Book Review: SOCIAL NATION – How To Harness Social Media

Social Nation

SOCIAL NATION – How To Harness Social Media

Author:  Barry Libert
ISBN-13: 9780470599266

Topic:  Business & Economics

Format:  Hardcover
Language:  English
Publication Year:  2010

Sponsor:  Andy Warhol Ten Foot Flower Melamine Plates

REVIEW:

It's time to join Social Nation and prosper! This book will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services. As a leader and manager, you'll find out how to use these tools to harness social interactions to improve your business and to create your own social nation. The book provides a social assessment for leaders, managers and employees to scientifically evaluate your individual social skills and competencies. This book relies on well-known case studies about businesses that illustrate how social principles and strategies can help organizations to:

Integrate social skills into existing managerial and leadership practices

Overcome some of the common risks and objections that are often cited as obstacles to becoming a successful social enterprise

Adopt new forms of social leadership across the entire organization

Attain social intelligence by listening, understanding, and measuring outcomes of your investment in relationships with customers, employees and partners

Realize tangible economic benefits and ROI from new product and service offerings Social Nation provides readers with an opportunity to join the Social Nation community and share experiences with other leaders and social individuals.

About the Author

BARRY LIBERT is the founder and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software that manages two billion conversations a month for 15,000 communities on behalf of 300 well-known companies. He has coauthored four popular business books on information and social networks.

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Lesson Learned

The author uses real-life situations and opens our eyes to how we must take advantage of everything our new Social Nation has to offer. Libert appears to have written the book to help preserve what is good in American business, from large corporations to mom and pop stores to being a consumer of both.

 Social Nation is written for employers, employees, and customers. The book has a fast pace and is positive that the social nation can fix the things that are/were great about American capitalism.

The concept of the “suggestion box” has been lacking over the previous half century, customers and employees voices are seemingly lost on bosses and managers.  Social Nation prescribes social media as a cure to improving and streamlining the feedback process.  Those that take advantage of the feedback and improve their products, services and workplaces will be the winners.

Libert does not use scare tactics, he uses facts and case studies.  Businesses have been out of touch, caring more about assets and cash on hand, "than they did people and their relationships." Libert suggests an economy where through social media, companies would offer specials directly to the customer and not through a blaring commercial. This would all be done on an opt in basis, no push advertising. The customer receives a genuine invitation to be a part of that business.

Libert in Social Nation suggests that employees and employers can rebuild the relationship that has eroded over the past 50 years.  Social Nation illustrates that what our kids take as just part of life, business can use to listen to employees and what they have to say, the good, the bad, the great suggestion which may be a company's best selling product the next year. All of it is possible. Just as important, the employees will feel part of something, because they are part of something.