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Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web

Paul Adams (Goodreads Author)

3.93 · Rating details · 704 ratings · 63 reviews

The web is undergoing a fundamental change. It is moving away from its current structure of documents and pages linked together, and towards a new structure that is built around people. This is a profound change that will affect how we create business strategy, design, marketing, and advertising. The reason for this shift is simple. For tens of thousands of years we've bee ...more

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Paperback, 159 pages

Published December 1st 2011 by New Riders Publishing (first published January 1st 2011)

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Lists with This Book

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Dec 05, 2011 Kbs rated it it was amazing

Paul Adams is an insightful guy. I was wowed by his early thoughts on online social networks from back when he was trying to plug his ideas at Google. http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-...

So I've been waiting to read (and just finished) "Grouped", and here's a brain dump.

It is a fast read, and feels a lot like an "Elements of Style" for online social marketing. There isn't much discourse on theory, rather a list of expanded bullet points on what goes on in online networks, with a focus on mar Paul Adams is an insightful guy. I was wowed by his early thoughts on online social networks from back when he was trying to plug his ideas at Google. http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-...

So I've been waiting to read (and just finished) "Grouped", and here's a brain dump.

It is a fast read, and feels a lot like an "Elements of Style" for online social marketing. There isn't much discourse on theory, rather a list of expanded bullet points on what goes on in online networks, with a focus on marketing. The list of references at the end of each topic is excellent, and worth pursuing.

Should you read it? Whether or not you choose to read this book, here's his perspective:

"[To stay relevant] a new knowledge set is required [for] designers, marketers, developers and advertisers: social behavior, networks, and how people think."

The book distills his thoughts on these topics into self-contained chapters, and coming from a guy who's probably had as many scars here as anyone else, it'll be a useful reference for a practitioner to spark ideas and avoid some mistakes.

The underlying ideas are things that he's been thinking and talking about for a while, and you can get the general flavor from one of his recent talks. http://vimeo.com/29576241

Some of the homilies that stayed with me:

1. The social web is not merely a buzz. It will gradually become what we think of as just "the web."

2. Think of the social web like electricity -- you don't have an "electricity experience" in a product, it invisibly drives everything and you just use it.

3. Center your products around people, not the technology or even the content. Or somebody else will, and eat your lunch to boot. (The video above has a example about Facebook photos and why it grew, interesting perspective for any ’fish readers. Also interesting examples from Etsy, nytimes and so on.)

4. The myth of the highly influential few. Highly connected does not mean highly influential. He points out the situation in social groups is more nuanced -- basically a rebuttal to the tipping point thesis as applied to social marketing. ...more

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Nov 10, 2013 Tania Lukinyuk rated it it was amazing

This is what ideal business book should look like! Concise and straight to the point. A must read for anyone who is engaged in social media. It helps to understand the wider prospective of social media and our relationships with people, and provides good tips from professional and personal perspective. The book also provides list of references regarding certain topics for those interested to learn more. Loved it!

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Feb 23, 2017 Trung Nguyen Dang rated it liked it

The book was mention in the Chaos Monkey, the previous book that I read before this book. Paul Adams was Senior User Experience Researcher at Google before becoming Facebook’s global head of brand design. He left FB again in 2013 to join Intercom, a start-up that offers tools for online businesses to track every interaction with a customer and to use that data to deliver personalized messages and offers. In short, this is the guy who understands social networking, branding, and targeting adverti ...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Ashley Jaden rated it it was amazing

Paul Adams’ Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web (New Riders; 2011) is a primer on social behavior as it applies to the future of business. Adams summarizes the latest research on topics like influence, networking, and decision making, and then breaks down this information into ten easily digestible chapters. The premise of this book is that since the web is shifting from content to people, in order to be successful on the web, businesses need to unders Paul Adams’ Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web (New Riders; 2011) is a primer on social behavior as it applies to the future of business. Adams summarizes the latest research on topics like influence, networking, and decision making, and then breaks down this information into ten easily digestible chapters. The premise of this book is that since the web is shifting from content to people, in order to be successful on the web, businesses need to understand not just why the web is being rebuilt around people, but they also need to understand the underlying behavioral patterns responsible for this shift. This line of reasoning makes perfect sense, and personally, I couldn’t agree more.

