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Another Look at Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

This is something of an updated review of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff as, by the time I got to the ICM 522 Social Media Platforms class at Quinnipiac University, I had already read this seminal work.

But no matter. Because this is still a terrific work by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, and it remains more than a little relevant.

And in fact, I think I understand it better than I ever have.

Changing the Way You Think about Online Marketing for Good

For Li and Bernoff, the online world is a rich and diversified community. And in that large umbrella community, there are several smaller communities. But unlike in the case of the classic Matryoshka (Russian nesting dolls), there is an enormous amount of overlap.

Above all, they put forward the idea of a system called POST. And if you read nothing else, read this part of not just my review but of their book itself.

• Personae – who are your potential buyers? Who are your readers? And who makes up your audience?
† Objectives – what do you expect to get out of going online, and continuing online, or going in a different direction online?
• Strategies – how will you implement your ideas? What comes first? In addition, what must wait?
† Technologies – which platforms will you use? How will you use these differently as your strategy begins to click into place?
So the last time I read Groundswell, I suspect that I did not really understand POST.

And now I know never to start a social media campaign without it. So thanks to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff! This work is a classic for a damned fine reason. It really is that good. Because you need this book in your social media library.

Five Years Later — are Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff Still Relevant?

Social media platforms come and go. Fads rise and fall. Yet through it all, the lessons of the POST strategy, and why it’s so vital? Those are a rock, an anchor in an online world that sometimes feels like just so much jello stuck to the wall, ever sliding downwards.

Ew, sorry for that image, folks.

But never mind that for now.

I think the biggest and most vital part of POST is the first initialism, the P. The buyer persona is someone who we should be thinking about all the time. Not just sometimes, and for God’s sake not just when there’s an exam at school or the boss comes around at work.

It’s even a vital concept in a place that you would least expect it — a personal blog. And even in our own social media postings.

For if we are flinging those pixels out to the universe, then we are expecting an audience. We are wishing and hoping to be read! But if we don’t take that buyer persona into account at all (even when we aren’t selling anything and not expecting anyone to ever want to buy anything), we should still account for our audience.

Social media is exceptionally performative. We curate our photos and our words and our stories and our snark. If we want any sort of a reaction, then we have our audience in mind. Even if that’s subconsciously.

Being offensive is bad. Being unfunny is worse. But being unread? Quelle horreur! That is the worst.

Rating

1 Comment

A Look at The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition

The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger is one of those books where you are getting a message.

That Message

It’s a pounding, relentless message.

Here’s a message.

Oh yeah, a message.

Look, a message!

You get the idea. It. Never. Stops.

And what is this grand and glorious message? It is this: Markets are Conversations.

Um, okay. That’s it?

Yeah, that’s it. Oh and by the way, markets are conversations.

You just told me that.

And Then There’s Even More of it

Yeah, well, they are. Did I mention that markets are conversations? Oh and by the way, marketers and PR people are mean and nasty and awful. And they and other typical business people are a vaguely (and not so vaguely) sinister stereotype.

Whereas all of the other people (somehow, there are no details of who these typical business people and PR personnel are) are righteous, pure, just and true.

They are individuals and deserve to receive our communication, and our undivided listening attention, like all individuals.

Uniqueness?

Like, uh, I’m unique, just like everyone else?

No, no, no! You’re a unique and wonderful and special person with marvelous gifts and enormous accuracy in understanding good and positive and possible markets.

And you do it all while making fun of typical business people who obviously not only do not have a clue but are also, let’s face it, heartless, cold, inaccurate, not listening, not worthy of the time of day or a significant study.

And otherwise they should be ignored and forgotten, left to die on the vine.

But me, I’m a marketing type. The kind you said was evil.

So you are. Well, you’re evil, then.

Cut it out already!

You don’t even realize that I get it, this thing you are talking about, this point you keep dancing around as you keep beating the same old tired drum. Markets are conversations! Okay, great. I get that. And I have read it before although, in fairness, it was likely copying you.

But after that – and after repeating this mantra at least a good 16 or so times in your book – what else have you got to say, other than that the creature known as Business as Usual needs to die?

Fine, I get that, too. I’ve worked in traditional corporations, and I know that the work there can feel soul-killing.

But at the same time, there are people who thrive in such environments, people who seem pleasant, intelligent, respected and even, at times, hip.

Out of touch?

But, but, but, those people are supposed to be like Richard Nixon in wingtips on the beach, so cluelessly out of tune with everything that they cannot possibly be reeled in.

Reeled in, to the Cluetrain way of thinking?

And at some point, and of course I am exaggerating, but the bottom line is, the book decries business as usual and stereotypical thinking, yet it turns right around and stereotypes the very people who it claims need to change the most.

That is, of course, a lovely and time-honored way to get people to listen to you and change their methodologies to your way of thinking: make fun of them and make them feel small.

Not.

Where is it going?

So somewhere along the line, Cluetrain feels like it lost its way, like it cannot figure out how to be brief.

Like it cannot comprehend that talking down to people – while it criticizes business as usual for talking down to people – is more than a little ironic, and that they are not on the happy end of that irony.

Like it has almost become the very thing it says not to be: a business method and rule and playbook.

Some Positives from the Cluetrain Manifesto

There are interesting observations in here, to be sure. But overlong tales of this, that and the other diverting digression bog those observations down. The Internet is full of people who are spouting and selling hokum!

Yes, well The Refreshments said that before, and better: the world is full of stupid people. This is not, sadly, news.

Oh and big business is not nimble and providing individual attention is lovely and wonderful, but hard to do if you’re very large and/or if the number of individuals you’re addressing is huge. This isn’t front-page material, either.

One Nugget

There is one nugget of interest: when you’re dealing with said enormous number of individuals, you generally don’t need to address them all as individuals – you just need to work with a few and the others will see that you care about individuals. .

And then you’re pretty much set there.

This makes sense in a Groundswell (a far better book, in my opinion) sort of a way, in that there are more people online who are reading and lurking versus writing or critiquing, so a message to one can be like a message to a thousand.

All of that panning for gold, and only one nugget? Perhaps I am cynical, and I’ve clearly read far too many Internet marketing books lately for my own good. But The Cluetrain Manifesto just left me cold. Although it did, happily, remind me of this video:

Rating for the (IMHO) Drastically Overrated Cluetrain Manifesto

Review: 2/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

• Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0, a Book Review
† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
• White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, a Book Review
† The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

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