Citizen Marketers - 06 edition

Ben McConnellandJackie Hubapopularized the term ''customer evangelism'' with their previous book,Creating Customer Evangelists, which found a home in thousands of businesses, non-profits, and churches that embraced its concepts and instituted its recommendations. Writers and consultants, the authors have worked with Starbucks, Microsoft, Ulta, General Mills, Discovery Education, Eli Lilly, PBS, and others. They also sit on the board of advisors to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Their work has been featured in theWall Street Journal,Fortune, andFast Company, and in the Seth Godin-editedNYT- bestseller,The Big Moo, as one of the world's 33 smartest business thinkers.

The woman sitting next to you at Starbucks focused intently on her laptop may just be determining the next big thing. In coffee houses, offices, homes, dorm rooms, and airport lounges around the world, millions of people use laptops and cell phones to become today's new publishers and broadcasters. Armed with only a broadband connection, these regular citizens are exercising enormous influence on culture and what we buy. Who are they? What motivates them? In their provocative new book, ''Citizen Marketers,'' Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba explore the ramifications of today's burgeoning social media. As everyday people increasingly create content on behalf of companies, brands, or products--to which they have no official connection--they are turning traditional notions of media upside down. Collaborating with others just like themselves, they are forming ever-growing communities of enthusiasts and evangelists using videos, photos, songs, and animations, as well as the ''user-generated media'' of blogs, online bulletin boards, and podcasts. From the rough to the sophisticated, their creations are influencing companies' customer relationships, product design, and marketing campaigns--whether the companies participate willingly or not. Whether freeing Fiona Apple, building buzz for ''Snakes on a Plane,'' or denouncing Dell Hell, citizen marketers are democratizing traditional notions of communication and marketing, even entire business models. ''Citizen Marketers'' examines some of the early winners and losers in this new culture of business, as well as some of its most noted constituents.