The Social Age is transforming all parts of today's business model

By Eric Jacobson

“The Social Age is a revolution, one that affects all parts of today's business model," explain authors Ted Coiné and Mark Babbitt. "Welcome to the Social Age."

In their new book, A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive, they celebrate the dawn of an exciting new business era: the Social Age. As successful social media entrepreneurs, the authors draw on their own experiences, as well as the triumphs and missteps of other early adopters. Yet, their book goes far beyond the specifics of social media platforms, strategies, and tactics. Opening minds to a whole new reality about how companies innovate, collaborate, hire and develop team members, serve customers, and stay profitable, they urge every business leader to open his or her mind to social as monumental change agent—and seize on the opportunities it offers for business to become more human.

Packed with compelling stories of companies that are doing social right, as well as crucial lessons from some that are not, the book offers a guided tour across this sweeping, challenging, and still largely uncharted landscape.

In four major sections and fifteen chapters, the authors cover mind-expanding, business-transforming territory, including:

• How social media has drastically shifted the balance of power from message-controlling corporations to customers—and what happens when those customers wield their Social clout to praise outstanding service or to bash acts of corporate carelessness, or senselessness.

• How social media has radically transformed the employer-employee relationship, and how the surge in social recruiting is making both the search for the right job and the right job candidate more efficient, while making employers more transparent and accountable.

• Why genuine engagement—with employees, customers, partners, and all stakeholders—is fast becoming a basic business requirement, and how it increasingly takes an online community of brand advocates and champions to keep a business successful.

• Why the ability to think small and act nimble is the new competitive advantage (whatever a company’s current actual size), and how the future of productivity is “nano” corps: fluid, self-forming groups that move from one organization to another.

• Why bosses and managers are fast becoming obsolete (yes, flat is the new black), and how to leverage the social power of OPEN, where Ordinary People routinely intersect to form Extraordinary Networks.

• How to navigate the “Social Circle of Life”—the ongoing flow of five linked forces: social media, mobile technology, cloud computing, big data, and analytics—to measure and maximize social media’s ROI, and what it takes to become a real—and still so rare Coine and Babbitt refer to it as a “Blue Unicorn”)—social leader.

More than a social media how-to manual or mandate, A World Gone Social, is a call to social commitment and action. As Coiné and Babbitt impress on everyone with a stake in a stronger company and a better business world: “You are the future of Social.”

Ted Coiné is co-founder of Switch and Shift, a leadership community that believes organizations – in order to thrive in the Social Age – must build trust-based relationships, lead with purpose, and enable employees to do work that matters. A noted blogger and speaker, Ted was recently named a Forbes “Top 10 Social Media Power Influencer.”

Mark Babbitt is CEO and Founder of YouTern, a social community for college students, recent graduates and young professionals that Mashable calls a "Top 5 Online Community for Starting Your Career." A prolific blogger and speaker, he is also President of Switch and Shift and a co-founder of ForwardHeroes.org.

Culled from examiner.com