A Breath of Fresh Air!

Before jumping into the ideas, themes, and overall concepts discussed by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Technologies, I want to start by saying how refreshing this book is. As I jumped into the readings our first week, I quickly realized that Li and Bernoff's goals were to ignite a fire under the reader while teaching about the strengths and weaknesses of social technologies. Many concepts and statements jumped out at me from the first 6 Chapters; the three described below are just a few that spoke to me, and seem to interlaced throughout.

First, Li and Bernoff emphasize the importance of "thriving in the groundswell" (pg. 13). Rather than running away from the shift in technologies, (considered the biggest shift since the industrial revolution), it is  important to embrace it. Social networks create an ongoing community and enables connections, between the consumers AND the producers. As the authors suggest in chapter 5 and 6, by listening and talking to groundswell you can tap into these communities (pg. 87).

The above Hierarchy, borrowed from Nigel Fenwick's Forrester Blog, explains how to thrive in these groundswell communities.

Second, Li and Bernoff describe the Social Technographics Ladder and the Social Technographic Profile, which, I feel, is incredibly applicable across a variety of forms of social technologies, demographics, and geography's, etc. (pg. 43-59). The ladder takes qualitative aspects of social media, like whether online users just view, post, join, all or both, and almost quantify them, by creating categories ranging from 'Creators' to 'Inactives.' For example, 'Creators' at only 24%, publish on blogs, Facebook, Flickr, etc., whereas 'Joiners,' the majority, at 59%  will browse on Facebook or Twitter, but not post on blogs.

As a producer of a service or product, if interested in social technologies, by inserting your company/organization into a social technographics profile you can see whether joiners or creators  may be the active buyers, or participants in a given social network you have created. Consider the Alpha Mom scenario described on page 48, and below described by Bernoff himself.

 

The Social Technographics Profile was not just pertinent yesterday, and is not just pertinent today, but will remain pertinent throughout the duration of and increase in social technologies.

Finally, Li and Bernoff describe the necessity to ACT on the information groundswell can teach a company, whether it be a product or service (pg. 82). Don't just learn, you must act!

They explain from the forefront that "the groundswell has changed the balance of power" (pg. 13). This change in the balance of power has enabled organizations of all types to gain incredible insight on their products/services. Social Media, if used to its full advantage, can force companies to see their flaws. By simply imputing "[product/service name] sucks/awesome," as the authors suggest, social media managers can see what people are saying about the product. The authors follow by explaining techniques to achieve this insight, i.e. setting up your own private community and beginning brand monitoring (pg. 82).

An example, using the relatively controversial show,
Tosh.O on Comedy Central

This is such a powerful suggestion by the authors because, as suggested towards the beginning of this post, it ignites a fire under those interested in gaining insight from social technologies. It can be easy to ignore the negative feedback, however BOTH the negative AND positive feedback that social media community monitoring, etc. defines, can be unmatched. If you act on this achieved insight, it is the only way that social technologies can actually be effective.

What makes Li and Bernoff's Groundswell such a breath of fresh air is is the way that these authors attack social technologies head on. They understand how to use these technologies inside and out, and want to teach the public, even giving them tools to use on their website.

It's important to recognize that the research is still mounting on the success of social media and "online buzz" (pg. 92). But, in my opinion, and in the Li and Bernoff's opinions, by jumping in full force now and understanding its impact within your company, we don't need all the research to utilize these tools to their full advantages.