Product Description

Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it s unstoppable, it affects every industry and it s utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now.

When consumers you ve never met are rating your company s products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence, your company is vulnerable. In Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester, Inc. explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity.

Using tools and data straight from Forrester, you ll learn how to:



-Evaluate new social technologies as they emerge

-Determine how different groups of consumers are participating in social technology arenas

-Apply a four-step process for formulating your future strategy

-Build social technologies into your business including monitoring your brand value, talking with the groundswell through marketing and PR campaigns, and energizing your best customers to recruit their peers

Timely and insightful, this book is required reading for executives seeking to protect and strengthen their company s public image.

"Groundswell is jammed with big ideas, useful stories, and quotable stats. This is the new industrial revolution. Are you on board?"

-Seth Godin, author, Meatball Sundae

"This book will rock your world, if social technology hasn't rocked it already. It's a tsunami of unstoppable force. Amazon, Procter & Gamble, Facebook, Google, and Dell are profiting from the crest of the wave. Are you? Li and Bernoff are the apostles of the tsunami. This book will be your bible."

-Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit

Groundswell provides practical advice on how to stay nimble and flexible in an ever-morphing digital world. Enabling your company to respond to change quickly especially when talking to and supporting your consumers is essential for business success.

-Cathie Black, President, Hearst Magazines

"The first phase of the Internet was about getting everyone connected. In this next phase, which changes the way we work, live, play, and learn, we re starting to realize the value of those connections as well as the new communications and experiences those interactions lead to the human network. Groundswell effectively documents this shift and underscores the opportunities available to all from this major market transition."

-John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco

"Heed the Groundswell! It's critical reading and helped us master the new dynamics of social media."

-Christina Norman, President, MTV

"Groundswell is a comprehensive look at the tidal wave of change engulfing marketers. Nobody should attempt to engage the newly empowered and emboldened consumer without first hearing what Li and Bernoff have to say on the subject."

-Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A | Razorfish

"Social technologies and the groundswell impact every business and organization worldwide. Li and Bernoff have written an insightful book that takes a refreshing research-driven approach to helping businesses transform themselves and successfully navigate this new dynamic landscape."

-Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President, Edelman Digital, and columnist for Advertising Age

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #273 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-21
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
...you can't control users looking to utilize Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networks... CIOs and other business leaders must embrace these technologies in the enterprise, and enable their employees to share and work collectively with each other to foster new innovations.
--CIO Magazine, April 16, 2008

...for Groundswell's intended audience - managers struggling to answer questions such as "should my soap company have a presence on Facebook?" or "why isn't anyone reading our company blog?" - the emphasis on data and analytics is not a bug - it's a feature. --The Financial Times, May 21, 2008

Their response, an introduction to the current state of online social networking and what to do about it, is entertaining, well- written and mercifully free from techy details. --The Financial Times, June 4, 2008

Their response, an introduction to the current state of online social networking and what to do about it, is entertaining, well- written and mercifully free from techy details. --The Financial Times, June 4, 2008

About the Author
Charlene Li is a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. She is one of the driving forces behind Forrester s Social Computing and Web 2.0 research. Josh Bernoff is a vice president at Forrester Research and one of their most senior and most frequently quoted research analysts. He created the Technographics segmentation, a classification of consumers according to how they approach technology.

Customer Reviews

Groundswell
Interesting book, I am not yet finished, but well worth the time time to read.

Helpful
It's a good review of buzz/content/wom. A little too "text booky", Jaffy's book is better.

The Latest and Greatest on the Topic...
I have to admit, I'm fascinated by the topic of how online communities, both business to business and business to consumer, will change the environment of how businesspeople and consumers interact, market, buy, sell etc. So I've read almost everything recent on the topic and, as those who write about this topic seem to the most seasoned and up to date business writers and/or educators out there, I have yet to be disappointed.

Groundswell is the latest book I've tread, and I have to say it's one of, if not the best on the topic right now. Filled with current statistics on consumer demographic usage of social media, and clearly outlining the "how" in business participation in social media, Groundswell not only builds on the information and thoughts of prior publications, but adds insight never before revealed so clearly or thoroughly.

The authors early in the book map traditional business functions (research, marketing, sales, support, development) into their "groundswell" alternatives (listening, talking, energizing, supporting, embracing) and map out both the fundamental strategic vision that needs to precede and accompany any corporate social media presence, and combine it with plenty of real life examples of good and bad methods of approach and participation.

If as a business or an individual you are interested in this topic, definitely read this book. I agree with the authors, that "you cannot ignore this trend...The groundswell trend is unstoppable, and your customers are there. You may go a little slower or a little faster, but you have to move forward. There is no going back."

[...]