The Like Economy

Having set myself on a somewhat solid ground in terms of present day theoretical framework with the little help from Manuel Castells (see my previous post), I was delighted to find a practical guide to the world social media and e-commerce on a trip to my local library. “The Like Economy” (Tykkäämistalous, 2012) was written by two Finnish guys Petteri Kankkunen and Pär Österlund with the entrepreneurial take on the current media landscape in mind.

The basic gist of their message is what Google's Country Manager for Finland Anni Ronkainen also says in Kymen Sanomat which is that companies must develop their e-commerce and mobile services, because that is where the business is and will be. Traditional places of consumption, like Stockmann, on the other hand, are gasping for oxygen like fish on dry ground.

Business on the web through social media channels is, in short, based on sharing. Whether that be sharing of a Groupon deal, sharing of product information or sharing of a poor review of service. That is a double ended sword in that whilst the social media enable simultaneous and cheap interaction with a large customer base, it can also ruin everything should vicious stories of bad experiences start running wild on the web.

Social capital is what Kankkunen and Österlund call the social networks of people through which there is endless potential to reach new prospects and equally the power of showing what our friends or like-minded people have purchased, thus convincing us that our money will be well spent. After all, we know these people and are likely to trust what they say.

Conducting successful e-commerce, however, requires so much more than simple transactions of trading. Presence in the social media means providing interesting content related to one's product or services free of charge. It means following up on what people say about you and getting back to them. Yes, even to the nasty ones. It means being omnipresent at all times.

Whilst the book authors offer many a tip on advocating commerce via social media channels and the book serves as a great starting point for anyone thinking about doing that, by now, some two years after the publishing of “The Like Economy”, everyone knows the stuff in principle. What remains difficult is the clever content production. Being creative is not easy.