In 2008, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff released the bestseller Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. The following year, they released a new book - Marketing in the Groundswell. This second book includes three core chapters from the original book that focus specifically on market research, marketing and spreading word-of-mouth among your best customers. I speculate that Li and Bernoff published this new book because they felt that due to the major downward shift in the economy and the fact that marketers have a new love of social technologies, the ideas in their original book were worth reinforcing.
Li and Bernoff define groundswell as a "social trend where people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations". The first chapter of the book focuses on listening to the groundswell. Through real life examples the authors hit home the point that people are talking about your brand and that they may not think it is what you think it is. Your brand is what people say about it, not necessarily what you want it to be. They talk about how important it is to listen to your customers so that you can hear what they are saying, and provides strategies for listening. Li and Bernoff end the chapter with a brief discussion on how listening will change your organization, but also highlight the need to be part of the conversation.
Talking with the groundswell is the topic of the second part of the book. In this chapter the authors give a concise explanation of how talking with the groundswell is very different from marketing. It's not about speaking 'to' your customers but about speaking 'with' them. In addition, they provide four techniques to help you talk to the groundswell: post a viral video; engage in social networks and user-generated content sites; join the blogosphere; and create a community. Again, they use case studies to demonstrate the power of these techniques.
The final chapter is on energizing the groundswell. By energizing, they mean getting supporters riled up and spreading the word. This is important because energized customers can be potent viral marketers for you. Word of mouth is successful, according to Li and Bernoff, because it's believable, self-reinforcing and self-spreading. Again the authors offer up some useful techniques and cases to show the value of energizing the groundswell.
Marketing in the Groundswell is a handy little book and a reasonably quick read. For someone like me who is fairly new to marketing in general and social media in particular, it's a useful tool to kick-start my thinking. Its size makes it convenient to carry around with you and the index makes it easy to quickly find topics and specific references.
On the whole, the book contains a thoughtful analysis of strategies for tapping into the groundswell. The techniques and accompanying detailed case studies clearly show how the ideas recommended have been implemented in the real world. And the examples come from a variety of industries showing that Li and Bernoff's ideas can be broadly applied. It is a great framework for starting or re-starting discussions between corporations and their customers using social media. In addition, there are some good tips for measuring the ROI of different strategies, with specific examples to demonstrate the measures.
I would recommend this book to anyone in a web marketing role, as well as those who are in more general marketing positions because social media is gaining strength and importance. It became clear to me, after reading this book, that it is an imperative for marketers to explore and harness the power of social media in their marketing efforts. And to listen to, talk to, and energize the groundswell.
A quick web search returns few reviews of this book -I imagine because of it's relatively recent entrance into the market. However, there are a plethora of reviews for the original Groundswell book that are overwhelmingly positive.
While the orginial book was touted as a must read by many marketing gurus and academics such as Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki, the smaller condensed version likely adds less value. If Groundswell is considered a primer, Marketing in the Groundswell might be considered the Coles Notes version - it has the basics, but probably misses much of the richness. However, if you don't have much time or inclination to get into too much detail, this book will do a decent job of bringing you up to speed. And it has wetted my appetite for more. I plan on reading the original book to get the 'full story' soon.
Li and Bernoff define groundswell as a "social trend where people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations". The first chapter of the book focuses on listening to the groundswell. Through real life examples the authors hit home the point that people are talking about your brand and that they may not think it is what you think it is. Your brand is what people say about it, not necessarily what you want it to be. They talk about how important it is to listen to your customers so that you can hear what they are saying, and provides strategies for listening. Li and Bernoff end the chapter with a brief discussion on how listening will change your organization, but also highlight the need to be part of the conversation.
Talking with the groundswell is the topic of the second part of the book. In this chapter the authors give a concise explanation of how talking with the groundswell is very different from marketing. It's not about speaking 'to' your customers but about speaking 'with' them. In addition, they provide four techniques to help you talk to the groundswell: post a viral video; engage in social networks and user-generated content sites; join the blogosphere; and create a community. Again, they use case studies to demonstrate the power of these techniques.
The final chapter is on energizing the groundswell. By energizing, they mean getting supporters riled up and spreading the word. This is important because energized customers can be potent viral marketers for you. Word of mouth is successful, according to Li and Bernoff, because it's believable, self-reinforcing and self-spreading. Again the authors offer up some useful techniques and cases to show the value of energizing the groundswell.
Marketing in the Groundswell is a handy little book and a reasonably quick read. For someone like me who is fairly new to marketing in general and social media in particular, it's a useful tool to kick-start my thinking. Its size makes it convenient to carry around with you and the index makes it easy to quickly find topics and specific references.
On the whole, the book contains a thoughtful analysis of strategies for tapping into the groundswell. The techniques and accompanying detailed case studies clearly show how the ideas recommended have been implemented in the real world. And the examples come from a variety of industries showing that Li and Bernoff's ideas can be broadly applied. It is a great framework for starting or re-starting discussions between corporations and their customers using social media. In addition, there are some good tips for measuring the ROI of different strategies, with specific examples to demonstrate the measures.
I would recommend this book to anyone in a web marketing role, as well as those who are in more general marketing positions because social media is gaining strength and importance. It became clear to me, after reading this book, that it is an imperative for marketers to explore and harness the power of social media in their marketing efforts. And to listen to, talk to, and energize the groundswell.
A quick web search returns few reviews of this book -I imagine because of it's relatively recent entrance into the market. However, there are a plethora of reviews for the original Groundswell book that are overwhelmingly positive.
While the orginial book was touted as a must read by many marketing gurus and academics such as Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki, the smaller condensed version likely adds less value. If Groundswell is considered a primer, Marketing in the Groundswell might be considered the Coles Notes version - it has the basics, but probably misses much of the richness. However, if you don't have much time or inclination to get into too much detail, this book will do a decent job of bringing you up to speed. And it has wetted my appetite for more. I plan on reading the original book to get the 'full story' soon.
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