Book Review- Grouped by Paul Adams
Published in November of 2011 in the “Voices that Matter” series, Grouped tries to put together latest research from leading Universities and organizations that describes how the social media has caused a disruptive innovation in the way people interact with each other and what it means for businesses and brands. Paul Adams does set the stage for the audience and tells them what to expect in the subtitle of the book itself- “how a small group of friends are the key to influence on the social web”. A big plus for the reader is the excellent structuring that Paul uses throughout the book, often reminding me of seminar synopsis-Principles,Recap,Quick tips,Reading list , which did make the multitude of concepts discussed in the book easier to digest. The language flow is smooth and without jargon which helps keep up the interest with every flipping page and adds to the brevity.
The novelty feature in the book is the analysis and insight of extensive reference sources,studies and hypotheses that an individual is not likely to do by himself. The basic premise of Grouped is providing a refreshingly new perspective on the way we look at traditional marketing, tying it up with Malcolm Gladwell’s “Law of the few” in Tipping Point and unequivocally challenging the same by describing it as a pure myth. Paul goes on to say that “People with more connections are not necessarily more influential”, and cites it as the main reason for the shift in traditional big-name brand ambassador marketing to a combination of “innovative” and “follower” hubs on social web.An interesting point made in the book for avid social media users is the fact that we are being influenced on the web all the time by other people whom we don’t necessarily know in person,even without being aware of the fact. The ability of such influencers fall drastically beyond three degrees of separation, as suggested by numerous studies mentioned in the book. Grouped provides ample food for thought when it challenges the funnel marked model of awareness at the top and purchase at the bottom, and tries to flip the model upside down in iterative incremental steps. Paul is convinced that advertising and marketing on the web needs to be more social media centric, more meaningful and relevant and should be increasingly geared towards permission marketing as opposed to the traditional and annoying practice of interruption marketing,which is strongly coupled with existing peer-to-peer networks. To quote form the book-
“We live in a world of exponentially increasing information which we can’t consume. We’re going to increase our reliance on our social networks to make decisions.”
“In a world of too much information, people turn to their friends.”
“The amount of permission can increase over time.”
Overall an enlightening read on how to leverage the ongoing fundamental shift in the nature of the web as it gets more social.