Congratulations to our Alan plus Jouko, Ajit and Brian for ground-breaking book: Social Media Marketing

This is a moment I have been waiting for a very long time. My most heart-felt congratulations on a truly ground-breaking book. Our Alan Moore had teamed up with the authors Ajit Jaokar from the tech side of mobile web and Brian Jacobs from the side of advertising, joined by my very dear friend Jouko Ahvenainen, co-founder of Xtract.



Their book is Social Media Marketing and I've seen this project being developed and have had the privilege of seeing drafts of parts of it as the book evolved. This is a magnificent contribution to the next stages of marketing, and a direct linear follow-up to our book with Alan, Communities Dominate Brands. Anyone reading this blog, please go over and take a look at Social Media Marketing, it is exactly what it says on the title, this is the bleeding edge of the thinking on what next for brands, advertising and marketing, when communities dominate. It is written by brilliant minds who have all independently contributed greatly to this field and now give the topic of marketing in a social media environment the definitive treatment. An absolute must-read.

A personal note on Jouko Ahvenainen. This is his first "formal" book. We go back over a decade to our time together at neighboring desks at Nokia where we contributed to each others' White Papers etc, so Jouko and I have been co-authoring for over ten years and I know very well how sharp is his mind. What most of even my close friends do not know, is that Jouko was an early contributor to my third book 3G Marketing, and was initially listed as co-author to it. Jouko became at the time too busy with Xtract and other duties, and had to pull out of the project, but supported us thoughout that long project. His thinking and some early draft writing is still in that book and the book is better because of his contribution. Obviously I thank Jouko in the book and he later offered us the Foreword to the second edition of that book. So Jouko has been aiming for a book to our industry for a long while and it is so wonderful to see him finally published. His is a true pioneer and thought-leader and he so warmly deserves finally also to have a book with his name on it. My warmest congratulations Jouko!!!

Alan Moore we all know obviously and I am so proud of him and this great follow up to Communities Dominate Brands. You can see why Alan has been a bit less active here at this blog, as he's been involved with finishing Social Media Marketing. I should note that Alan's support of my current book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media has been enormous and were he not involved in his own book, Alan could as well been a co-author with me on 7th Mass Media. Obviously my book borrows a lot of Alan's thinking and I credit him throughout the book (Alan is listed 15 times in the index, the most of any person) and I quote from him at length from Alan's White Paper on 7th Mass Media etc.

It is funny that also Ajit has had a big role in yet another of my books. With my fifth book (Digital Korea, with Jim O'Reilly), Jim and I were having several times early organization and writing and editing problems due to the complexity of the topic of that book, and Ajit kindly sat with us and reviewed many early draft manuscripts and offered countless hours of his support in editing and refining that volume. His work was so significant that Jim and I offered Ajit the chance to be listed on the book as co-author with us, but Ajit most kindly rejected this offer. He was then focused on his Mobile Web 2.0 book, obviously a very significant book and since then also became a widely read and referenced work. 

So it does seem like this is a collaboration of some of my very fave authors (and best friends) of all time. Just as a friend, I am so happy for all of you.

But within the topic of the book, this is even more. I think it is almost inevitable if you take two technologists like Ajit and Jouko who understand marketing and media, and pair them with two marketing and advertising gurus like Alan and Brian who understand technology, and this dynamic (almost dynamite) collection brews together for about a year, the results are going to be phenomenal. Some of the results we saw along the way as they were developing the book. Jouko and Alan came up with the seventh unique benefit of mobile phones as a mass media channel last year - that only mobile captures the social context of media consumption.

Alan and Jouko co-wrote a brilliant White Paper last year for Xtract entitled Social Advertising Intelligence (which many of our regular readers have) which kind of led the way to this book. And Alan's been saying for a long while now, "Raw data has no value; social networking intelligence is the black gold of the 21st century." (I wish I'd said that, ha-ha; but of course I quote Alan on it in my book)

In some way the story of Social Media Marketing starts with the Alpha User, the early thinking on the power of influencers and how communication spreads in intensely networked communities. Those thoughts are familiar to our readers, but that is really the starting point for this book. That is by the way also where Alan and Jouko initially connected, thinking those thoughts beyond Alpha Users. It led to Alan joining Xtract's Board even.

But this book now goes miles beyond that. Now the four authors examine how social marketing can be done, intelligently and yet sensitively, because brands do need people, like people need brands (again to quote Alan)

This is a deep, thought-provoking and uttely practical book. We all know that the future of media is interactive and digital. Increasingly it is also a media experience with social networking. How do you do marketing and advertising, with true engagement marketing philosophies, in the media environment of Facebook and Twitter and iReport and World of Warcraft and Second Life. This is the book to tell you how. I totally recommend it. Please stop by at the book ordering page at its publisher futuretext or at Amazon. Get this book now.

Comments

[Alan Moore]

Dear Tomi,

Thank you, thank you... your words are kind and much appreciated. And btw I am off to speak at sxsw in Austin Texas, to give a book reading on this book. The date is 14th March.

All are welcome.

Alan ";+)