Groundswell

Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

By: Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff

Narrated by: Josh Bernoff

A groundswell is sweeping through your customers. Right now, they are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They're defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social-networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon - the groundswell - that has created a permanent shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.

It's time to see it an opportunity.

In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research's top analysts tell listeners how to turn the force of customers connecting to their own advantage. With 25 vivid cases from around the world - from health care to retail to consumer goods to business services - Li and Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenue, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Whether listeners are in marketing, research, support, sales, development, or even running the whole enterprise, there's targeted advice here for them, backed up with real-world ROI to prove it works.

Groundswell is based on hard consumer data and experience with dozens of companies. The listener will hear how the marketers of Procter & Gamble proved that subtle marketing within a community was four times as effective as television...how Best Buy taps into the intelligence of over a thousand of its employees with its own social network...how Dell has transformed itself by embracing customer insights in nearly every department...and how a South African winery boosted its sales tenfold by tapping into the power of bloggers, YouTube, Facebook, and every other tool in the social technology arsenal.

This trend cannot be ignored. Listeners must learn how to ride the wave. There's no going back.

©2008 Forrester Research (P)2008 Gildan Media Corp

great but

the ideas in this book are basic and not that many examples support the main arguments.

Groundswell

A wonderful overview of the ever changing and morphing informo-sphere. The book is an excellent pulling together of methods to take advantage of the internet. I good listen.

Great breakdown of social media for business

This was my first from these authors and I enjoyed their approach. It is a great introduction to the possibilities of social media integration in business. Foundational information to use if you are thinking of integrating social media or a great way to find new opportunities areas you may have missed.

I tried...so help me I tried.

This book covers great material and is extremely thorough. But DO NOT buy the audio version. I am an unabridged audio book fanatic and I find that once in a while an author can read the material and pull it off (Michael Gerber and Jeff Jarvis for example).

I am sorry to be this blunt but I feel like I wasted money on this audio purchase. The biggest part of an audio book’s quality is its narration and this audio books narration should have been done by a professional narrator, not the author.

I would read this one not listen to it.

Good read for those getting started

I needed more information on social media to help an organization step into new media. I am a art director, web master, marketer and found this helpful and is a book I will listen to at least twice. Very slow start, though. The author also carries on a bit. Voice quality is good, but a bit boring. Wish I had a physical book to bookmark and highlight some of the details.