Likeonomics

People decide who to trust, what advice to heed, and which individuals to forge personal or transactional relationships with based on a simple metric of believability. Success, in turn, comes from understanding one basic principle: how to be more trusted. Likeonomics offers a new vision of a world beyond Facebook where personal relationships, likeability, brutal honesty, extreme simplicity, and basic humanity are behind everything from multi-million dollar mergers to record-breaking product sales. There is a real ROI to likeability, and exactly how big it is will amaze you.

Likeonomics provides real-world case studies of brands and individuals that have used these principles to become wildly successful, including:

• An iconic technology brand that awakened a revolution among their employees by standing for something bigger than their products
• A Portuguese singer who used YouTube to rack up more than 30 million views and launch her professional career. A regional team of financial advisors that went from being last in the nation among 176 branches to first, and stayed there for 13 of the next 15 years
• A tiny professional sports talent agent who achieved the impossible by landing the #1 drafted player in the NFL draft as a client through the power of relationships
• Author Rohit Bhargava is a founding member of the world's largest group of social media strategists at Ogilvy, where he has led marketing strategy for clients including Intel, Pepsi, Lenovo, Seiko, Unilever, and dozens of other large companies

With Likeonomics as a guide, readers will get unconventional advice on how to stand out in a good way, avoid the hype and strategic traps of social media, and appeal to customers in a way that secures your company as a trusted and believable resource.

ROHIT BHARGAVA is a marketing expert focused on helping to bring more humanity back to business. He advises some of the world's largest global brands on communications strategy through his role as a member of the Strategy & Planning group at Ogilvy. His thinking has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Fast Company, NPR, and MarketingChina, and his first book, Personality Not Included, was translated into nine languages. Outside of his writing and consulting, Rohit is Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife and two sons.