Groundswell Winning in World Transformed

Harvard's Bestseller on Social Technology

The national bestselling book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technology (Harvard Business Press, 2008), by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff describe the groundswell as, "A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

Trends in social media usage are used by professionals in marketing, research, sales, development or management to achieve better target marketing and increase two-way communications with customers.

Online Economy, Technology and Traffic Driving the Groundswell

Both authors work for Forrester Research: Li is Vice-President and principal analyst and Bernoff is Vice-President and senior analyst. Li and Bernoff offer three forces they say that are driving the groundswell, the need for people to be connected to each other, the use of technology to stay connected and "The third force driving the groundswell is simple online economics: on the Internet, traffic equals money."

Profile of Social Technologies

Marketers and other communications professionals define the players according to a legend of terms used in "The Social Technologies Profile":

• Creators - people publishing blogs (18 %of online consumers)
• Critics - people posting ratings and reviews of products or services
• Collectors - people who vote for sites online
• Joiners - people who visit and maintain profiles on social network sites
• Spectators - people who read blogs, watch videos, read customer's ratings, and listen to podcasts
• Inactives - those who do none of the above activities

Identifying which category a company or organization's client base falls into can be vital to successfully reaching that audience.

Listening and Talking to the Groundswell

The authors contend that a company's brand is what customers say it is and they communicate it with each other in the groundswell.Companies can talk to the groundswell by posting a viral video, engaging in social networks, joining the blogosphere and creating a community. Relevant case studies in the book illustrate this point.

Marketers and public relations specialists have to be involved in online communities and learn how to use and incorporate the technologies that drive those communities into day-to-day business practices.