Socialnomics – A Wake Up Call

It’s a people driven economy stupid” ~ Erik Qualman

You don’t have to join the Revolution, but it is happening, whether you acknowledge it or not.

Erik Qualman is the author of a new book called Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Erik is a pretty smart guy who graduated from my alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin, with an MBA just ten years ago. His compelling promotional video is a real eye opener.

Recently, Qualman spoke about Socialnomics at the Book Expo America convention, the largest book publishing event in North America. Here’s a video clip from his BEA 2009 presentation in May where he shares some interesting facts about Wiki’s and Facebook.

The fastest growing segment on Facebook is
55-65 year-old females

People find this statistic shocking, but I don’t. Most women are natural communicators and networkers, so it makes perfect sense. And you can be sure that these numbers are accurate coming from within Facebook. See the entire article from InsideFacebook.com for more facts and graphs about Facebook users.

The rest of the stats seen in the video, along with their sources, are in the book and can be seen here on the blog: Socialnomics.net. All statistics have inherent bias and are rarely exact, but they are often an excellent way to capture a trend or movement. Here’s one example; By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network. The source for this was from Grunwald Associates National Study and highlighted on Trendsspotting Blog. They did a national study and sampled 1,277 kids from age 9-17. The results stated that 96% of online teens/tweens report ever having used any type of social networking technology including IM/chat, text messaging and email. Reporting “96% of them“, instead of “96% of online Gen Y users” is a bit deceptive, although there is no denying that this trend is still very impressive.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I am really looking forward to it, despite the statistical wiggle room.  I have read some awesome reviews and hear that it’s filled with valuable case studies and real world examples of how businesses are utilizing social media.  Here’s a link to the Buzz About Socialnomics page.

Amazon link: Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business

2 thoughts on “Socialnomics – A Wake Up Call”

  1. Wow. I had no idea that older women were such a force on Facebook!

  2. I’m fascinated by how social media is changing communication, how we do business, how we relate overall. I’m also looking forward to reading this book.

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