Books

Your company's customers are talking about your brand right now on Myspace, Facebook and other blogs, forums and chat rooms in ways that you haven't approved. You can bet that conversations with your customer service representatives and your customers will find their way on Youtube and so will any other form of advertising and promotion you do in reference to your products, services and even the corporate values that you promote. The very values that associate your company with it's brand. The CEO or president of your company is going to some day get wind of what is happening and ask for help from you and your colleagues to find a way to tone down this surge of people speaking their minds. It will come like a hurricane from a thousand sources and wash over a traditional business. Like any storm it cannot be stopped in one section to save another. It cannot be stopped at all. This is the movement that these clever and informative authors call the Groundswell. They say that “while you can't stop it, you can understand it. You can not only live with it; you can thrive in it. No business or industry, product or service, large or small can afford to not begin today to create the strategy and approach needed to begin to find ways to be involved in this movement.

I had the opportunity to listen and speak with David Meerman Scott through a private telephone session he hosted for Duct Tape Marketing Coaches on the New Rules of Marketing and PR. Below, are some key points that may give you a fresh perspective on how to enhance your credibility online.

1. The old ways to get noticed were to buy expensive advertising and beg the media to write about you and your products. The best way to get noticed today is to publish great content online.

2. Don't talk about what your products and services do. Instead talk about how you solve problems for your customers.

3. Be enthusiastic and have fun. People want to do business with people they like.

4. Don't rely on spamming the media with your press releases and PR pitches.

5. Use press releases to reach buyers directly.

6. Comment on blogs, forums and chat rooms (but don't talk about your products and services).

7. Read the popular books in your market and write a review on Amazon. Use your real name and affiliation.

8. Shoot a short video and put it up onto YouTube

9. Know what search terms people are using to find products and services like yours and create content that search engines will reward with high search engine rankings.

10. Don't be egotistical. Nobody cares about you and your products. Your buyers care about themselves and solving their problems.

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About the Author

Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success. Cidnee is also a sought after speaker, writer and blogger on marketing topics that affect small businesses and B2B service based operations.

Feel free to use this article as long as you include the following: by Cidnee Stephen of Strategies for Success http://www.strategiesforsuccess.ca

This book, with the full title of “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” is a must read for anyone trying to figure out how to benefit from the social networking phenomenon. There is only one major negative aspect of this book: It wasn't written 3 years ago . Shame on you Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff! (joking of course!)

This book is perfect for anyone who doesn't understand 'social media'…and for those that think they do! It provides case-based examples of how organizations have used social media to engage their users. The examples provided in the book are quite good and describe how organizations have used social media to embrace their community.

Before you go out and buy the book on my recommendation, let me point out a couple of important points:

This book does not tell you how to implement a social network. This book will not solve your social media problems. It will help you with understanding your problems and give you some ideas for solutions.

What this book will do is help you understand that there isn't any one answer to the question of 'how to embrace social media”. The book provides many examples of social media experiments…some successful and some failures.

The book provides a ton of information about demographics and age group differences and how age normally affects social media usage. Excellent information that everyone should review.

For me, the most interesting section of the book is the one in which the authors state very clearly that any social media project (or really any project for that matter) can be made more successful if the following four steps are followed:

First, look at your People. Second, Set at your Objectives. Third, Review your Strategy. Fourth, look at Technology.
This approach, which the authors abbreviated as POST, is no different than any proper strategic planning initiative…at least in my book. When any organization starts to look at new things like social media, they must first look at their people and their customers. Is this new strategy something that can be achieved easily? Is it viable?

The second step is to Set your Objectives for the project. What are you trying to achieve with this social media project (or any project)? The third step is to review your overall strategy as well as determine your 'go to market' strategy. The last step (which most organizations perform first), is to select the technology platform that you will use to carry out your strategy. I can't count how many times I've seen this process performed backwards with technology selected before any real thought was put into the strategy, objectives and people. Many of those projects failed miserably because of that.

The book is well reviewed…and is well deserving of those reviews. Its an excellent book for anyone interested in this topic. Highly recommended.