Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. [Paperback]

Mitch Joel is president of Twist Image, a successful digital marketing and communications agency with offices in Toronto and Montreal.

The basic premise of Six Pixels of Separation is that "we no longer live in a world of six degrees of separation... everyone is connected."

Joel is a very engaging writer, having honed his skills on his own blog for years before the publication of this book in September 2009.

While acknowledging other online marketing activities, Joel spends most of his time discussing more "conversational" channels, namely blogs, micro-blogs (e.g. Twitter), podcasts, online social networks (e.g. Facebook), sharing sites (e.g. YouTube), user-generated content, wikis (e.g. Wikipedia), and widgets (applications).

He makes many excellent points. To name a few:

- "Your brand is not what you say it is... it's what Google says it is" (echoing Chris Anderson of Wired magazine)

- "Most businesses are not present enough in the search engines and they're leaving big money at the table (or for the competition)"

- "Digital marketing is not a one-night stand... it is about building real relationships, both with your customers and with your potential customers"

- In an excellent section entitled "Trust + Community = ROI", he summarizes with crystal clarity six ways to build trust in the `trust economy'

- "Everyone is so busy getting excited about the channels (and tactics) that they completely put aside the strategy and the brand"

- "Your website sucks - mostly because it was an afterthought and now it's the main calling card for your business"

- "Think ripples, not splashes... ripples are the powerful conversations that are generated when you share your content online"

- The bottom line is about facilitating and amplifying C2C positive communication about your brand. And if there is the occasional C2C negative communication, Joel suggests, "suck it up". Consumers will take it as a sign of your honesty

- "You can't have a strong business without a strong community" (or at least a strong community helps you have a stronger business)

- "Know Control". In a chapter filled with helpful observations, Joel demonstrates how the notion of Control has evolved in the social media universe

- "Digital Darwinism favors the community, not the creator or the enabler of the content" (this is a profound insight that is arguably the main point of Bob Garfield's book The Chaos Scenario)

- "Traffic does not equal Community"

- "Attention does not equal Trust"

- "Not all `Friends' are created equal...for your business to grow using online social networking, you are going to need a way to understand more about the individuals you are connecting to than how many connections they have"

- "Openness will make us very private... Many individuals are going to recoil in an effort to protect their privacy more and more... People are going to wake up en masse and be much more careful about what they put online and where"

Even with Joel's many helpful suggestions, of course there's no free lunch, even in "free" media, because getting social media strategy right often means a significant time commitment, and in our creative economy - or indeed in any economy - time IS money. A 2009 poll of (mostly small) businesses by Michael A. Stelzner found that 64% of are using social media for 5 or more hours each week, and marketers who have been in social media for years are devoting 20 or more hours each week.

And brands that are recognized leaders in social media like Starbucks, Dell, Nike and Amazon devote substantial financial resources to their online activities, being engaged deeply, on an ongoing basis, across numerous social media channels.

One of the main strengths of Joel's book is that ultimately it is not about the first digital screen (TV) the second digital screen (Computer), the third digital screen (Mobile device) or the fourth digital screen (In-store signage). As Rishad Tobaccowala has observed, "the media may be digital, but human beings are analog". Ultimately many of Joel's insights are not about media, but rather about human nature.

My one very minor criticism of this book is with Joel's assertion that "six degrees of separation is no longer relevant. In the digital world there are no degrees of separation between you and your customers".

In fact, everyone is NOT connected to everyone. Much as I would like to be connected to Lionel Messi, Barack Obama and José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the fact is that there ARE degrees of separation between me and them that I will likely never breach, regardless of the social media campaign I mount. With even the average consumer being bombarded by 3000 marketing messages a day, the burning question now is how do you BREAK THROUGH, especially to those you would most like to reach, and whose communications are filtered, double-filtered and triple-filtered. Barack Obama reads TEN letters from average Americans a day, out of the tens of thousands he receives daily.

Despite this minor reservation, this is an outstanding book. Unless you work for Forrester Research or for Altimeter Group, you will likely learn a lot. And even if you work for them, you can learn from the exemplary clarity of Mitch Joel's writing style: Highly recommended!

Joel's book was very timely... if i had read it in 2009 when it was published, i would have been far more impressed with the content. But this book isn't really targeted at me: i'm online, have a blog, and am familiar with many of the services he mentions -- and i don't even run my own business.

That said: if you are a business owner and you aren't getting the majority of your business through the internet (whether it be referrals, sales, customer relations, searches, or advertising) then this book is for you. No business, no matter what size or how remote, has any excuse not to be online -- it just makes good business sense. You better do this, before your competitors beat you to it. This book might provide you the insight and motivation to take your business to the next level.

Good insights. Mitch Joel is well connected and understands it. Read his book and follow him online if you're seeking a better understanding of digital / social