Review of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Any book with "winning" in the subtitle is off to a good start for me. Groundswell didn't disappoint. If I ever write a book, it will be laid out like this--straightforward, parallel structures and packed with powerful case studies and numbers.

Groundswell (by then-Forrester researchers Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) is divided into three sections. First the idea of "groundswell" and prominent tools like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are defined. More importantly, the book introduces and defines technographics and their tool for measuring how different groups of consumers use social media. See the free profile tool which lets you specify age and country here. The next section explains how to tap into the groundswell and make it work for your company. There are five ways that they categorize involvement, each building on the one before:

1. Listening. Monitor the groundswell for research and to gauge overall sentiment about your brand and competitors. It's a free, always-on, completely honest focus group; you just need to know where to find it.
2. Talking. Use the groundswell to spread marketing messages.
3. Energizing. Turn brand enthusiasts into brand ambassadors.
4. Supporting. Best suited for complex brands. Mobilize your customers into a support group for one another.
5. Embracing. Bring your customers and their needs, wants, and ideas into your brand. Let them directly help you in improving your product, services, and marketing.

This section is filled with amazing case studies and action items for brands who want to get involved in these ways. The final section helps you implement groundswell techniques within your company. I recommend partnering that section with Tribes for full effect.

I also suggest having a highlighter and notepad handy while you devour this book. It's an easy read but it's saturated with statistics, tips, and sites to visit later. The only downside? The book was finished in late 2007 and published in 2008--in other words, pre-Twitter. To their credit, the authors cite Twitter as an emerging tool that they think will really explode into the groundswell. More importantly, they maintain a blog on the Forrester site to keep the conversation going and apply the content to modern case studies.

Bottom line: Read this book now, no matter what level of understanding you have of social media. Until you can get your hands on it, read the blog. Your co-workers will thank you when someone in the room can be truly knowledgeable about social media, and your brands will thank you when you approach them about entering or improving their presence in this brave new world.

Review of Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us

Last month I heard Sally Hogshead speak at an IPG Women’s Leadership Network event. She told a story about striking out on her own with her business partner and starting their own agency. They were signing the lease on their office, a 12-month contract that finally made everything real, when her business partner turned to her. He said, “You know the way you’re feeling right now, the nerves and excitement and fear in the pit of your stomach? That’s risk. It's not necessarily bad, and you shouldn’t be afraid of it, but you need to be able to recognize it. You're going to be feeling it a lot more.” Seth Godin must be quite familiar with that feeling, because his book is all about taking a deep breath and doing something terrifying because you believe in it.

Tribes made me nervous every time I picked it up. It doesn’t shout, but fervently whispers in your ear: Stop pushing papers. It’s 2009 and the world is changing. Go make the change you want to see. And before I could fully form all my logical objections—but I don’t have any money, it’s not that easy and no one will listen to me, everything is safe the way it is now—it has blazed through them by providing pages of examples of heretics who wanted change and got it.

Here’s a sampling of the best lessons learned:

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.

Find leaders (the heretics who are doing things differently and making change), and then amplify their work, give them a platform, and help them find followers—and things get better. They always get better.

This is what advertisers need to pay the most attention to. Find leaders, brand advocates, people with opinions, and fuel their fire. Conversely, don’t try to squelch the heretics. If you don’t amplify their leadership efforts, someone else will. You’ll be in trouble.

Marketers need to read Tribes to understand how to turn brand advocates into brand heroes. Junior-level employees need to read it to remind themselves of the passion they had in college when they dreamed of striking out and following their dreams. On the last page, Godin urges readers to pass the book along if we found it worthwhile. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to share my copy.