(affiliate link), co-authored by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund, offers 7 shifts on the adaptation of social media within your organization to meet the expectations of your customers. This book is a book of guidance and all you would expect with that guidance. They are not just writing the words, they are giving hard examples for each major point they are making. If you are new to social media or are seeking some guidance as to how it all fits together and into your overall marketing strategy, this is the book that you will keep referring back to. It is not one that will be thrown up on the shelf and dusted off every so often. No, it will be one that you keep close by to double check that you are staying on top of The Now Revolution.
The Now Revolution 7 Shifts
Shift 1: Engineer a New Bedrock. No this is not the whistle blowing 5pm slide down the dinosaur bedrock, this is your corporate culture. The 5 attributes of a healthy real time culture is immediately followed by the cultural roadblocks to social media. They go to great lengths to first map out the attributes and then what walls are met in the adoption. Adoption of social media cannot be half hearted and the true concept of going all in applies. They walk you through this process of identifying your corporate culture even if you are a sole proprietor and how you assess that culture. There is even a quiz!
Shift 2: Find Talent You Can Trust. Talent who does a great job is not always talent you can trust. In the digital age, we have a wealth of information at our fingertips and finding talent who is qualified and also worthy of your trust is how we hire today. The bottom line is that the customer experience starts with the employees you hire. How their personalities fit within the corporate culture travels down to the customers. There is an important reminder at the end of this shift, the 9 elements of finding talent you can trust (these elements will change the way you go about the hiring process)!
Shift 3: Organize Your Armies. This shift jumps immediately into the big question that so many companies have: who is responsible for the social media – which department? The answer is simpler than we ever thought. Social media is not a specialty per se and treating the entire organization as part of the social media team is truly how a successful social media strategy is created and executed. I naturally loved this shift as it has references to football and that is something that I can relate easily to. They do not leave you hanging as they delve into not only the team, forming the team but also the social media policies for the organization. Guidance. Jay and Amber guide you every step of the way.
Shift 4: Answer the New Telephone. This shift is where I can see many coming back and reviewing over and over. Listening. Jay and Amber provide a foundation for which you can build upon. Here they explain how we listen, what we listen for and how listening is not limited to just the marketing/PR departments for brand mentions. Listening is for the entire organization with sales, customer service, HR for new hires, etc. They round out the shift with the levels of listening. Grab your pen and paper for this shift as a lot of notes will be taken.
Shift 5: Emphasize Response-Ability. Listening is the most important in social media. We learn from listening however we also have to respond and engage. Shift 5 walks you through the different avenues of engagement and how to keep your story straight when multiple people are responding and engaging. This section was a bit slow for me as I have good foundation on blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and engaging however for someone new or unsure how they can engage via the various platforms, a lot can be learned here.
Shift 6: Build a Fire Extinguisher. This shift walks you through with some fantastic examples, when a crisis is fueled. Regardless of how big or small your business is, you need to build that fire extinguisher or at the very least have a resource available to help walk you through some steps that would need to be taken. When a crisis hits (ie a bad tweet, a blog comment that was not putting your best foot forward, etc) we are not thinking about anything other than how can we fix it fast. We forget some of the steps to take. Flag this section so that if you are faced with a crisis, your resources is readily available.
Shift 7: Make a Calculator. This is where many probably wished they went to first. ROI! It is the biggest and never ending question in social media – what is the ROI? Well, get off that train and look at the bigger picture. The GOALS! You cannot start to measure anything unless you have goals to measure and achieve. What is your share of voice? Driving sales is a goal just as is building the email list and repeat customers. Just as with a billboard, it is very hard to definitively calculate the ROI in social media.
The Now Revolution has so many takeaways that it is hard to just throw a few out there. Jay and Amber definitely delivered with this book and certainly did not disappoint. There is a lot to be learned for folks new to social media and a whole lot to be refined for those that have been hanging around in the social media neck of the woods. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I keep it nearby and have already referred back to it quite a few times in tweaking my social media strategy. Again, it is a book that guides you and trust me, it will be very helpful to you.
