In today’s Internet-driven world, customers have more power than ever. Through what interactive marketing expert Pete Blackshaw calls "consumer-generated media"—blogs, social networking pages, message boards, product review sites—even a single disgruntled customer can broadcast his complaints to an audience of millions. Blackshaw shows managers, marketers, and business leaders how to establish and maintain credibility for their brand by being authentic, listening and responding to customers, and forming relationships built on openness, transparency, and trust.Filled with stories based on his experience working with Fortune 500 brands such as Toyota, Dell, Nike, Sony, General Motors, Hershey, Unilever, Nestlé, Lexus, and Bank of America, Blackshaw offers a clear strategy to sustain a competitive advantage by creating enduring, loyal relationships with today’s consumer.

"Marketing expert Jackie Huba explores Gaga's biography and fan philosophy and isolates the seven lessons any business can learn from her ... And while not all businesses want to stand out the way she does, any business can win big by creating monster loyalty"--Amazon.com.

Today's brands face an apparent choice between two evils: continue betting on their increasingly ineffective advertising or put blind faith in the supposedly mystical power of social media, where "likes" stand in for transactions and a mass audience is maddeningly elusive. There has to be a better way . . . As Lennon and McCartney wrote a half century ago, money can't buy you love. But in today's world, where people have become desensi­tized-even disillusioned-by ad campaigns and marketing slogans, that maxim needs an update: Money can't even buy you like.

The complexity of media that now sees multiple channels accessed through multiple devices has created major challenges for today's marketing and advertising professionals. Consumer time is split between TVs, laptops, iPads, X-Boxes and smartphones, with traditional media, websites, videos, social networks and apps all competing for attention, meaning it's difficult for brands to decide how best to reach and engage their audiences. Paid, Owned, Earned defines the constituents of each area of 'paid', 'owned' and 'earned' media and shows how they are linked together. It proposes a blueprint for how to think and navigate across this space using a framework made up of key elements such as communities and content, social media optimisation, seeding and viral distribution, broadcast mass media, social performance media and measurement.

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit such enthusiasm for their organization that they infect countless customers with similar satisfaction, loyalty, and dedication. Customer-owners are in turn so satisfied with their experience that they relate their stories to others, persuade them to try your product, and provide constructive criticism and new product ideas. As a new generation of managers has been changing the way that products and services are designed and delivered, authors Heskett, Sasser, and Wheeler have followed the evolution of this new ownership model. Case studies from companies as diverse as Harrah's Entertainment, ING Direct, Build-a-Bear Workshop, and Wegmans Food Markets bring home the central principle of engagement - and showcase ways to raise the ownership quotient among both your employees and your customers. With the authors' decades of consulting and research paving the way, you'll learn to identify your customer-owners; consistently exceed their expectations in ways they truly appreciate; and foster, measure, and grow the Ownership Quotient throughout your company. An organization that learns how to cultivate an ownership attitude creates a self-reinforcing relationship between customers and front-line employees. The lifetime value of a customer-owner can be equivalent to that of more than a hundred typical customers. And that makes the lifetime value of an employee who can promote customer ownership priceless. This powerful and practical book shows you how to add that value to your company and delight your employees, customers, and investors. Is your organization ready to make the transition to an ownership state of mind?

From the Dachis Group—the global leader in social business—comes the groundbreaking book on transformative social business strategies. Social Business By Design is the definitive management book on how to rethink the modern organization in the social media era. Based on their research and work through the Dachis Group, thought leaders Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim deftly explore how the social, cultural, and technological trends provoked by the social media explosion are transforming the business environment. Designed as both a strategic overview and a hands-on resource, Social Business By Design clearly shows how to choose and implement a social business strategy and maximize its impact. Explains the mechanisms, applications, and advantages of a strategic array of social media topics, including social media marketing, social product development, crowdsourcing, social supply chains, social customer relationship management, and more Features examples from high-profile companies such as SAP, Procter & Gamble, MillerCoors, Bloomberg, HBO, Ford, and IBM who have implemented social business strategies Draws on the extensive research and expertise of the Dachis Group, which has helped numerous Fortune 500 clients plan, build, and activate effective social business solutions Containing actionable, high-impact techniques that save time and the bottom line, Social Business By Design will transform any organization's strategy to ensure success and avoid disruption in a fast-moving world.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Promotes the theory that superior customer service leads to a superior business organisation

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#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts unlocks the dreams of a woman on a quest for the truth in her second Key Trilogy novel. Dana Steele has always found her greatest passion in books. But now her boss is making her job as a librarian a living hell. Luckily, she now has a Plan B… High on a hill overlooking the town of Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania, sits the Warrior’s Peak estate. It’s where Dana was invited to meet Malory Price and Zoe McCourt—and where they learned that they were destined to find three keys to unlock a box holding the souls of three mythical demigoddesses: one an artist, one a bard, and one a warrior. With the promise of a million dollars each dangled before them, the women couldn’t refuse. And as Malory found the first key, they formed a fast friendship and decided to go into business together. For Dana, that meant her dream of owning a bookstore was about to come true. And now, as Dana finds herself on the threshold of some major life changes, it’s her turn to find a key. She has four weeks to unravel a riddle involving her past, present, and future, and to find the truth hidden among deception and lies—or succumb to her worst nightmare. Don’t miss the other books in the Key Trilogy Key of Light Key of Valor