Here are my top two take-aways from Grouped:

• Only a couple years ago one of the buzzwords for online marketers was “influentials;” we were supposed to find the influencers of a certain channel and then direct much of our marketing efforts at them, but it turns out this tactic is ineffective. “Influentials,” for the most part, are mythical. The people deemed “influential” generate only about 30% of the content online, which means that everyday ordinary people like you and I account for 70% of online conversations. Marketers must shift away from this idea of the “influential” and direct their efforts towards reaching small networks of close friends.

• Out with interruption marketing, in with permission-based marketing. Adams writes, “[I]nterruption marketing is a race to the bottom” (pg 130). Well said. Just don’t do it. Not only is it très annoying, it’s also incredibly counter-productive. Web-savvy consumers will filter out the me-me-me marketers and ignore your pitch completely. Instead of pushing your content down people’s throats, marketers should focus on building trust and long-lasting relationships with their customers. In other words, marketers should treat people like people. (What a novel concept, eh?) If consumers are interested in hearing what you have to offer, and if they end up liking what you have to offer, then you will get your desired reach by relying on these people to tell their friends about your brand.

One possible criticism of Grouped is its brevity. But actually, I think the shortness of this book is one of its benefits. As I mentioned, this book is a primer. It’s not meant to give the reader an extensive detailing of every of every social research study known to mankind. It provides an introductory foundation of social behavior as it relates to business, and in this regard, Adams does a brilliant job.

On a related note, if you want to know more about any of the topics presented in this book, then I suggest you check out the “Further Reading” lists Adams provides at the end of every chapter. For these resources alone, the book is beneficial even to those who are already well-versed in the subjects presented in this book.

I would recommend Grouped to anybody who works for a business that in any way, shape, or form deals with customers online. Since most businesses communicate with people online, even if that means the business has only a website and an e-mail address, that pretty much means I’d recommend this book to anyone at all.
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Mar 25, 2012 Shawn Buckle rated it liked it

Paul Adams' 'Grouped' is more of a summary or starting point to marketing in an online world. He himself admits this in the introduction, suggesting further reading for specific points and chapters. His book builds a good foundation for you to build on, diving into each topic more.

The four main points that I took away are:
1) The idea that there are go-to-influencers who can create an adoption wave is not a solution for the vast majority of products and services. I liked Gladwell's 'Tipping Point ...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Mike rated it it was amazing

Paul Adams worked at Google during the formative days of Google+. He recognized that everyone involved with social media is trying to figure out how it works and why we're drawn to it. He put together a fairly massive slide stack in 2009-2010 or so that provided his insights to that point.it lead to a book. It also led to him being recruited by Facebook. When he decided to leave Google for Facebook, his earlier book had not even published. Google went to court to stop publication, citing trade s ...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Ellen Chisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, 2011, pm

If you're working on products, and you think you want to do anything social (you do) please read Grouped. One of my big pet peeves recently has been the overwhelming feeling that to make something "social" you just post to Twitter or Facebook. That isn't what social is. Grouped does a great job of explaining how you can use peoples' connections to actually create value, and deals with the topic at a much deeper level. I'm not going to try to summarize everything here, because the book is already ...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Morgan Blackledge rated it it was amazing

Wow, what a great book. In a nutshell; market using the social web, and your message will be heard by millions, by their most trusted sources, their friends. This book cherry picks some of the most interesting and applicable findings from the social sciences i.e. cognitive and social psychology and behavioral economics, and deftly applies them to marketing and public relations in the age of social media. The book is very readable, succinct, its sources are very well cited and each chapter is bul ...more

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Jan 14, 2012 David Luna rated it it was amazing

This book challenges current marketing strategies and gives insight to new models like passive sharing. The social web is not a fad and Paul clearly lays out what will probably happen in the next five years, the companies who adapt and those who don't. The consumer is not looking towards businesses for information, they are trusting their friends advice and recommendations on products and services. Paul talks about how to get in the middle of those conversations and become a trustable and valuab ...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Kerem Mermutlu rated it liked it

