3 thoughts from Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

First of all, I really like what Qualman mentioned that people make decisions based on their peer recommendations instead of information that they got from other sources. Comparing this concept to my experience, I always do both online and offline researches before making purchasing decisions, however, I just realize that the most powerful factor that impact on my decisions is not those researches that I have done, but it is actually what my friends and family feel about those stuffs. According to this, I found that that people are not care what everyone think, but they do care what their people in their networks feel about them and what they are doing. Listening to comments and complaints about particular topics through social network is able to reduce research time and eliminate irrelevant information that pops up on browsing tools. It enables consumers to have much more power in the market and they will have less tolerant of poor products and services.

Secondly, I am surprised to know how the world has changed. As what Qualman said, individuals in socialnomomics world have opportunities to express ideas and contribute to their own interests through social media. With the real-time function, social media is a tool that allows people to interact and stay connected with their networking, no matter what. A great example that I have seen in my daily life is the usage of facebook chat and message. Rather than using e-mail to communicate, Gen Xers and Millennials prefer to interact with their friends instantly by using facebook or IM. This make the world change from 9-5 world to 24/7 world. In addition, today people are much easier to get to know each other in the beginning period without any awkwardness. The relationship in social media also lasts a lifetime. However, the negative impact of social media is that it makes Gen Xers and Millenials to have difficulties to deal with a face-to-face interaction.

Finally, I enjoy reading the cases of winners and losers in social media. To be successful in the world today, I learned that individuals or companies have to be honest and admit the faults rather than deceive or conceal those mistakes from other people. Another thing is that doing mistakes in this social media life is better than doing nothing. It is not necessary to be first movers in order to be successful. It depends on how well you can implement your plan and how fast you can learn and improve from your mistakes and feedbacks from the networks. Even though the benefits of social media outweighs the downsides, the companies still have to be aware of the potential that the competitors will take advantages by getting customers’ information, pricing, and so on.