small business

After years of trial and error and months of writing, The New Community Rules (O’Reilly link | Amazon link) has been released, and I wanted to dive into some of the concepts I discuss in the book, many of which I hope to explore in depth in future blog posts.

The New Community Rules talks about the important role social media has begun playing in our lives. Most importantly, however, is the role the emerging technology puts on the business owner who is tasked with finding out how to make an impact in this evolving landscape. We’ve seen that individuals nowadays don’t sift through their Yellow Pages to find a local business (nor do many people even own such a big book any longer); they turn to the Internet for help. By using the power of search, they are able to find what they want or would be reasonably happy with.

Search alone, however, isn’t cutting it. What if, on the first page of search results, you discover that people are very disappointed with the business? What if someone can’t stop singing praises about the product she just bought? If you’re looking at buying a product or utilizing a service, chances are you’re looking for the sentiment about that product or service as well.