I debated whether to post a book review as I experienced flashes of high school busy work, but Socialnomics is certainly relevant to my world, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Seeing as it is freshly released, I thought it might be useful to get a review out there for potential readers.
For those of you looking for the quick and dirty, Socialnomics reads quick, is filled with interesting 
real world stories, and is basically 265 pages of argument that social media is not only here, but ready to transform the way we live our lives and do business (his tagline actually). Socialnomics will not necessarily teach you how to use tools, convey strategy, or equip you with resources to act on. I recommend The Social Media Bible or The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web if you are looking for a resource like that.
Socialnomics is written by Erik Qualman, most well known for his contributions over at Search Engine Watch and on the tradeshow circuit. He’s done his homework on this one as it’s filled with a ton of real world examples of how a handful of businesses have won and lost in the social media game. Whatever Socialnomics may lack in tactics and strategy, it more then makes up for in these extremely useful stories, case studies and examples of how social media has taken the world by storm. Most people with a pulse can tell you that Facebook and Twitter are all the rage, but Socialnomics drives it home with detailed examples from organizations that have embraced social media and found huge success (Obama’s campaign detailed in Chapter 4), to companies that have missed the boat (see Hasbro’s Scrabble incident in Chapter 7). It’s interesting stories like these that really drive home how powerful social media can be when taken seriously.
As I mentioned above, it’s not really a book to teach you how to integrate social media into your day to day strategy, but one to inspire you to do so. I’m not so sure social media “experts” (if there even is such a thing), will have too many “ah ha” moments, but it’s still a refreshing read, especially considering there are few books on the subject. For me, the real value this book brought me as a social media/community professional, was providing me with more ammunition to evangelize and sell social media and community building strategies to potential clients and employers. After reading the book, I felt more equipped to really take this evangelism to another level by being able to use the stories and case studies to share with others. Of course you can find things like this online for free in a variety of places, but it’s nice to have a hard resource like Socialnomics to reference and pull out when needed.
- A few other tidbits that I really enjoyed about this book.
- The book doesn’t necessarily have to be read start to finish. You could easily jump around and not miss a step as each chapter is it’s own self-sustaining topic not requiring the previous ones.
- I love books like these that go the extra mile and summarize the chapter you’ve just read through bullet points as Qualman does here. It makes it so much easier to go back and get a refresher.
- I also love Qualman’s writing style, very informal and narrative. Makes for a more enjoyable read.
- Tons of notes referenced throughout the book at the end to dive into when and if needed, most with URLs to the source
- If you haven’t seen the “trailer” for the book, it’s a must see.
For more information on the author, check out his Socialnomics blog here, his articles at Search Engine Watch or simply get the book. It’s worth it!
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