SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate Review

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(More customer reviews)Joel Postman argues persuasively that the new "basic business skills" now requires a basic understanding of social media and the ability to use social networks correctly, alongside presentation skills and the ability to create and understand an Excel spreadsheet.
SocialCorp provides several starting places for organizations that want to create social media initiatives specifically for each audience and to engage them on their terms, in a way that is relevant to them. A progressive, forward-thinking company adopts social media 'in a way that accomplishes strategic business and communications objectives without compromising the company's primary obligations as a corporation,' he says.
For example, Dell, Zappos, IBM, and Procter & Gamble are among companies using social media to reshape their relationships with their audiences. Dell's IdeaStorm functions as a full-blown customer engagement program and a catalyst for change in the company's products and services.
Organizations can monitor conversations using social media to learn, day-by-day, how their brand is performing, where the company is strong, and where there's work to do. The organization can join in the conversation and influence the brand for the better.
Social media strategy isn't that complex, Postman says, but it does require a synthesis of traditional thinking, creativity, understanding of new tools and etiquette, and the willingness to take some chances.

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This book will help companies of all sizes develop and implement a strategy to become a SocialCorp, a company that has adopted social media intelligently and effectively, in a way that does not compromise the company's primary obligations as a corporation. While the conversational and engagement values of social media are well understood, many social media theorists often overlook the realities faced by the large corporation, like accountability to shareholders and regulators, and how these factors cannot be overlooked in corporate social media adoption. Using case studies and analysis of available social media tools, and proven corporate social media strategies, the book will help corporate communicators understand the new communications landscape, the power of social media, and how to adopt it intelligently in a corporate environment.

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Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy Review

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(More customer reviews)Although overall a book with a lot of tips, the author does not explain things as well as she could. For instant, she starts talking about Google Trends and doesn't tell us where to find it online (I guess there's Google for that ;). That said, there are a lot of good gems she shares. Here are some:
-Searchers click on organic results 85% of the time
-Companies connect with searches in two ways: Paid and Organic
-Longer search queries = fewer paid results appearing to the searcher
-Videos and images draw users away from the paid search column
-50% of searchers will see the 7th search result
-100% of searchers look at the first organic result; 50% look at the first paid result
-Increased organic results = increased brand awareness
-organic results last over time, whereas paid results stop the second you stop paying for them
-Searchers click on a brand 92% of the time when a brand is in both paid and organic results
-A search is on avg. three words long; nearly 25% are only one word
-Women are more deliberate in reading search results
-A #1 ranking is less important than people think. If you rank in the top 3 to 4 results and have a more compelling title and description, you may own the click
-Searchers don't even look at the entire title. They look at the left half of it
-Remember that every page of your site is a potential entry for visitors
-The days of normal search results that everyone sees the same are now over
-YouTube is the second largest search engine
-Results that contain both video and images, searches start with that first, then go above, and then below in their scan

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Search has changed everything. Search has become woven into our everyday lives, and permeates offline as well as online activities.
Every business should have a search strategy. How a business appears online can impact consumer influence as much as if not more than offline advertising like TV commercials. A business's search strategy can have a dramatic impact on how consumers interact with that business.
But even more importantly, search engine activity provides amazingly useful data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. Accessing search data is like conducting focus groups with millions of people for free. Search isn't just for marketers and techies. It can provide valuable insight on business strategy and product strategy.
Companies of all sizes – from startups to global enterprise level corporations, and even businesses without web sites – can benefit from understanding how consumers are searching for them and talking about them online, both as a powerful acquisition channel and a vast repository of market research.
In this non-technical book forexecutives, business owners, marketers, and product managers, search engine strategy guru Vanessa Fox-who created Google's portal for site owners, Googgle Webmaster Central -explains what every marketer or business owner needs to understand about how search rankings work, how to use search to better understand your customers and attract new ones, how to develop a comprehensive search strategy for your business, and how to build execution of this strategy into the businesses processes. This isn't another book about paid search for advertisers. This book focuses on organic listings – the unpaid results that receive 86% of searcher clicks.
Written by search engine guru Vanessa Fox, formerly Google's search engine strategy spokesperson and creator of Google Webmaster Central
Explains from a businessperson's perspective how to develop a successful search engine strategy
Shows how to use the easily accessible data from search engines to increase qualified traffic, better understand customers, and strengthen customer relationships
Reveals how smaller companies can leverage search engine marketing to achieve parity with larger brands

With this book in hand, every businessperson will have the knowledge and the tools to maximize the potential of search engine marketing to build a brand, draw new prospects, and generate sales.

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Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging Review

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(More customer reviews)John Cass blogs at PR Communications where he writes knowledgeably about industry. He's also a fellow at the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and is past president of AMA Boston.
Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging is an informative and useful book that aims to give the reader the tools and strategies to develop expertise in how to build a successful corporate blog and to enable the reader to conduct effective corporate blogger relations. He makes several important points along the way.
* rather than blogging exclusively about products and services, the better strategy is to create a forum for discussing customer issues and concerns.
* blogging is about listening, and involves customer service and product development.
* PR professionals have many of the skills and strategies needed in today's new media world, but they still have much to learn from other professions if they are to succeed in blogging.
The book's only major drawback is an apparent lack of professional editing. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book, along with a couple others I've reviewed: Blogging for Business by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulous (Kaplan, 2006), and Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (Wiley, 2006).

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If advertising and public relations were the best ways to connect with a company's audience through traditional media, and blogs are the best way to connect with millions of customers through the medium of online consumer generated media, then how can companies best use blogs to connect with their audience through the medium of consumer-generated media?The answer is through blogger relations, the process of interacting with bloggers and blog readers to get a company's message to an audience.This book targets business people, marketing professionals, public relations firms, search engine optimization and online marketing agency staff with a primer on the importance of corporate blogging and how to conduct a successful blogger relations ongoing campaign.* Provides tools for companies to interact with customers through blogging communities * Shows how to transform public relations and search marketing through consumer-generated media, RSS feeds and comment interaction strategies * Describes how to optimize blog articles for blog search engines and provides content strategies* Provides companies the planning tools to evaluate its blogging community and company resources for effective blogging

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Corporate Blogging For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers)) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a must have for every marketing department. Doug and Chantelle clearly explain (in very understandable terms) all of the ins and outs of corporate blogging. More importantly they explain why you should be blogging and how to measure your ROI.

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Establish a successful corporate blog to reach your customers
Corporate blogs require careful planning and attention to legal and corporate policies in order for them to be productive and effective. This fun, friendly, and practical guide walks you through using blogging as a first line of communication to customers and explains how to protect your company and employees through privacy, disclosure, and moderation policies.
Blogging guru Douglas Karr demonstrates how blogs are an ideal way to offer a conversational and approachable relationship with customers. You'll discover how to prepare, execute, establish, and promote a corporate blogging strategy so that you can reap the rewards that corporate blogging offers.
Shares best practices of corporate blogging, including tricks of the trade, what works, and traps to avoid
Walks you through preparing a corporate blog, establishing a strategy, promoting that blog, and measuring its success
Reviews the legalities involved with a corporate blog, such as disclaimers, terms of service, comment policies, libel and defamation, and more
Features examples of successful blogging programs throughout the book

Corporate Blogging For Dummies shows you how to establish a corporate blog in a safe, friendly, and successful manner.

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