Supposedly, it was Drucker who said he used the word ‘guru’, because he didn’t know how to spell ‘charlatan’. His point was that most management theories we believe in are wrong. The same may be true with social media. Anyone claiming to be an expert is wrong. You only need to follow the evolution of the conversation prism, to understand the complexity of social media and the mindboggling speed at which it is developing to realise how quickly it all changes. In this ebook of book reviews, Ron Immink starts with the principle that the purpose of social media is selling. Through reviews of key reading, he comes to these conclusions: (1) Our attention span has been shot to hell. Marketers need to understand neuroscience, content, emotion, branding and channel and gaming. If you are a gamer, you will understand. Nothing is as engaging as a good video game. And soon that type of engagement is expected everywhere. Design becomes more and more important; (2) Customer delight is important in a world that is basically word of mouth on steroids; (3) Reputation (which is the sum of the word of mouth) is the new branding. It has economic value. Hence “reputation economics”. But branding is still worth the investment; and (4) Branding, image and traffic should all lead to sales. In all of this, there is one universal lesson: You need to stand out. In a world where everyone is suffering from ADD, attention is at a premium and where there are too many communication channels to choose from, the only thing that will get impact on social media and sales is a good story. Good stories have never gone away. They now become more important.
