After much anticipation, I just picked up my copy of Groundswell, a highly publicized book among use social networking gurus, offers a strategy to succeed in a world transformed by social technologies (blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites). Authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff share a four-step process for building these technologies into a business. For those needing some convincing that social networking is more than a passing fad -- Li and Bernoff offer an almost overwhelming amount of data and research about all facets of the phenomenom. Check out or get your copy of the book by clicking on my Great Books recommendations, right hand column.
The following is taken directly from the website dedicated to Groundswell's promotion.
A groundswell is rising among your customers. Are you ready?
Right now, your customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.
You can see it as an opportunity.
In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research's top analysts show you how to turn the force of customers connecting to your own advantage.
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenues, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Whether you’re in marketing, research, support, sales, development, or even running the whole enterprise, there’s targeted advice here for you, backed up with real-world ROI to prove it works.
Groundswell is based on hard consumer data and experience with dozens of companies, large and small, from Procter & Gamble to Ernst & Young to a tiny but wildly successful winery in South Africa. Hoping to learn how to take advantage of communities, blogs, wikis, Facebook, or YouTube? We've got lots of examples with proof they work.
You can't ignore this trend. Read Groundswell and learn how to ride the wave. There’s no going back.
