Qualman insightfully advises companies to patiently build relationships with customers through social media, rather than instantly getting a customer's name and e-mail address into its database. "Good businesses realize that it's not all about the instant win of getting someone into a database," he says. "Rather it is cultivating that relationship via social media. If it's done correctly, you will have a relationship that lasts a lifetime." Throughout the book he tries, but doesn't quite succeed, to show how to "correctly" cultivate such relationships.
Another insight: He says on page 111 that marketers will need to create content (news, entertainment, and how-to information, for example) for their websites, not just advertising messages.
Unfortunately, insights like those are few and far between.
Qualman's platitudinous premise is stated in the introduction, and again in the conclusion:
"It's all about the economy, stupid. No, it's all about a people-driven economy, stupid. If anything, I hope that you have learned this from reading this book."
(In the introduction, Qualman explained that the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" was coined in 1992 by James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager. Qualman merely "adjusted" that phrase to create the book's alleged premise.)
After reading the book, I still don't have the slightest idea how the "people-driven economy" differs from "the economy." Or what the adjusted phrase means.
This book is full of superficial anecdotes and miniscule case studies, platitudes and generalizations, unsupported opinions, idle speculation, specious claims, inconsistent style, imprecise language, typos, and bad punctuation.
In some of Qualman's examples, I couldn't tell whether the facts were real or hypothetical. In many of the micro-case studies, he shows how a company accomplished a certain objective through social media, but does not establish that the objectives could not have been accomplished more cost-effectively through other marketing channels.
He describes the case of Dancing Matt--about Matt Harding, who filmed himself dancing around the world and put his videos on YouTube. The videos were hugely popular, so Stride Gum sponsored his further travels and video production. Stride exercised restraint and placed its logo discreetly at the end of the video (in the post roll). Qualman claims Stride earned "millions of dollars in brand equity," but does not support that claim with any data or sources. Is it his own guesstimate, or did the company tell him it earned "millions"? No clue.
He claims that social media activities "connect parents to their kids like never before." He offers no source, data, or study to support that statement, and he is clearly not qualified to offer that opinion.
Regarding microblogging, he says, "What once took place only periodically around the watercooler [sic] is now happening in real time." Huh? What can be more real-time than water cooler conversations?
He says (on page 52) that micro-blogging functions as a kind of log that you can look back on--at the end of a day or week or month--and review your posts and updates. "It's extremely enlightening because it shows you how you are spending what precious time you have." Ah, yes, it's not only improving the way parents relate to their kids, it's therapeutic as well.
As a downside of social media, he says, Generation Y and Z [are having] difficulty with face-to-face conversations." No support for that claim. Is that his personal observation? He's a marketer, not a sociologist.
He says that staying connected, through social media, to the people who elected Obama president will be the "key to his success as president." The key!
He says social media "allows for a government to be more in tune with the country and to truly run as a democracy by stripping away the politics and getting to the core of what matters." Uh huh.
He recites marketing platitudes that have been true for decades or centuries, but treats them as though social media makes them especially true. An example: "Companies that produce great products and services...will be winners in the socialnomic world."
Here is an example of idle speculation. Qualman uses an example involving NBC's failure to put its 2008 Olympics coverage online in certain circumstances. "Most likely, NBC and their advertisers...were judging themselves using old metrics..." Sorry, you can't prove a point with a "most likely." Qualman could have contacted NBC's marketing department and asked them why they didn't. But that would have required real journalism.
Regarding the concept of network neutrality (although he doesn't use that phrase), Qualman says that if Internet service providers start charging for usage ("per stream") rather than a fixed monthly fee, that would be "malicious."
Qualman devotes almost five pages (perhaps the longest case study in the book) to the Scrabulous case, where the Agarwalla brothers created an online game similar to Scrabble, which they called Scrabulous and which attracted 500,000 daily users at its peak. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble brand, issued a cease-and-desist letter and pushed Scrabulous off the web. Qualman excoriates Hasbro for being heavy-handed in the case, and he quotes several other marketing professionals who likewise criticize Hasbro for being short-sighted. Yet Qualman presents not a single quote or statement from Hasbro, nor does he speculate as to why Hasbro's believed its legal action was necessary.
I could go on, but you get the point.
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