Interesting read about about the internet and social networks, a little bit annoying about how it always mentions facebook all the time though. The idea that we are in the '3rd' stage of the internet is a good one- basically our lives are now being transferred to everything online. 1st stage-we put stuff on the internet, 2nd stage- we share stuff on the internet, 3rd stage we become robots (only joking!!) I wish this book went into more detail about the 3rd stage though. ...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Thomas rated it really liked it

Very cool insight in the ways groups work in social media how we are not necessarily influenced by "influentals" but much more by our environment, friends, family etc. This book, written by a former manager at Facebook and now working for Google+ is easy to read and really interesting. ...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Heather Branstetter rated it liked it · review of another edition

So this book is pretty useful. Pragmatic information, much of it common sense and some of it already in the cultural zeitgeist, but it's a great synthesis of some good research available on social connecting, persuasion, and how the mind works. It is a quick read (I listened to it on Audible and it only takes 3 1/2 hours) so it won't use up that much of your time. Adams summarizes succinctly, translates information that would normally be arduous to wade through, and offers you the resources to g ...more

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Mar 01, 2020 KJ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: study

Fantastic introduction to social networks for undergraduates. Perfectly explains the fundamental concepts, and then it's up to the intructor whether/how far beyond the text they want to nudge their students. The supplementary reading notes at the end of every chapter and helpful to design that segment too. Thanks Paul Adams! ...more

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Jul 17, 2019 Jeannie Hardeman rated it really liked it

A more pragmatic view on human social networking, swimming a bit against the grain of established thought in this domain. But with the author working for Facebook and building his cases on behavioral research of 700 FB users, who is to argue with the facts?

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Sep 06, 2017 Annie Liu rated it liked it

like a copy of paper. like ads for facebook.

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Aug 08, 2018 Will rated it it was amazing

This is worth 5 stats if only for the books and papers referenced. A gold mine for anyone interested in social networks.

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Nov 15, 2018 Jack Smith rated it it was ok

Short book. I didn’t learn anything that could really be useful to me.

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Sep 13, 2019 Pyry rated it it was ok

Reads as a thinly veiled ad for Facebook marketing. Uses solid sources but presents very one-sided view and isn't upfront about the motivation behind the book. ...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Troy Swinehart rated it it was ok

Recommendation from a friend....Thanks for the guidance Alan. (Just picked this up...)

Great read! Thanks again Alan for the suggestion. Paul Adams certainly made me think differently about how the social web functions. He sets a lot of accepted truths about influence and trust on their ear.

If you are curious about the remaking of the web to connect people (instead of things) and how those connections influence adoption of products this is really a must read. There were several points thought thi Recommendation from a friend....Thanks for the guidance Alan. (Just picked this up...)

Great read! Thanks again Alan for the suggestion. Paul Adams certainly made me think differently about how the social web functions. He sets a lot of accepted truths about influence and trust on their ear.

If you are curious about the remaking of the web to connect people (instead of things) and how those connections influence adoption of products this is really a must read. There were several points thought this book that I had to stop and rethink my "understanding" of things Web 2.0 related.

One of the interesting side steps Paul makes is to talk about the current distrust of companies (read advertisers/marketers). Ever find your self getting into a really good movie (or as Great Grandma Piccone called them "her stories") only to be YANKED from your blissful alternative universe so some company can peddle their wares? Adams, very plainly discusses the fallacies of interruption based marketing (cited above) vs. the advantages of permission based marketing. In a nutshell, we as humans have limited cognitive capacity and honestly dump a large portion of the information being flowed to us based on a simple gating system of "relevant & familiar" vs "non relevant & unfamiliar". Adams says it takes something like 27 separate viewings of a commercial for it to stick in our heads --- so what do advertisers do? SHOW IT MORE TIMES - interrupting "your stories" more frequently and driving the overall cost of a product up to pay for the Snake Oil Show. Which leads to annoyed consumers. Permission based advertising allows you to select things that are relevant to you and then you by word of mouth (i.e., Facebook) spread that you like (or are interested in) this product. Your friends see that you like it and they trust you so they try it. According to Adams its much more effective and ultimately will cost less...hey then maybe they can cut the advertising budgets and lower the cost of products....AMAZING!

