Grouped How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web

by Adams, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780321804112
• ISBN10: 0321804112
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-21
• Publisher: New Riders

Summary

The web is being rebuilt around people. From travel to news to commerce, businesses are reorienting their efforts around people - around the social behavior of their customers and potential customers. As we traverse across the web, we'll know which of our friends prefer different brands, and this information will be surfaced to us at the most opportune moments - when we're deciding what to buy. In order to be successful in this new social web, businesses will need to understand how people are influenced by their social network. How the people closest to them influence them the most, and how it's more important to focus on small connected groups of friends rather than looking for overly influential individuals. This book pulls together the latest research on influence and social behavior to describe how people are connected, and how ideas and brand messages spread through social networks.

Author Biography

Paul Adams is widely recognized as one of the leading thinkers on the social web He is a researcher and designer, currently working as Global Brand Experience Manager at Facebook Prior to Facebook, Paul led Googles social research team where his work influenced the direction of Google social research team Gmail, YouTube, and Mobile. He has worked in the user experience field for the last. He years, as a product designer with Dyson, a consultant for clients including vodafone the BBC, and the Guardian, and as a researcher in the field of social behavior and technology across Europe, the U S , and Asia.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vi
The web is changing	p. 1
How the web is changing	p. 2
Why the web is changing	p. 9
Why the social web is important to your business	p. 11
Summary	p. 13
Further reading	p. 14
How and why we communicate with others	p. 15
Why we talk	p. 16
What we talk about	p. 18
Who we talk to	p. 23
Summary	p. 26
Further reading	p. 27
How we're connected influences us	p. 29
The structure of our social network	p. 30
People naturally form groups	p. 36
Social network structure changes how we're influenced	p. 42
Summary	p. 47
Further reading	p. 48
How our relationships influence us	p. 51
Relationship types and patterns	p. 52
Strong ties	p. 59
Weak ties	p. 62
How relationships change	p. 66
Summary	p. 67
Further reading	p. 67
The myth of the "influentials"	p. 71
Highly connected does not mean highly influential	p. 72
Ideas often spread because people are influenceable	p. 74
How hubs spread ideas	p. 77
Summary	p. 81
Further reading	p. 82
We are influenced by what is around us	p. 85
Social proof	p. 86
influence within groups	p. 90
Influence within our extended network	p. 94
How experts exert influence	p. 95
Summary	p. 97
Further reading	p. 97
How our brain influences us	p. 101
We are not rational thinkers	p. 102
Most of our behavior is driven by our nonconscious brain	p. 107
Our memory is highly unreliable	p. 111
Summary	p. 113
Further reading	p. 114
How our biases influence us	p. 117
Other people bias us	p. 118
Our perception of value biases us	p. 120
Our habits bias us	p. 123
Environmental cues bias us	p. 125
Summary	p. 126
Further reading	p. 127
Marketing and advertising on the social web	p. 129
The problems facing interruption marketing	p. 130
The rise of permission marketing and word of mouth	p. 133
Building trust and credibility	p. 139
Summary	p. 143
Further reading	p. 143
Conclusion	p. 145
The social web today	p. 147
The next few years	p. 149
Acknowledgments	p. 152
Index	p. 154
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