Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business

by Larry Weber and Larry Weber

An updated and expanded Second Edition of the popular guide to social media for the business community

Marketers must look to the Web for new ways of finding customers and communicating with them, rather than at them. From Facebook and YouTube to blogs and Twitter-ing, social media on the Internet is the most promising new way to reach customers. Marketing to the Social Web, Second Edition helps marketers...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470410973
• ISBN13: 9780470410974
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Worthy of 6 stars

If you are perplexed by the light speed evolution of marketing on the Web, this book is for you. The author is has been deeply involved in the Web since the beginning of time, on both the technical and business fronts. Thus,Weber paints a very clear picture of how social media evolved, what it looks like, how businesses should use it, and where it is going. The book provides a lot of detail and advice to help marketing professionals understand things like- The differences between traditional and new media. How to engage customers in real conversations. How to target customers in the social Web. How to implement social marketing strategies. What mistakes to avoid in social marketing (based on case study examples.) How to vibrant customer communities. Blogging. Weber's practical advice for marketers is spot on, but what really struck me is the conceptual framework he provides. He sees the social Web as an integrated whole, which is very important. You can't understand how to effectively use the pieces of the social Web - blogs, microsites, social network sites, etc. - until you see how all the pieces fit together. Weber's model of the marketing department of the future is fascinating. For starters, he envisions the CMO having a director of paid media and a director of unpaid media. This in itself is a great concept that will help companies prevent the stovepiping of individual social Web initiatives and ensure new media and old media programs are likewise integrated. Right now, old reporting structures are making it difficult for companies tap into the power of new marketing tools at their fingertips.

Marketing to the Social Web Sticks with Marketers!

Reading Larry Weber's recent book, Marketing to the Social Web, I was relieved to discover sound, practical advice for generating conversations on the web. As a Global Marketing student, I am continually looking for suggested strategies and framework necessary to implement an effective marketing campaign. Weber outlines various issues companies grapple with when approaching the web, such as, legality issues surrounding consumer comments, employee blogging backlash, moving consumers to your company's site, and how to generate conversations. He finishes with closing thoughts on Web 4.0, calling it to `emotive' web, the location where emotions, experience and fulfillment will develop from the interactive and rich media environment. He leaves the reader with a greater sense of the workings of the web, while still leaving food for thought.

Bleeding Edge of Internet Marketing

This book goes into detail about the possibilities behind marketing to the social web. It's more about how to interact with your customers and the social ties that bind them to determine the next steps in marketing and product development. It's also a good way to attract and interact with them in a more personal way than every done before in traditional marketing. The book is full of examples and case studies with usable techniques even for smaller companies who might not have as much to invest.

A must-read for marketers

Larry Weber lives five years in the future, so if you want to know where marketing is going, ask him. This book is about how businesses will market after they finally concede that they've lost control of the message. Once you come to grips with the fact that customers are dictating the terms of engagement, you can have wonderfully rich conversations with them that lead to meaningful relationships. Stop spewing and start conversing. Larry Weber tells you how. This book is forceful, opinionated, passionate and very relevant to the challenges and opportunities that face marketers in the coming years.

Another marketing book that explains a new approach when promoting something and using the new socia

I just finished writing a book review for The New Influencers by Paul Gillin (ISBN: 1884956653). I mention this because I think the instant book is one that should be read along with Gillin's book. Both books are great! And both books are about marketing, the new social media, and how to use the Web effectively to promote yourself, your business, or whatever. Marketing to the Social Web can include one or all of the following: (1) reputation aggregators, (2) blogs, (3) e-communities, and (4) social networks. This book explains each and how they can help you in your marketing efforts. I personally like blogs and social networks the best. They are easier and cheaper to create than the other two. E-communities can cost a bunch to create, monitor, and maintain. And reputation aggregators are search engines and directories. Not something that I'm interested in creating. My favorite chapters were 1-3 and 12-16. I found chapter 4 to be kind of the odd-ball out in the book. Maybe it was necessary? Maybe not? And I thought chapters 5-11 were wonderful and added much content to the book. But they did not set my world on fire. Maybe they should have been saved as the final seven chapters? I highly recommend this book to those who want to move away from straight traditional marketing and into new media marketing. 5 stars!