Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business

I was first introduced to this title when I started my course Introduction to Social Media which is part of the Social Media certificate at a college in town. It was a recommended reading for the course and I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to review it. So I took upon me to contact the author and ask if I could review his book. He immediately agreed and proceed to contact his publisher so I can received a copy of the book. It took a while to receive my book but eventually I did. For some reasons, there was delivery issues. Weird. But it happens… But I got the book and I read it avidly the past few weeks.

I have discovered more about the power of social media while reading this book. Social media is here to stay. Plain and simple. We need to learn to live with it and be willing to expand our experience with it. More than three years ago, I didn't know anything about the world of social media. Then I got introduced to blogging, facebooking, twittering and so on… This year, I have expanded my knowledge with delicious, linkedIn and many more venues in the social media world. I suspect that I will continue to learn about it as this are of marketing is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds.

I have already applied some information that I have gleaned in this book already. For example, in chapter seven, the author strongly suggest that you applied the You Follow, I Follow rule on twitter. I was wondering how this could change my twitter account - @canadianladybug. So in the past two weeks, I am more dedicated in applying this formula and guess what… my followers are climbing slowly and steadily since then. Interesting isn't it?

The book contains a variety of example on how social media has impacted companies and even elections in the US in the past years. I was amazed on how it can be applied in a variety of ways in our daily lives. Recently, Canada has gone through elections which came to an end this past Monday, May 2nd. I learned during the campaign that Elections Canada wasn't considering using the social media platform whatsoever until many years from now. I find this sad since it was widely used in the US a few years ago and with success apparently from what I have read in the book. To be honest, I am still surprised to get negative answers and or no answers at all to request I have send to companies. You would think that with the popularity of mom bloggers and the quality of post on various products companies would jump in the bandwagon for this free advertising opportunities. Mind you I can understand that some companies are limited in their possibilities to go through a social media experience. Still I think more business owners, marketing managers and bloggers should read this book so that they can be more open minded on the power of social media.

At the end of each chapters, you will also have key points to remember. Also included in the book is a social media rolodex where you can discover the leaders in social media. Personally, I would also be interested in having questions to help me evaluate and think about the next step to take as a business. Maybe this could be incorporated in the next edition of the book…

As I said social media is here to stay. How you plan to use it in your life and/or business is up to you. But reading the book socialnomics will give you insights on how you can apply it.

I found Socialnomics to be extremely useful as my primary business is producing social media games and other online content.

As well, as a MBA graduate, I found it helpful that the book uses several case studies from recent social media successes as well as others from companies who failed to use it properly thus negatively affecting their own short-term revenues (as well as their long-term revenues as their target consumers view their brand negatively).

I would recommend this book to any entrepreneur who wishes to maximize their marketing dollars.

The author does a pretty good job of listing recent examples of social media and how it has impacted business. However, his viewpoint is highly skewed and not at all objective. There are much better books on the subject. Groundswell for instance, is a much more balanced look at this topic with a solid approach to strategy.