Provides information on ways to connect with customers through social networks in order to create demand and sell more products.

Celebrated scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler explain the amazing power of social networks and our profound influence on one another's lives. Your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you don't know her. A happy neighbor has more impact on your happiness than a happy spouse. These startling revelations of how much we truly influence one another are revealed in the studies of Dr. Christakis and Fowler, which have repeatedly made front-page news nationwide. In Connected, the authors explain why emotions are contagious, how health behaviors spread, why the rich get richer, even how we find and choose our partners. Intriguing and entertaining, Connected overturns the notion of the individual and provides a revolutionary paradigm-that social networks influence our ideas, emotions, health, relationships, behavior, politics, and much more. It will change the way we think about every aspect of our lives.

A powerful, visual framework helps managers discover how employees really communicate and collaborate to get work done - and helps them identify ways they can influence these social networks to improve performance and innovation. In The Hidden Power of Social Networks, Cross and Parker, experts in "social network analysis"—a technique that visually maps relationships between people in large, distributed groups - apply this powerful tool to management for the first time. Based on their in-depth study of sixty informal employee networks in well-known companies around the world, Cross and Parker show managers how to conduct a social network analysis of their organization.

It's time to join Social Nation and prosper! This book will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services. As a leader and manager, you'll find out how to use these tools to harness social interactions to improve your business and to create your own social nation. The book provides a social assessment for leaders, managers and employees to scientifically evaluate your individual social skills and competencies. This book relies on well-known case studies about businesses that illustrate how social principles and strategies can help organizations to: Integrate social skills into existing managerial and leadership practices Overcome some of the common risks and objections that are often cited as obstacles to becoming a successful social enterprise Adopt new forms of social leadership across the entire organization Attain social intelligence by listening, understanding, and measuring outcomes of your investment in relationships with customers, employees and partners Realize tangible economic benefits and ROI from new product and service offerings Social Nation provides readers with an opportunity to join the Social Nation community and share experiences with other leaders and social individuals.

Every leader has heard of the business benefits of social technology, yet many still struggle to understand how to get the most out of the technological tools at their disposal -- asking questions like "What should I be doing on Facebook?" and "How can Twitter help my company?" This book demystifies this much-hyped subject, and gives readers a level-headed, growth-focused approach to how they can put all kinds of social technology -- not just the big, well-known platforms -- to work for their companies. The book is a step-by-step plan for developing and implementing social technology and covers every aspect of social technology in the business arena -- from planning and goal-setting, to assembling a social tech team, to integrating social tech with your existing online presence, to measuring the return on investment. Business visionaries will be impressed by the scope and practicality of the strategies presented, and older executives prone to thinking of social tech as a toy will come to understand its critical place in today's business landscape.

For all the attention globalization has received in recent years, little consensus has emerged concerning how best to understand it. For some, it is the happy product of free and rational choices; for others, it is the unfortunate outcome of impersonal forces beyond our control. It is in turn celebrated for the opportunities it affords and criticized for the inequalities in wealth and power it generates. David Singh Grewal’s remarkable and ambitious book draws on several centuries of political and social thought to show how globalization is best understood in terms of a power inherent in social relations, which he calls network power. Using this framework, he demonstrates how our standards of social coordination both gain in value the more they are used and undermine the viability of alternative forms of cooperation. A wide range of examples are discussed, from the spread of English and the gold standard to the success of Microsoft and the operation of the World Trade Organization, to illustrate how global standards arise and falter. The idea of network power supplies a coherent set of terms and concepts—applicable to individuals, businesses, and countries alike—through which we can describe the processes of globalization as both free and forced. The result is a sophisticated and novel account of how globalization, and politics, work.

Traverse the landscape of Web 2.0 to become a player. Embrace the chaos! [This book} weaves stories from Moleskine, 37Signals, Threadless, Willitblend, and Gary Vaynerchuk into a compelling story of the way business is now done.--Seth Godin, author of "Meatball Sundae."

Using theory and data, Gainous and Wagner illustrate how online social media is bypassing traditional media and creating new forums for the exchange of political information and campaigning.

Powerful lessons from the frontlines of social media marketing.

Social networks can be so much more than a way to find your high school friends or learn what your favorite celebrity had for breakfast. They can be powerful tools for changing the world. With Share This! both regular folks of a progressive bent and committed activists can learn how to go beyond swapping movie reviews and vacation photos (not that there's anything wrong with that). At the moment the same kinds of people who dominate the dialog off-line are dominating it online, and things will never change if that doesn't change. Progressives need to get on social networks and share their stories, join conversations, connect with others—and not just others exactly like themselves. It's vital to reach out across all those ethnic/gender/preference/class/age lines that exist even within the progressive camp. As Deanna Zandt puts it, “creating a just society is sort of like the evolution of the species—if you have a bunch of the same DNA mixing together the species mutates poorly and eventually dies off.” But there are definitely dos and don'ts. Zandt delves into exactly what people are and are not looking for in online exchanges. How to be a good guest. What to share. Why authenticity is more important than just about anything, including traditional notions of expertise or authority. She addresses some common fears, like worrying about giving too much about yourself away, blurring the lines between your professional and personal life, or getting buried under a steaming heap of information overload. And she offers detailed, nuts-and bolts “how to get started” advice for both individuals and organizations. The Internet is upending hierarchies and freeing the flow of information in a way that makes the invention of the printing press seem like an historical footnote. Share This! shows how to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to make marginalized voices heard and support real, fundamental change—and, incidentally, have some fun doing it.