Erik Qualman Quotations

Assume whatever you do, both offline and online, will be seen by your mother, dad, boss, coach, boyfriend, teacher… the world.

Social media has made the web all about me, me, me.

Folks want to be listened to, they want to be heard.

It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry, you had Hewlett-Packard. But you also had the counter-culture, the Bay Area. That entire brew came together in Steve Jobs.

Twenty-five percent of search results for the world's top 20 largest brands are links to user generated content and thirty-four percent of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.

At a minimum the majority of search dollars will flow to a social media model because people care most about what their peers think and the technology is there for that information to be quickly shared on products and services.

As social media is less about technology and more about relationship building, we are starting to see more women have a heavy influence if not dominant role in the social media space. It's no wonder that Facebook is being run in part by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

You're talking about a younger generation, Generation Y, whose interpersonal communication skills are different from Generation X. The younger generation is more comfortable saying something through a digital mechanism than even face to face.

Increasingly, consumers don't search for products and services. Rather, services come to their attention via social media.

History repeats itself because nobody listens the first time.