Clara Shih’s “The Facebook Era”

Subtitled Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff the book is a must read, and especially useful as a primer for those still needing to understand the fundamental changes in doing business as the Internet has matured from Web 1.0 to: an entirely new level with Web 3.0- an era that is entirely about innovation and collaboration. (Foreword page ix) An excellent overview of the book, in author Clara Shihs own words, is in 2 parts at the Entrepreneurs Journeys blog . Not surprizingly the books home page is on Facebook and 24 x 5 star Amazon reviews indicate the books value. The book section titles starting with A Brief History of Social Media through Transforming the Way We Do Business to Your Step-By-Step Guide to Using Facebook for Business reveal the key themes. Reflecting the authors hands on experience as the developer of FaceConnector and head of Enterprise Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy for Salesforce, the book is filled with lived experiences of companies using social networking to build better products, reach new audiences and sell more stuff. If there are gaps in the book they reflect the state of the industry. For example, The ROI of Social is addressed in half a page (205) beginning: Understandably, a large number of you are focused on ROI and might feel frustrated that there has been no clear quantifiable data around ROI and concludes suggesting; ROI will become much more quantifiable and standardized. Have you read The Facebook Era? What did you take away? ~ Jenny Ambrozek