Social Nation by Barry Libert - Essay Example

TOPIC:  BOOK REVIEW Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract s, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business Author: Barry Libert Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Publication Date: September 10, 2010 ISBN: 0470890258, 9780470890257 Length 256 pages Subjects: Marketing, Business and Economics INTRODUCTION The author Barry Libert writes this book asserts that it is the time for businesses and companies to join the social nation in order to become successful. In this book it is revealed how employees, businesses, companies, customers and partners can make use of the social technologies to be heard, produce and market their products and services better (Libert 40). The core purpose why the author writes this book is to show how effective if business managers and team leaders utilize and make use of the developed new social technologies as well as social interactions. Therefore the author tries to bring out that the use of these social tools has significant importance in improving business operations and more importantly creating your own social nation and individual, manager or a team leader. The book is generally written on the marketing, business and economics point of view. In these identified perspectives in which the book is written a social assessment of employees, managers and leaders is provided where they can evaluate scientifically their personal competencies and social skills. The author brings a conceptual framework of this relying on well-known case studies in the corporate business world on how the social principles and practices can be adopted by businesses in order to succeed. The author gives information, explaining and convincing the readers and the audience that the underlying social strategies and principles are very essential to the organization. They are essential because it helps integrate the social skills into the leadership practices and managerial operations of the organization (Libert 96). It helps organizations to overcome challenges and risks faced by organizations in becoming successful. They aid in gaining competitive advantage and social intelligence through listening, measuring and understanding outcomes of the investments in relation to partners, employees and customers. The social practices and strategies ensure that new social leadership forms is adopted in the various departments in the organization. Finally, the author brings this importance by asserting that organizations are able to realize the return on investments and the economic benefits that can be accrued from the development of new goods and services. Therefore, it can be argued that the author through social nation convinces the audience that they have the opportunity to be part of the social nation community so that they share experiences with social individuals and other various leaders in the corporate world. The key major target audiences are the business operations players including managers, team leaders, employees, customers and partners. This is arrived because the book emphasizes on building the future business by creating good interactions between communities, customers, partners and employees. The author passes the message that social and emotional connections are important in attracting and keeping employees as well as customers establishing a growing, viable and profitable business (Libert 136). Social nation notably adopts innovative technologies, embracing new revolution and new sources of business revenues thus transforming the organization. The author has adopted a formal style whereby he is coherent passing the intended purpose with clarity and originality from the ascribed subjects notably marketing. He has also used correctly the underlying technical words which are major components of fullness and development. This style has contributed greatly to the book passing the intended message and reaching the intended audience effectively. The book contributes greatly in knowledge development when it comes into building personal social nation. With the knowledge regarding the organizational leadership, it provides a complete toolbox which is aided by the provided strategies that develops and creates a successful social strategy. The book further enhances development of skills and talents which are essential in today’s networked corporate world. The author has been able to achieve its intended audience because Social Nation is a business book which targets all the adults from the perspective of employer, employee and customers. With a lot of excitement the book makes me and others feel to incorporate the provided underlying social practices and strategies into respective organizations and business. It can be viewed that the book has achieved its intended goal because it has been developed in an approach whereby the future organizations and businesses depend on the social nation in building communities for customers, employees, employers and customers (Libert 78). Therefore this book is highly recommended for all the key major players in contributing to the success of businesses. THEME AND THESIS OF THE BOOK Title: Social Nation: Social Nation General subject matter: Social media and its use in the context of marketing Theme: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business Thesis: Social media plays significant role in facilitating emotional and social connections for growing more profitable business, motivating employees and keeping customers in organizations. METHOD AND DEVELOPTMENT OF THE BOOK The author develops his book starting with a real life illustration and enlightened exchange with his wife. From this he comes up with a scope where he shows giving ideas on how employers, partners, employees and customers can take advantage on the offerings arising from the establishment of the social nation. This opens the eyes of these key major players in taking charge and saving good things in regard to the management of organizations and companies marketing activities in all dimensions. With the use of illustrations of real life analysis and events the background description and setting facilitates the message reaching the intended audience and make them realize the advantages and opportunities from the use of social media in marketing (Libert 210). The narration of the book can be categorized into three parts which are connected. Barry Libert starts by pointing out the importance of social media and providing the importance of social skills in the world of social media. Finally in this first part the author provides need for the assessment of personal skills. The second part can be describes the principles and strategies of the establishing social nation which can be argued to be well common sense and provide important guidelines and procedures. He illustrates that entities which ignore the community in the social media are likely to be unassociated with. The final part of this narration shows how to incorporate social media and get started in these entities. To get started is a major aspect and at the same time getting to know where to expend energy and to avoid pitfalls and challenges. It can be summarized that the narration of the author has utilized both fiction and non-fiction events which is aimed to portray and explain the intended message. Barry Libert has utilized both explanation and analysis in the presentation of social media as a subject in the book. This form of exposition has enhanced clarity of ideas and the importance of social media in the general marketing. This exposition approach facilitates presentation of facts and subject matter impartially and clearly. This is aimed for better explanation and seeking of clarity and ideas thought the whole book. As part of development the author utilizes persuasion techniques in the establishment of the truth thus convincing the intended audience of its falsity. This has the effect of convincing and persuading the readers to ascribe the beliefs of the author. Therefore the purpose of this development is to convince readers through constructive arguments. BOOK EVALUATION Social nation can be argued to be a cutting-edge guide on the philosophy where if not embraced by the organizations it will lead to their downfall and poor performance. The core aspects in regard to this is the reasoning that social media is growing faster and has created a flat form where customers and employees express their complaints, wants and needs (Libert 68). This ascribes to the authors assertion that organizations which built social nation are able to achieve higher profitability and as well as customer and employee loyalty. Despite the clarity and convincing power of the book, there are problems and shortcomings of the book in my opinion. First are the apparent run-on sentences grammatical errors, type setting errors and typos. In the first chapter and the preface there are notable grammatical errors and misspelling of the word faculty as “faciulty”. This is contrary to the belief that the author is an expert in his field. It is also highly perceived that the book is for marketing purposes of his company. Secondly is the non-adding up statistics and opinions used by the author. It looks like a circular argument to directly relate company social media efforts with the underlying profitability. There are other profitable and successful companies which have achieved without the use of social media as there are other significant factor in which the author has ignored. The aspect of workplace being social is also untenable because of the challenging economy and the demands of employers regarding workplace productivity. Finally is that there is no data regarding the management of the communities which can be traced directly to the profitability of the company or an organization. CONCLUSION In summary this book illustrates how business evolves and uses the power of social nation to harness their profitability. The intended audience is considered to benefit most which are the managers, employers, employees and customers. With the description of business models it is provided that there is shift of the physical strength to that of emotional and informational thus bringing the concept of social media in marketing businesses. Despite the notable errors and arguments against various provision of the book, Barry Libert has tactically presented good overviews and details on the importance of creating social nations within the organizations. WORK CITED Libert, Barry. Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Read More