this post, which if you haven’t guessed by now is Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. So here’s 750 or less words on what my thoughts were:
Erik Qualman (@equalman) writes what I feel is one of the most approachable primers on the social media realm. Fortunately for me I hadn’t come across Erik’s blog or really any content of his before the promotional video he did on YouTube (http://bit.ly/17wfby) so I came into this with little expectations for the book. Fortunately he proved he has a serious feel for social media early on and how much it stands to change not only the business to consumer interaction but how consumer behavior would change.
The book opens with some very interesting stats on the growth and importance of social media and how interruption marketing is quickly being seen as irrelevant and inconsistent with the generation that has literally grown up on the net. While a lot of his thoughts on interruption marketing echo those of Dave Evans in the Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day book he presents the material in a much more concise manner that any one from the CEO who’s thinking about running into the social media space or my family members who have no idea what Social Media is or why I have a job “playing on Twitter and Facebook” can grok. By the end of this first section you, as the reader, should feel the weight of the importance that SM will soon have.
The following chapters read a lot like a much more interesting version of business case studies that I had in my master’s program. Topics range from President Obama’s social media strategy to that of companies like Coca-cola, JetBlue, Comcast and many other household recognized companies. He very intelligently highlights some of the smart moves these companies made in this space while also pointing out some key failures that other household names have made. All in all, you get a very good feel for some of the business implications that social media has.
One area that was touched out through out this section of the book was the idea that as a marketer you must go to where people naturally congregate instead of building redundant and often inadequate tools and platforms. I couldn’t agree more and have advised both companies I’ve consulted for and currently work with about this. He’s preaching to the choir on this one and I will throw a voice confirming his message.
The book at around the midway point takes an interesting shift that I haven’t seen in many other books about the tools in this space; he talks about how these tools are actively changing individuals’ behavior patterns beyond simply seeking opinions regarding products. While I can’t help but see some very obvious and clear parallels in Qualman’s writings from those blog posts and keynotes given by Gary Vaynerchuk it doesn’t make the point any less valid. Vaynerchuk states that everything we do will be on the internet forever and that we need to act accordingly. The idea is extremely valid and hopefully this builds to the better society that both authors suggest. Qualman’s thoughts and information on how social networking is changing the role of a corporate recruiter is also very interesting in light of my own recently ended job search.
I don’t mean to paint a picture here that this book is completely amazing, it definitely has it’s flaws. Some of the examples I feel are misplaced or omit relevant information which can leave the reader thinking that some companies simply “get” social media and understand how to seize opportunities (Stride, Coca-Cola come right to mind). It would be more meaningful in my eyes to point out how earlier attempts in the space had mixed results or were complete failures and that through repetition and experimentation they were able to find huge victories. Qualman also goes into a few overly elaborate similies (shepherds in particular) that an editor should have nixed. Finally the chapters tend to be longer than I like when I can’t do the Immersive Reading bit meaning that I regularly had to find more than 30 minutes to read through them.
Overall though I think this book is incredibly approachable and if you’re looking for a quick read that can give you a feel as to how to begin to dissect a company’s social media tactics so you can see the larger strategy this book can definitely help you get started “seeing the matrix.”