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Book Notes; Groundswell

I just finished Groundswell: "Winning in a world transformed by social technologies." Groundswell is a much reviewed and commented on book, so instead of my normal book notes, I figured I'd provide some links for you to follow.

The core premise of the book is that much of what's happening in marketing today revolves around creating "conversation" or "social spaces" where brands (er, brand managers) can have conversations with their customers. There's been tons and tons written about this in the past few years, but Groundswell provides a terrific framework that really helps clarify a lot of what many of us haven't been able to articulate to date.

In addition to the framework, the authors have also created a profile tool which allows you to profile your customers to see how likely it is that they are partiicpating in the new world of marketing and online conversations.

As you'd expect, there is also a discussion board where you can jump in yourself to chat about strategy, and marketing tactics.

If you want more.. check out delicious "groundswell" tags and/or "groundswell" on tweetscan to see who is tweeting about the book.

Like most books of this kind, Groundswell includes some terrific case studies and interviews like this one, that one and all the other ones. Like most books of this kind, Groundswell also suffers from bouncing back and forth between trying to please and inform noobs and salty old dawgs.

For my money, the framework alone is worth the price of admission.

And.. here it is:


Comments

Paul Dervan said…
hey, just finished Groundswell about an hour ago. Enjoyed it a lot and while I was familiar with most of the cases, you're right, it is worth reading alone for the framework and the structure they put on social media. Here in Ireland, most companies are a fair bit behind...

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