I do recommend this book as one not ladened with technobabble. Simple language make this very readable and digestible. Enjoy! ...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Fredrik rated it really liked it

i encourage anyone getting started in (on-line) social networks to begin with this book. it's a neat, well-written and easy-to-read survey of the state-of-the art in the field, authored by a person who's apparently very familiar with the area. read it!

having said that, i also encourage anyone wanting to dig a little deeper to actually check out the sources used in the book; i guess there's more than one controversy lurking in what is here presented as facts. for instance, the notion of one being ...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Chad Kohalyk rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, working

Great little book giving an overview of a wide array of research on social networks and how information passes through them. Though near the end it gets a little too evangelical for permission marketing IMHO, I think it is a great starting point for learning about the social aspects of building web products today. Many of the cases in the book might be familiar to you if you read a lot of new business books, or books on decision-making and/or popular psychology. Adams does a good job highlightin ...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Dean rated it really liked it

Practical, concise and full of insight, Grouped draws on findings from Facebook and some very credible research sources. Case studies in the book are biased towards campaigns (and erm... Facebook), but the principles are highly relevant to many services, websites or applications.

If you work in marketing, development or design then some of the themes will be very familiar, but what makes this book so useful is that it explains the human psychology that underpins those themes in a very memorable ...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Pamela J Myers rated it really liked it

Shelves: business-book-social-media, business-book-sales

How we use the internet to research, communicate and connect is undergoing a fundamental change. The fact that Google is now a verb and is part of our new vocabulary is a strong indicator of this change. It is moving away from its current structure of documents and pages linked together and towards a new structure that is built around people. This is a profound change that will affect how we create business strategy, design, marketing, and advertising. The reason for this shift is simple... Peop ...more

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Mar 28, 2012 Rob rated it really liked it

A great read for anyone who is (or will be) attempting to market a product to the masses. This book teaches you why traditional interruptive marketing is inferior to targeting small groups of friends. A lot of the book is just summarized topics from research papers, which serves as a high-level overview that is easy to read. It is a pretty short book that goes out of its way to repeat and summarize topics, so don't expect in-depth analysis or details on the backing research papers. ...more

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May 06, 2012 Ted Witt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: marketing

Paul Adams dissects social media statistics, arguing against elite "influencers" as a means to change.

He sprinkles the book with quick tips and chapter summaries, making the paperback useful as a reference for later review.

He also digests practical advice garnered from brain research that takes the guess work out of a lot of marketing decisions. In all, Grouped is a great encapsulaed look at strategies that would ordinarily require a reading of 10 to 20 other books. ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Phil Chen rated it it was amazing

Best social media book I have read in a long time. It's actually based on actual research, and references studies and ideas prior to the advent of social media as we know it today as well as current research.

At the end of each chapter it references material and sources that you can research further for more detail on the chapter.

Brings me back to my Sociology and Social Psychology days in College prior to the internet as we know it today. ...more

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May 14, 2015 Sabrina EVHS Lim rated it really liked it

I read this book for my research paper and it provided many details explaining how groups of teenagers are able to take matters into their own hands via social networking. Through these websites they self each themselves skills such as promotion, design, and marketing. It also discusses why we as a society are so reliant on this form of communication. I thought it was a very informative read and am glad I picked it up for my research.

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Mar 08, 2012 Fayadh Alhaj is currently reading it

really interesting book by the guy who come up with the idea of google circles, he moved to Facebook building Facebook lists after his fight with google due to a leaked presentation in 2010.

he goes deep into the human relationships and social life and how our online life is emerging with the offline lives. very good advices and researches for marketers.

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Oct 22, 2013 Richard Chen rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013

Good, quick read. Lots of psych insights, but not always sure how it can be easily translated to online lives

A lot of the material reminded me of CMU Ravi's class on social networks! - http://public.tepper.cmu.edu/facultyd...

Also, as a counter, Video marinos sent me on the loneliness due to social networks / tech - http://vimeo.com/70534716 ...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Ingus Rūķis rated it it was amazing

A masterpiece. If you work in field of social media, this is definitely a must-read book. It includes lots of real-world examples on how social media actually works and includes tons of references of scientific researches.

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