"The Social Executive" (Dionne Kasian-Lew)

TITLE: The Social Executive: Winning In The Multi-Trillion Social Economy
AUTHOR: Dionne Kasian-Lew
PUBLISHER: Dugdale-Woolf Publishing, 2014, (92 pages)

This small book champions the use of social media for business in this fast-paced social media world. Offered primary as an ebook format, it is brief and to the point about the many business advantages of using social media. It is a brief primer on social media culled from her bigger work of the same name. The three main concerns Kasian-Lew are highlighted as:

1) Most executives know the potential and impact of social media
2) They also know they needed to do something with it
3) They needed to know how to go about doing it.

Written for busy executives, Australian trainer, coach, and CEO of "The Social Executive," Kasian-Lew puts her thoughts in point form through 18 short chapters about how executives can use the power of social media to drive their business. She begins with a passionate call for leaders to let the size of the opportunity sink in.

• It's a multi-trillion dollar economy
• It's growing more than 10% every year
• It's too big for executives to ignore
• 
  

She asserts rightly that social media is not about technology. It's about the people who use it. It is not about technical experts who know how to use it. It's about anyone who knows how to use it. The main purpose is brand management. The author presents some staggering statistics from big consulting and research houses. It has moved beyond mere social interactions to big scale corporate engagements. She higlights some of the characteristics of the titans of social media. LinkedIn is a business network while Twitter is the new "public speaking." Facebook is a global phenomenon while Google is the ubiquitous search engine of choice. She laments that most Fortune 100 companies had missed the social media boat. At the same time, she is hopeful because many leaders in such corporations are sitting up to the new world. Why are leaders slow to react?

Karian-Lew suggests reasons like:

• old-school thought that technology requires a steep learning curve
• misinformation about the new media
• misguided myths and misinformation
• inability to recruit the right people for the new environment
• difficulty in calculating a ROI
• 
  

She teaches us to think differently like, social intelligence is not about marketing, it's about decision making; It's a tsunami that leaders cannot ignore; digital literacy being the new financial literacy; and so on. Toward the end of the book, she gives 12 case studies from various social media examples. The case studies are provided via convenient URL links, which makes the book a growing one and easily updated via the web. Unfortunately, the excitement tapers off toward the end of the book as the steps on what to do next gets trimmed. Perhaps, this book is an invitation to buy the author's bigger version of "The Social Executive."

There are a lot of nice brief ideas to generate ideas for discussion. However, it is too brief and requires more references.

Rating: 3.5 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me courtesy of Dugdale-Woolf Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.