Book Review, 2 in 1 week - Social media

I just finished reading my second book for the week. Both on the subject of social media and how it is impacting business today... and how a brand might make the most of the opportunities these tools represent. These are both must read titles for anyone in marketing today and anyone who thinks they are to make an impact with these tools... and anyone wishing to avoid common mistakes about these tools.

The number one thing I learned form these books is that I thought I understood the tools I was using and how they work and I was wrong... in some cases, 180 degrees wrong.

It is all about the power of the people, the power of just 1 people and the power o groups of people... it is not about the interesting content and creative things I can produce and share... it is more about creating a hub around which OTHERS can produce and me (us) (the brand) (the company) can support them in doing it... support through a community place to share it... support through linking, blogging and tweeting OTHERS stuff... and in some cases just staying out of the way... and LISTENING... and when and where, RESPONDING... or not to it all... That is where it gets dicey... I see some of the art and science of it all in knowing when and where to jump in and when and where to just sit quietly on the sidelines... and You all know how good I am at "sit quietly"

One of the big ah Ha's! of the book for me is that I need to turn my video camera around and turn over the content of our YouTube videos to the users and customers of our tools...

McConnell and Huba's earlier book... Creating Customer Evangelists... this next book is a perfect, natural follow up... spoke of creating these evangelists... they are out there... then new opportunity is cranking up their volume and seeing these evangelists scream through the channels that have developed to facilitate this evangelism.

Citizen Marketers, McConnell and Huba - Link to the book is below.

http://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Marketers-When-People-Message/dp/1419596063/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261060615&sr=8-2-spell

The earlier book referred to here as well...

Creating Customer Evangelists, link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Customer-Evangelists-ISBN-9780793155613/dp/B001G427OQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261061433&sr=8-2