Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, Revised and Updated

FOREWORD

From Main Street to Wall Street and from school rooms to board rooms, there is a revolution happening. It is being driven by a fundamental shift in how we communicate and it is enabled by the unprecedented rise of what is commonly called "social media." Now, one may argue that we've always interacted with each other through dialogue and debate, but there's no question that the platforms and tools that are freely available to us are taking this to the next level. It's one-to-one and one-to-many discourse in a public setting. And while we may only be at the beginning of this revolution, the effects are palpable. The historic invisible "walls" of the Internet are being broken down daily, locally and globally.

Social media touches nearly every facet of our personal and business lives. In business it isn't just for the Marketing and Public Relations departments. Rather, it is imperative for social media to be an integral part of a company's overall strategy. Whether a business is large or small, its overall success will be partly owed to its success within social media. Social media is living and breathing and it touches every part of an organization from Customer Service to frontline sales, even Human Resources and Information Technology. It's wherever and however your customer chooses to reach out to you. Social media is your customer today, customer tomorrow, employees, etc. Companies properly engaging with the social graph have already seen the power and the payoff. At Ford ...