Socialnomics

Qualman's book had some valid points about the evolution and future of social media. My favorite themes included convincing the critics of social media's effectiveness and relevance, failures of molding traditional advertising into new media, and reasons that social media is here to stay.

The naysayers are everywhere, from co-workers who haven't adopted social media for personal use and can't imagine how it would be relevant in the workplace to executives who believe it's a fad and won't make an impact on the bottom line. Qualman provided various examples of social media experiments where critics were proven wrong, and as any marketer knows, the proof is in the results. My favorite examples included hulu.com's introduction into a crowded online video space and Subway's Jared ads that originated from a customer sharing his experience online. The common thread across both of these examples is that experimenting and doing something is worth more than strategizing and planning everything down to the last detail. Social media enabled both hulu.com and Subway to crowdsource ideas to improve and evolve their product/message.

The second lesson of Socialnomics was that social media is not about molding traditional advertising and business models into new media outlets. Rather, the business models themselves must change to reflect the culture-shift that social media has initiated. A great example of this was the ESPN Fantasy Football broadcasts where Best Buy chose to repeat the same commercial over and over in a very awkward out-of-place fashion versus Charles Schwab whose "Ask Chuck" campaign was woven into the podcast and less commercial-like than traditional advertising.

Finally, I agree with Qualman that social media is here to stay. Although the exact channels may change over time (ie MySpace is a thing of the past and Twitter and Facebook may not always be on top), the sharing of reviews, ideas, and information between consumers will always be present and for companies and marketers this means they cannot ignore social media. As we read in WOMM by Sernovitz, C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketing is here to stay and although it will not replace B2B or B2B marketing it will always complement and influence it.

Learnings from Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

The three most important things which I learned from the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman are as follows:

1. I learned that by keeping up with advancements in social media businesses, politicians and governments can become successful easily. Like we can see how Nike by introducing an avatar named Miles increased its revenue very fast. Miles is a tool that encourages one to run while keeping you aware of the local weather, running events and promotions. It can be easily used on iPods, Social network or desktops. It is a tool with utility and purpose to consumers. Not only in businesses but also towards politicians Obama would not have been the president today without the successful use of Internet.
On the other hand, now the U.S Army is also sharing its information through the tool “Straight from Iraq”. By this it’s trying to influence the decisions of Army considering candidates by making them ask direct questions from soldiers in combat and viewing their direct video clips. This can make them feel the Army physically, emotionally and mentally. Hence direct social media conversations are very efficient and effective modes as compared to any unilateral communication with audiences.

2. When we see on the other side there are also some disadvantages of social media. Like the younger generation’s interpersonal communication skills. They are severely suffering in it due to overdependence on nonverbal and non-face-to-face interactions. As per the study of nonprofit groups in the book:
.50% of the teens fail to use proper capitalization and punctuation rules.
.25% of teens have used  and other emotions.
.64% have used at least one of the informational elements in school.

So, these are some of the drawbacks of not having face to face conversations.

3. Social media is everywhere. Today, 76% rely on what friends and family say while 15% rely on advertising. As shown in the book we can see how Steve and his wife with the help of his friends and families opinion were able to confidently purchase the baby seat without any research, stress and time wastage. Later he also bought a car by posting his search on his favorite social network site and getting reviews from his friends.
Moreover another female named Suzy in the book was also able to plan a trip to Chile by GoAhead Tours through her friend’s recommendations. Thus to conclude Social media has made things much easier to track and purchase with the help of friends and relatives suggestions and advices. Social Media had increased efficiencies everywhere by saving time and elimination multiple individual redundancies (MIR).