“Now is Gone” – Suggested Reading
(4) Comments So Far... What do you think?| Author : Susan Pascal Tatum January 31, 2008
Social media is here to stay and every business technology marketer, executive and entrepreneur needs to get a grip on what that means. Now is Gone, Geoff Livingston’s primer on new media is a great place to start.
This book provides a good high-level overview of the so-called New Media and how it affects the way we communicate with traditional PR audiences — such as journalists and analysts – as well as prospects, customers and our extended “communities”.
Livingston suggests five benchmarks to determine whether or not your company will succeed with a social media program. Here are those benchmarks along with a comment or two from me.
- Willingness to give up control of the message. Don’t fight it – it’s happening anyway.
- Readiness to participate in a community. This requires a mind shift of sorts. You may be an expert, but the community is made up of your peers. You have to join in as one of them.
- A market that is social media savvy. In other words, your customers are using social media – kind of a no-brainer if you’re selling business technology.
- Ability to dedicate resources. Social media participation – blogging is a good example – is very time consuming. You must be willing to devote the necessary resources to it.
- Ethics and transparency. You must be what you claim to be – otherwise you’re going to get nailed.
Now is Gone is a quick and interesting read. It won’t tell you how to conduct a good social media program but it will give you a good understanding of what it is and why you need it.
Technorati Tags: social media, blogging, communities, technology marketing, pr
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I’m sorry; Now is Gone and your review is complete Cluetrain crap.
1. Giving up control of the message is what losers in our business profess. Managing the message is what we do for a living. It is THE prime directive. A DOLLAR IS A CONTROL VEHICLE! No control; no get paid!
2. Readiness to participate in a community is more over-hyped Web myth. Are we talkin’ a community of ducks or 3 key investors? In most cases, the sacrosanct “community” is composed of the 5-10 habitual complainers on your condo board. Participation in the majority of cases is expensive and totally counterproductive. Period.
3. A market that is social media savvy. ABSOLUTELY! And most normal people are NOT. And those that are, have ADS. If anything, what we’ve seen time and again in the last 2 years is that all of this is fad. What’s popular today, is totally passé in about a month.
4. Social media participation is very time consuming, i.e. participation is expensive… WITH NO DICERNABLE ROI!
5. “Ethics and transparency. You must be what you claim to be – otherwise you’re going to get nailed.” Yes sorta NO!, i.e. this is a virulent platitude or in Seth Godin’s words, a “Meatball Sundae.” Sounds good but totally naïve about the dynamics of communications. Folks that throw this card typically do not have any clue about what ethics even is. Most proselytizing transparency have NO experience in business and wouldn’t know the value of art and metaphor in the transaction if it hit them over their pointed little literal heads.
Now is Gone is ridiculous.
Sincerely,
- Amanda Chapel
Glad you liked the book, Susan! It serves it’s purpose as you can tell. More than 40+ people have lauded the book as a great primer to start anyone’s engagement in social media. And only one doesn’t like it (guess who!).
Thank you for taking the time to write this review. I’ll be sure to link to it in the Now Is Gone blog.
Re: the first comment
Control is a promise that can’t be kept. As PR professionals we need to embrace the possibility of dissension. It is naïve, parochial, and very “head in the sand” to not take advantage of the opportunities social media provides because you’re scared someone might disagree. (Like Ms. Chapel’s comment above. Or maybe she works for the Bush Administration?)*
*I was going to say more and basically correct each of the points she made but a quick Google search told me everything I need to know. I’m not going to waste my time.
http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/10/11/amandas-backstory-reveals-ugly-character-did-you-know/
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