Customer Ratings:

• Seller beware. This book demonstrates the sheer power of social networks to make or break your business. In the 21st Century if you business does not have a sensibly managed social media policy then you are waiting for a wreck. There are several excellent case studies of how to do and not to do social media. Like the company that threatened to sue Digg the social bookmarking site and was forced into an embarrassing climbdown. The new paradigm is engaging with your customers not marketing to them.
• Great. great starter for thinking about Social Media strategically..
  
  Covers both an internal and external business levels.
  And has ideas for selling it to your colleagues/management.
• Really enjoyable reading. There have been a few books written about social computing, but few that go much further than simply providing observations or commentary. This book is different. If you are trying to make some sense of what you see happening on blogs and social networking sites and are trying to work out what you and your company should do, then this book is for you.
  
  It is written by a couple authors from Forrester, so it will be little surprise that it is really strong on the strategy front. It successfully manages to link what we are seeing happening today on the Internet to strategies for succeeding in this space. The first part of the book provides us with an understanding of how to match solutions to an organisation s specific customer base. Users are categorised according to whether they are: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, or inactives. This categorisation comes from Forrester s Social Technographics tool and you can find more information on the book s website [] and even generate your own profile. The blog on the website is very good, by the way.
  
  The authors then match technical solutions to an organisation s objectives: namely, listening, talking energizing, supporting and embracing their customers. Part 2 of the book is dedicated to stepping through each of these objectives providing worked through examples of how organisations have succeeded in each of these domains. As you might imagine, adopting the appropriate technique for your particular audience is absolutely key.
  
  If you are interested in Innovation, chapters 8 and 9 have some useful insights on the role customers can play in the innovation process.
  
  In a area that is frequently over-hyped, this book provides significant insight and examples that reinforce what following a successful strategy can do for you and your company. If you are about to embark on your first venture into this space, I would strongly suggest that you read this book first. Highly recommended.
• Good background document. Forrester Research occupy a unique position. They have access to the internet s great thinkers through briefings that they have with all the leading web service companies: Yahoo!, Google, Facebook and everyone in between. On the other side they act as a marketing consultant to a number of main street brands.
  
  Li and Bernoff have crystalised the lessons that Forrester Research learned walking both sides of the street in the Groundswell. The book does a good job of educating the average consumer on the so called web 2.0 services and how consumers interact with them. They also provide a helicopter view about how to approach incorporating social web techniques into their business.
  
  The most valuable part of the book is the anecdotes and case studies (some of which are from Forrester Research clients) which brings the concepts that they talk about to life. Their Social Technographics model provides a framework for segmenting audiences based on their level of interaction with web properties and communities.
• This is a must read. Like the positive reviews above, I agree that this is a great book! I wouldn t agree with the reviewer who sites the case studies as banal - they are real world studies across a wide range of services so there s something for everyone, from those working in communications and media, through manufacturing and service delivery to health services and the public sector.
  
  The writing style is clear, accessible and no-nonsense. I won t win any literary prises, but for this sort of book you wouldn t want anything else. One minor niggle was the formula used as the beginning of many chapters: Fred is a (whatever) and here s his story... - it grated a bit by the sixth or seventh time they used this device.
  
  But that aside I can t fault it. It helps clarify one s thinking about what the social media groundswell is, and how to recognise its various manifestations, and it then goes on to give so0lid, practical suggestions for how you can adapt to and adopt the groundswell positively in your organisation.
  
  As a companion to this I d also recommend Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky.

• Wikinomics
• We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production: Mass Innovation Not Mass Production
• Here Comes Everybody
• Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.
• The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand