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“People in all demographics and regions of the world are more connected than ever before to the products, issues, places, and individuals in their lives. This book recognizes that we’ve come to a place where people can represent their real identity--both personal and professional--and use the social filters on the Web to connect with the world around them.”
--Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook
“...A must-read for CEOs and other executives who want to understand Facebook and more importantly take the right actions to stay relevant and stay competitive.”
--David Mather, President, Hoovers, Inc.
The ‘90s were about the World Wide Web of information and the power of linking web pages. Today it’s about the World Wide Web of people and the power of the social graph. Online social networks are fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and interact. They offer businesses immense opportunities to transform customer relationships for profit: opportunities that touch virtually every business function, from sales and marketing to recruiting, collaboration to executive decision-making, product development to innovation. In The Facebook Era, Clara Shih systematically outlines the business promise of social networking and shows how to transform that promise into reality.
Shih is singularly qualified to write this book: One of the world’s top business social networking thought leaders and practitioners, she created the first business application on Facebook and leads salesforce.com’s partnership with Facebook. Through case studies, examples, and a practical how-to guide, Shih helps individuals, companies, and organizations understand and take advantage of social networks to transform customer relationships for sales and marketing. Shih systematically identifies your best opportunities to use social networks to source new business opportunities, target marketing messages, find the best employees, and engage customers as true partners throughout the innovation cycle. Finally, she presents a detailed action plan for positioning your company to win in today’s radically new era: The Facebook Era.
Join the conversation--www.thefacebookera.com.
Fan the book--www.facebook.com/thefacebookera.
Right this minute, more than 1.5 million people are on Facebook. They’re interacting with friends--and talking about your brands. They’re learning about your business--and providing valuable information you can use to market and sell. In the Facebook Era, you’re closer to your customers than ever before. Read this book, and then go get them!
Clara Shih offers best practices for overcoming obstacles to success, ranging from privacy and security issues to brand misrepresentation, and previews social networking trends that are just beginning to emerge--helping you get ahead of the curve and ahead of the competition, too.
Learn how to…
Find Facebook Friends with Your Facebook Connect Application
Publish Your Application Stories to Facebook
Use Facebook Connect to Bring Your Application to Millions of Users
Social Capital from Networking Online
Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 3 and Index)
Foreword by Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com ix
Acknowledgments xii
About the Author xiv
Introduction 1
Why You’re Reading This Book 2
Welcome to the Facebook Era 3
How to Use This Book 5
Part I: A Brief History of Social Media
1 The Fourth Revolution 11
Mainframe Computing 12
The PC 14
The World Wide Web 15
The Online Social Graph 17
Empowering the End User 22
2 The Evolution of Digital Media 25
Storage and Creation 26
Media Distribution 26
The Future: Social Filtering 29
Why Facebook Is Different 34
Social Network Ecosystems 36
What the Social Graph Means for Digital Media 42
3 Social Capital from Networking Online 43
Establishing a New Category of Relationships 44
Online Interactions Supplement Offline Networking 50
Flattening Effect 52
Creating New Value from Network Effects 52
Blurring the Lines 57
Part II: Transforming the Way We Do Business
4 Social Sales 61
Transforming the Sales Cycle 62
The Need for Multiple Network Structures 79
CRM--The First Social Network? 80
5 Social Network Marketing 81
Hypertargeting 82
Loyalty and Engagement 89
Social Distribution 96
Challenges and Limitations 103
6 Social Innovation 107
Concept Generation 108
Prototyping 115
Commercial Implementation 117
Continual Iteration 120
7 Social Recruiting 123
The Best Social Networks for Recruiting 124
Sourcing Candidates 126
Candidate References 134
Employer and Recruiter Reputation 135
Keeping in Touch 137
Advice for Candidates 141
Employee Poaching 141
Part III: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Using Facebook for Business
8 Engage Your Customers 145
Start with Strategy and Objectives 146
Find Your Unsanctioned Communities 148
Define and Establish Your Presence 155
9 Get Your Message Across 163
Hypersegment Your Audience 164
Choose Your Media Strategy 167
10 Build and Manage Your Relationships 181
Setting Up Your Facebook Account 181
Interacting on Facebook 187
Asking for and Providing Introductions 193
11 Corporate Governance and Strategy 195
Choosing the Right Network Model 196
Identify Key Risk Areas 198
Partner with Legal, IT, and PR 200
12 The Future of Social Business 203
The Innovator’s Dilemma 204
The ROI of Social 205
Social Trends 205
What the Future Means for Doing Business 206
Final Remarks 211
A Snapshot of Top Social Networking Sites, March 2009 213
Index 223