Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff.


Why did I select this book?
I am a current Facebook networker, and I wanted to learn new ways to make internet-based sales and how to do business with more people over the internet. I was allways interested in how Facebook knew which advertisements to show me, and the structure of the advertisements on the site. I wanted to get a firm understanding of exactly what business are doing to attract new customers and keep the customers they currently have. This book was selected because it effectively teaches people new ways to use Facebook in ways that I have not been exposed to. Also, Clara Shih is a well known former software developer and the creater of faceconnector, which is the first business application on Facebook.
What the books about
The book is targeted at at people who use Facebook in their everyday life and are interested in using Facebook to increase business opportunities. It was written to help sales people sell more effectively to the target market and also shows what succesfull social media using companies are doing to contribute more profits to their bottom line. The book portays that the most successful organizations realize that businesses are comprised of networks of people, and having a firm understanding of how to take advantage of these networks can be an invaluable core competence to an organization. Facebook has allowed companies to build better relationships between sales people and consumers, and provides an additional medium for customers to keep up to date with whats going on with a particular company.
Would I recommend this book?
This book taught me how to use Facebook outside of the context I was previously using inside my personal network. The book describes ways to successfully hyper-target customers and ways to successfully use social recruiting to grow your staff base. The book was written extremely well, as Clara Shih was especially qualified to write about the topics discussed. There were no weaknesses about the book what-so-ever, and I feel confident that I will be able to use this book as a great reference when I begin using social media sites like Facebook to aid in my personal business adventures.

4 comments:

  1. I think this book sounds very interesting, the business i work for in town set out to create a facebook page and i was curious how we could use that, i think this book may be the answer to my questions.

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  2. I think this is the information I was hoping to get out of my book and didn't. The business model of Facebook is interesting, as a company in itself and as consumers monetizing off of it. In our era it is important to understand the way consumers communicate so marketer can learn to better communicate with them. Maybe I'll take a chance a read your book for the xmas break, it sounds like it would be helpful.

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  3. I have to agree, this book sounds really interesting.
    The whole idea to use social media as an advertising platform to directly communicate and target the audience is amazing.
    Especially Facebook provides companies/brands with many possibilities. It really sounds like a book worth having a look at.

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  4. I agree as well. It is really amazing how connected we can be with everyone so intimately even with business advertising.

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