A social strategy : how we profit from social media /

Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to people's lives; from friendship and dating to news and business, social media is a tool used by a growing portion of the population. As Piskorski (Harvard Business School) points out, almost no one heard of social media a decade ago, but today websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than a billion users. What makes social media so appealing? Exploring the impact of social media and how it has changed everyone's lives, Piskorski's book is primarily aimed at scholars interested in understanding why people use social media platforms in the first place. Focusing on both media failures and success stories, the author accessed Silicon Valley's storied social media firms and analyzes why some sites work and others do not. For example, by letting users access it from multiple devices and allowing them to re-tweet, Twitter is easy to use. Conversely, eHarmony has found success partly because it does not make it easy for people to meet; instead, like trusted matchmakers of old, it serves as the go-between. Other companies examined include Zynga, Yelp, American Express, and Nike. The author's research offers new insights into the reasons for the explosion of social media. --Patricia G. Kishel, Cypress College

Piskorski (business administration, Harvard Business Sch.) examines how social media can work in businesses and what sets the successful sites apart from the rest. He writes that he prefers the term -social platforms to social media, and investigates thriving examples such as Twitter, eHarmony, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The author advocates the use of social strategy, which, he explains, relates to lowering costs and/or increasing customers' willingness to pay by creating better relationships with them; he provides case studies of such work at companies including Yelp, American Express, and Nike. -Piskorski draws on research and theoretical studies as well as statistical data related to the businesses examined. The concepts he uses include social failures in which mutually beneficial relationships do not take place and social solutions, which are designed to maintain successful interactions. -VERDICT Piskorski's thought-provoking and well-researched title is groundbreaking and should be required reading for those in business, and business faculty and students.-Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Queens, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.