The Now Revolution serves as the skeleton key for unlocking and grasping the power and pitfalls of social media for business.
It’s about how businesses will operate in a world where social media is ubiquitous. The subtitle of The Now Revolution – “7 Shifts To Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, And More Social” helps frame the discussion of how social media is changing the world, and why it matters.
The Now Revolution is really about connecting with your customers in an authentic way never before possible, and authors Jay Baer and Amber Naslund, not only do a masterful job of explaining what’s happening, but how to navigate your business through what will undoubtedly turn out to be a pivotal period in business.
What Bugged Me About The Book
(In full disclosure, I received two free copies of the book in exchange for a review – good or bad. One for me, and one to give away in a contest.)
I found especially the beginning of the book to be a bit idealistic, when the authors discussed a future where online conversations will force businesses to be more open, honest, and build relationships with their employees and customers.
While I certainly wish that were true, how a business truly treats its employees and customers has more to do with the culture and character ingrained in the leaders. While social media will certainly prove more advantageous for honest business professionals who genuinely care about their employees and clients, many businesses will find a way to fake it, or get by doing it poorly.
My only other gripe, was that the book wasn’t longer. It’s only 202 pages long, and can be read in an afternoon.
What You’ll Love About This Book
I’ll forgive them though, because it’s dripping with so much juicy advice and case studies – including documents and video conversations available through Microsoft Tag technology scattered throughout the book – that you could spend years trying to put everything into practice that they recommend.
Because the book is about philosophy and execution over specific tactics, if embraced by readers, this book stands a good chance of having a shelf life longer than a year or two as well – which in the realm of online marketing, would qualify it as a classic.
The book is broken down into explaining the big picture of how sites like Facebook, Twitter and dozens of others that do some sort of social networking are altering business in profound ways perhaps even more radically than e-mail and the telephone did. The book then explains how to find the right kinds of employees for this new sort of work; how to organize those teams across departments, how to listen and talk to your customers online, how to phase social media effectively into your business; how to deal with a public relations crisis, and how to measure success online in a business world that is increasingly instantaneous.
Probably because these two are seasoned bloggers and veterans of actually using social media, not just studying it, their writing is crisp and full of specifics. At the same time, don’t mistake this book as a guide for actually using social media tools themselves. If you want a great book to help you out with the nuts and bolts of learning the tools, buy The New Community Rules, Marketing on the Social Web, or subscribe to Exploring Social Media.
As someone who assists organizations with incorporating social media into their companies large and small, I find many companies have an easy enough time learning Facebook and Twitter, but there’s a vast canyon of understanding that separates knowing the tools with seeing results. Jay and Amber do an impeccable job of clarifying what to measure, how to measure, and how to implement in order to see great results.
Bravo to them for helping move the conversation around social media forward.
If you want to know how to effectively implement social media into your organization, this is the only book you really need. If you want to continue stumbling around in the social media fog, then ignore this book at your own peril. It’s as simple as that.
Have you read The Now Revolution? If so, let me know your thoughts in the comments. If not, what do you struggle with most when it comes to social media implementation?
Tags: Amber Naslund, Jay Baer, Social Media, The Now Revolution, The Now Revolution Book Review
