Reviews

Recommend This opens with a demonstration of the enduring power of relationships. The authors tell a story about a local hardware store that uses empathy, curation, and community to create generations of loyal customers, willing pay a hefty premium for the experience of shopping there. It leads to an important question: How can we leverage the power of relationships, and scale it to market our enterprises in the current state of digital communications?What follows is an entertaining and useful guide to employing storytelling, content and social media to create compelling customer experiences on a large scale. The book transitions adroitly from the theories of neuroscience, to practical steps, offering a wealth of knowledge to meet this challenge. For marketers hoping to attain the holy grail of customer loyalty and intimacy in an era of brand commoditization, this is an invaluable book.

I'm used to business/technology books that have one core thesis that you pretty much get by page 30. Then it's all filler and examples. This book surprised me, pleasantly, by adding new ideas and concepts about the digital experience in every chapter. It's like the authors did a reboot after every chapter -- and then launched into a new idea, or technique, or approach. There's enough material in here for a couple of standard business/technology books. It really covers "digital experience" from every conceivable angle. Another thing I liked about this book -- it's nearly future-proof in that the authors are careful to discuss concepts in a way that don't tie them to specific technologies or platforms. So the ideas are bigger than just "mobile strategy," for example. It's almost as if they are promoting a process that will get you thinking about the digital experience in a way that allows you to incorporate the inevitable new technologies that are coming down the road.

Wonderfully creative collection of insights, case studies, narratives, data, research and recommendations tying together a lot of the best thinking in digital marketing. Written in an accessible but smart and quick to read style, it's great for a time pressed executive seeking to get an overview of how to improve digital marketing outcomes with enough specifics to provide a road map.

Recommend This! Is not just for marketers. It’s for anyone who wants to understand how to connect with their target audience using today’s tools of engagement. The authors do a great job of making the case for authenticity by using their own authentic voices and experiences. The book is jam-packed with examples that drive home the fact that building and maintaining relationships is a basic human need, and the key to long-term success for any business – big or small. I’ll be recommending this book to family and friends.

Great book for understanding how to apply the latest digital and media techniques to enhance customer interaction. The explanations and examples are clear and the tools are practical and applicable. Must reading for anyone who wants to improve their business in this digital age.

Digital has given people a way, for the first time in history really, to connect easily with an organisation, be it to laud and praise or vilify and complain; that digital availability is now becoming an audience expectation, which is why authenticity must become our lifeblood, according to Jason Thibeault and Kirby Wadsworth in this book. Authenticity, consistency, credibility and helpfulness have always been important ingredients in establishing and maintaining the reputation of a business. Now they have become increasingly significant, and rather than requiring many years of consistent effort, a reputation can now be built up or torn down in a very short period of time. However, whereas in the past a business could simply “do the right thing” and a good reputation would grow organically, now a business needs not only to do the right thing, but also to invest in reputation management using social media tools. The book describes how relationships work in a digital world, how their value can be measured, how online video can serve as a gateway to trust, why it is important for businesses to tell stories well, and how to nurture online communities. The final chapter foresees a future in which sensors and digital signage recognise us and engage with us wherever we go in the real world. Most business managers are probably already well aware of the impact of social media and the importance of reputation management in the current business environment, but this book does provide a useful perspective on how to maximise digital relationships and what the future might hold.

As a consumer of more marketing books than the average reader, and involved in online marketing myself, I would confidently recommend this book to business owners who are not getting results from their investment in content marketing, and the ones who are not sure why or what they are doing online. While there are oodles of examples, stats and clear facts here, the most compelling ones are the digital examples of successful strategies traditional bricks and mortar businesses have been using for decades. Throughout the chapters, the authors use the story of a profitable high-end hardware store to illustrate proven human consumer behaviors and how you can replicate that warmth, expertise and personal touch on the web. It's a quick read with just enough science and case studies to move you along. The whole point is that humans crave attention and connection. Serve them online the same way you would in person and your business will boom. If you devour marketing books like I do, you might be surprised to find more than a few new concepts and ideas here. Ratings for influencers, consumer perception of connection speeds, new ways to show consistency, authenticity and expertise...tons of juicy research went into this one.

Here's the perfect follow-up to my review of Story Based Selling. Recommend This! incorporates the idea of the story, but wraps it around the lens of ongoing relationships. Whether in person at a retail store or digitally through top-quality content, you build relationships that move people along from prospect to customer to loyal fan to ambassador. Thibeault and Wadsworth don't talk much about turning your customers into ambassadors (your unpaid sales force, as I call them in one of my own books)—but they do talk about building a relationship that could last decades. And in the relationship economy—they coin the term "relawatts" to measure it—the true currency is attention.

There comes a time when the latest technology evolves into something usable in business models. Social media and websites are the interfaces into our online lives and that means millions of posts, videos, tweets, and blogs across the globe in hundreds of languages in the course of hours. "Recommend This!," by Jason Thibeault and Kirby Wadsworth, describes the third leg of a stool, as it were, when trying to piece together all the online relationships and social interactions. Along with "Youtility," by Jay Baer, and "Epic Content," by Joe Pulizzi, the science of our online future can be realized and utilized for content marketing ROI and long-lasting business relationships. "Youtility" details the social media and online mechanisms. "Epic Content" describes the substance of the content to build audiences and fans. "Recommend This!" rounds out the trio with how to use the mechanisms and content to maintain relationships in the online world into the future. If you're searching for a definitive understanding of content marketing, take the time to read these three books. They totally connected the dots for me and it has resulted in positive business impacts and improvements.

Every marketer knows that engaging an audience in the digital world is tough, and getting tougher every day. Recommend This! introduces a new way of looking at digital marketing and the buyer's journey. The authors effectively drive home the importance of relationship-based strategies versus sales-driven strategies. I like that they bolster their theory with solid research on how the human brain works as people form relationships with other people, and with organizations. But I love the practical advice and helpful tips they share. In fact, the whole second half of the book is loaded with actionable information from the authors and a variety of other digital relationship experts as well. I took loads of notes, and can't wait to start incorporating these suggestions. Recommend This! is a definite thumbs up!