10 Essential Guide Books To Business And Social Media (Part 1)

The last couple of years has seen the publication of more books dealing with the phenomenon of social media than anyone trying to run a business could ever hope to read. And it’s not just social media as a whole: there are books on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Myspace. If that’s not enough, pick up a tome on Google Analytics or Search Engine Optimization, or even running successful AdWords campaigns.

For anyone hoping to get to the crux of what defines social media or hoping to point their boss or a client towards some books that state the case more eloquently than you feel you can do yourself, it can be hard picking winners from among the huge range on offer.

To that end, in this post and the next I’m listing 10 that I believe will take you on a great journey down the main roads of social media and new marketing and what it means to your business. Here’s the first 5:

The manifesto

1. The Cluetrain Manifesto- Levine, Searle, Locke, and Weinberger (1999)
The book is an expansion of the original 95 theses that the authors posted to www.cluetrain.com in 1999. In an echo of Martin Luther nailing his own 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg’s Schlosskirche in 1517, Levin, Locke, Searle, and Weinberger were looking to spark their own reformation; this time in the way businesses and the internet interact. The first sentence reads, “A powerful global conversation has begun.” That was the spark.

Some of the most important theses – and which lie behind many of the subsequent developments in new marketing and social media – in a book full of important theses, are no. 1: “Markets are conversations.”; no. 19: “Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.”; no. 26: “Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.”; and no. 74: “We are immune to advertising. Just forget it”.

The essays in the book reveal that the internet is not about the technology itself but how it lets people connect to, discuss, and change the businesses they use. This is the book that got many of us started on the journey and is still a guidebook worth turning to when faced with unfamiliar territory. Smart businesses see it not as the manifesto of a group of angry customers but as a blueprint for how to adapt in a new environment in which they are no longer in complete control.

Learning to listen and engage

2. Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers- Scoble & Israel (2006)
This was really the book that gave blogging its business credentials. Conversations may have evolved and new tools have come to prominence but the case studies that pack this books remain relevant and underpin the core social media concept: namely, when businesses listen to their customers, they’re likely to succeed.

Like all the books on this list, the book is a joy to read and there are take-away concepts on almost every page. If your company doesn’t already have a blog – and even if it does – this book will inspire you to start one or improve on the one you have.

3. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies- Li & Bernoff (2008)
This is the book that shows you how to implement social strategies on-line for your business. It’s a book with tables and graphs and fifteen pages of notes at the back. It’s also written by two analysts working for Forrester Research at the time. And yet, it’s a clear and concise read and each case study is presented in such a way that the problems to be solved, the tools implemented, and the benefits gained are all easy to understand.

This is the book to take to your boss if he or she needs convincing that some other company has already succeeded with the strategies you’re trying to put in place.

The on-line business environment

4. The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture- John Battelle (2005)
Most people use Google for on-line searching. Even when they don’t, they use the term ‘to Google’ to describe what they’re doing. This search traffic dominance – and the revenue generated by AdWords that follows from it – has given Google huge wealth and the ability to reach out into areas. Now, for any company hoping to benefit from the internet, Google is as much part of the environment as business regulations, audited accounts, and corporate assets.

John Battelle‘s book is so much more than the story of one company’s phenomenal growth to financial success. He combines wonderful writing and excellent investigative journalism with an in-depth understanding of all things related to the internet. The result is a book that reads like a cross between a thriller and popular science. And yet it’s a business book. Still the best analysis of why search is so important and how Google came to dominate a market nobody believed existed.

5. The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand
- Chris Anderson (2006)
Chris Anderson is another excellent writer adept at bringing into sharp focus the region where technology meets the business model. This book is a much expanded version of an essay that first appeared in Wired magazine and does nothing less than force a rethink of the way businesses need to think about markets on-line. In effect, because the reach of the internet is so vast, there is a market for just about any conceivable product and service.

What makes the book as exciting as much as well-written, is its representation of a world where businesses can create niche products and be confident of a level of profitability. A perfect antidote to ‘blockbuster’ thinking.

That’s enough books for one day. I’ll expect you to have read them all by tomorrow, when I’ll add the final five books on my list.

If you’ve read them already, what did you make of them?