Product Description

How to tap the power of social software and networks to build your business

In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of social networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and, of course, profits. Today's online influencers are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online.

The book shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can use those networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is key to building online reputations,, those who traffic in it are "trust agents," the key people your business needs on its side.

• Delivers actionable steps and case studies that show how social media can positively impact your business
• Written by authors with over ten years of online media experience
• Shows you how to build and wield influence online to benefit your brand
• Combines high-level theory with practical step-by-step guidance

If you want your business to succeed, don't sit on the sidelines. Instead, use the Web to build trust with your consumers using Trust Agents.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1719 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470743089
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Inside Flap

There's no question that the Internet has changed the way we do business—especially when it comes to marketing. Consumer environments are short on trust and populated by consumers who are cynical, savvy, and informed. Though it's easier than ever to reach your customers, it's less likely that they'll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn't the dollar, but trust itself.

At the same time, social networks and personal connections have far more influence on consumers than your marketing messages ever will—unless your business knows how to harness them. In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of these networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and profits.

Trust agents aren't necessarily marketers or salespeople; they're the digitally savvy people who use the Web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty, and genuine relationships. As a result, they wield enough online influence to build up or bring down a business's reputation. This book will show you how to build profitable relationships with trust agents, or become one yourself.

In an online world defined by its transparency, becoming a trust agent is no easy task, but once you've established your reputation, you can build influence, share it, and reap the benefits of it for your business. When you've learned a trust agent's secrets, your words can carry more power and more weight than any PR firm or big corporate marketing department.

Learn to use the power of the Web and social networks for your business now. Trust Agents gives you all the tools and strategies you need to do it the right way—honestly, effectively, and profitably.

From the Back Cover
"Wow! Every once in a while you find a book that is asit up in your chair, take notes, tell your friends, change your lifebreakthrough. This is that book. No kidding, you can trust me."
—Seth Godin, author of Tribes

"Business success today is as much about therelationships you cultivate with consumers as it is about yourproducts or services; for us at GM, the power is in combining the relationship with customers with truly exciting, brilliantly designed, and superblyexecuted vehicles. Chris and Julien have written an excellent primer on how to navigate this new environment, and how to earn the trust of thecommunities upon whom we increasingly depend."
—Fritz Henderson, CEO, General Motors

"This book gives marketers permission to be human. In fact,it goes as far as suggesting it might be a benefit. Get it, read it, share it!"
—John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing

"The foundation of all great marketing—online or offline—is trust.This book explains how to gain people's trust and turn it into apowerful force. Brogan and Smith are hardworking guys whoknow how to use the Web's tools to build business."
—Guy Kawasaki, cofounder, Alltop.com and author of Reality Check

About the Author
Chris Brogan is cofounder of PodCamp, a popular new media conference series focused on the use of social media to build business and personal relationships. He is a widely read blogger on the subject of social media. Find him at chrisbrogan.com and on Twitter at twitter.com/chrisbrogan.

Julien Smith is a veteran trend analyst who has run Web communities for over ten years. He helps companies prepare for and profit from disruptive changes in their industries, and has appeared on news programs to represent companies and nonprofits in Canada and the U.S. Find him at juliensmith.com and on Twitter at twitter.com/julien

Customer Reviews

These guys go way beyond a business book. Superb!
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith say they set out to write a business book. "Perhaps you've been noticing that the older approach to marketing, PR, advertising, business communication, and other activities on the web aren't pulling as well as they used to...Trust Agents is the answer to the question: `What do I do now?'" Eventually, it suggests that its message can be more broadly applied. "You will get the job you want without a resume. This book will teach you how....By the way, this works with talking to attractive members of the opposite sex, too." And finally, at the end, "Though we've written the book to be a business book about using the web, the skills of a trust agent relate to many offline possibilities." Disclosing this so late may have been intentional. Or, seeing how the narrative develops, perhaps it was something the authors realized only after the whole thing had been written. Regardless, they're absolutely correct.

People will believe what tends to conform to their own social circles and the people that they trust. Generally, we trust our friends. And on the web, those friends can be everywhere. The ones who set out to gain our trust are called "Trust Agents." "Trust agents use today's web tools to spread their influence, faster, wider, and deeper than a typical company's PR or marketing department might be capable of achieving, and with more interest in people, too. We need to become them and harness them...A Trust Agent builds networks almost reflexively by being helpful, by promoting the good work that others do, by sharing even their best stuff without hesitation, and by finding ways to deliver even more value on top of all that without asking for anything in return."

Business needs to cultivate its Trust Agents, some of which will be under company control, most of which will not. Personally, so do we all. I recommend this book for everyone, both business and personal.

Analysis of important but disturbing trends
I've met Chris Brogan several times (who is impressive in person despite a penchant for thinking that foul language is cool), and I have a great admiration for Seth Godin, who enthusiastically praises and endorses this book. Trust Agents is well-written, and the authors certainly are leaders (i.e., trust agents) in social media. The problem is that the book reflects a disturbing philosophical shallowness within our society, as well as a mindless pursuit of celebrity. Hey, it's a good book, and worth reading, but there is nothing profound within the covers. Trust Agents glorifies the current trend toward acquiring great quantities of snippets of relationships, and assumes that the value of quantity over quality in our relationships is the appropriate focus. Yes, this acquisition probably is the most effective means for business success now, however it ignores a fundamental destruction of the true fabric of our humanity. I am surprised that Seth Godin praises this book so highly, since it has so little to do with relationship quality, excellence, and the pursuit of remarkability.

Trust Me and Read This Book
Julien and Chris have been in this space a long time and this book includes a lot of real life stories, research and all around insight into what makes people tick. If you have a product or service and want to increase sales then buy this book. Want people to hire you or have you speak more often, then buy this book. Want your lemonade stand to rock out more then the other kids, then read this book.

If you can't tell I'm a fan of both the authors and of the book. I've read it and recommend everyone else read it as well. Good from start to finish.