I just got my dirty little paws on a copy of our new book Twitter Power from bestselling author and super nice guy Joel Comm.  I did a power read last night, and will be going back tonight to read it cover to cover.  From what I’ve seen so far, I’m very impressed.   I don’t often blog about Wiley books, for fear of being seen as writing yet another shameless plug, but I would be raving about this book even if I didn’t work for the company. 

I use Twitter.  I get Twitter.  I like Twitter.  But many people don’t.  I get asked by people all the time (at work, at parties, at soccer games, etc etc) why I use Twitter.  What’s the benefit to be gained from being on Twitter.  And seriously, is it really going to benefit your business or is it just another online time suck?

Joel answers all these questions, and he does it in a way that doesn’t numb readers with useless anecdotes and boring case studies.   He emphasizes that you are joining a conversation, and what the right way is to do it, and where you can go wrong.  He writes in a style that is clear and straightforward.  He doesn’t  come off with a “smarter than thou” attitude.  Joel’s style is more ”if I can figure this out, YOU can figure it out, if you set your mind to it.”  He keeps his examples of real-world Twitter success stories brief and memorable, in an effort to empower readers to get on board with Twitter right away. 

The book wraps up with a true action plan - Chapter 13, ”Putting It All Together: A 30-Day Plan for Dominating Twitter.”  I think this is worth the cost of the book alone.   Read it first, then come back into the rest of the book and figure out how you’re going to put Twitter to work for you. 

Go to Joel’s site to hear how he came to write the book.  I don’t say it out loud as often as I should, but I am so grateful that he came to write this book for Wiley.  Between this title and Twitter For Dummies, coming out this summer, I think Wiley has the market cornered on this important, fast moving topic. 

If you’ve read Twitter Power, what do YOU think about it?  And what other areas in social media are book-worthy?

Time was, back in the day of the dinosaurs, I was required to submit a trip report after a customer visit, conference, or meeting.  I’m not really expected to do these anymore, but I think posting one on my blog is a great way of accomplishing that goal and getting even more mileage from it.

Last week, I attended CrossTech Partners’s New Marketing Summit in Foxboro Mass.  I’ve been trying to get out and about for a while, and when I saw David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan tweeting about it, it seemed promising.  To be honest, I emailed both of them and asked them several questions about the conference so I could determine if it was worth my time.

As readers of “Confessions” know, I’ve been to a number of events in the past twelve months.  Some, like BlogHer Business were awesome.  Right on target with what I do, and what I want to do.   Some like SXSWi were a waste of my time.  A jumbled up mess of sessions wrapped around an excuse to have a spring break for geeks in Austin.  So not my thing.  I don’t mind taking a chance on something in NYC, but traveling raises the stakes a bit.  Both men assured me that they felt the conference would be offering insight and information that was unique and valuable. 

About a year ago, I attending a networking breakfast in NYC and wrote the following in my follow up post:

I attend networking events like this for several reasons. One is to get out from behind my computer and actually network. Talk with others who are out there doing what I’m doing, or better, what I want to do. Another reason is to learn something new, be inspired, and get energized about my work.

Twelve months later and not much has changed.  That’s exactly what I was hoping to gain at the NMS, and the good news is that goal was achieved.  I would not recommend NMS, if it is done the way it was in Foxboro, to new media newbies – people who are curious about blogging, Twitter, SEO and other tools of interactive media.  I would highly recommend NMS for those who are already doing it and want to do it better.  To hear from others in the trenches who are trying to motivate teams of people in online endeavors.  To understand the challenges that come from convincing higher ups in an organization to embrace social media.  To be more effective in my marketing planning, execution and reporting.  NMS helped me accomplish all these things, and returned me to my workspace ready to implement what I learned. 

The agenda seemed to be a bit jumbled in a way.  Day 1 was 100% on target for me, with intriguing and excellent speakers.  Don Peppers rounded out the day with a text heavy presentation that I soaked up every word of.  Day 2 brought on some good and some not so good 101 type speakers.  CC Chapman – so good.  Very basic stuff, but an excellent refresher for anyone, and frankly a presentation that I shared with my entire staff.  Next NMS, he gets a longer time slot, please.   ”Podcasting guy” asking the group who’s heard of podcasting and who has tried it – not so helpful.  I need to know about successful uses of podcasting, how people have established channels and networks, not an overview of what it was. 

I also got to meet people I’ve followed for a while on Twitter, like Adam Cohen, and reconnect with others that I haven’t seen in a while, like Pistachio.  There were formal “networking” sessions, but maybe an impromptu BOF during the breaks could be something to plan for future meetings. 

That’s minor quibbling though.  Major quibbling  was already done about the food (except I left out the part about needing coffee break drinks and snacks.  Marketers like snacks. )  Depending on the agenda, I would absolutely think about attending again, and would recommend that people in my company attend as well.  2 days well spent, even if I was surrounded by Boston sports fans. 

When we bring a new book proposal into the publishing house where I work, we often spend a lot of time talking about what the right shelf for a book is.  It’s not always an easy thing.  For instance, back in “the day”, circa 1995 or so, most books on the Internet, regardless of topic, went on a “General Computing” shelf.  So you had your how to hook up your computer to the Internet books sitting along side your Internet business, Internet marketing, Internet job search, and online dating books.  Over the years, these books have migrated to more topic specific shelves in other areas of the store.  Still, in the new era of social media, we’re often faced with a quandary when it comes to these titles.  Is a book on social media marketing best shelved in technology or in business?  We tend to make the decisions based on a number of factors:

* How techy exactly is the book?  Does it require basic knowledge (setting up a WordPress blog, opening a twitter account) or does it expect you to understand more intricate procedures (hosting your own blog, creating widgets)?  Techier books tend to go in the Technology section, while books without many screenshots and procedures go into Business.  It sometimes breaks out to theory books vs. practice, but it’s not always that cut and dry. 

* Where is the target customer going to be most likely to find the book?  The answer is rarely “at the front of the store”.  Even if we did get a front table or cash wrap placement for a title, a rare thing indeed for most tech and business books, that isn’t a category for shelving and every book needs one.  If the customer is more likely looking for similar books in tech rather than business, that’s our shelf.

* Where have other books we’ve done that are like this book gone, and how well have they sold?  A big consideration, results in the field do often sway our thinking, but the shelf is not static, and prior results are no guarantee of future performance. 

There are more considerations, but those are by far the most frequently referred to.  Now, I’m not a retailer, but I would love to see our bigger bricks and mortar chains come up with a section for social media books.  One where we could find “Naked Conversations” next to “WordPress For Dummies“, one shelf over from “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” and stuff like that.  Me, Ellen, as a customer is reading all types of books like this.  I’d love to find them on one hot, juicy social media shelf.  Not tech strictly, or business strictly, but my stuff.  This kind of stuff.  Not having to go all over the store to find it, but having one special place where it all resided.

The issue is irrelevant on Amazon, BN.com and other online retailers.  It’s in a physical store where books can only be shelved in one place where this really matters.  So I ask you, dear readers, what would you call the shelf where you can find all these books?  Social media, social networking, digital lifestyles, the cool books that everyone should be reading?  I’d love to make the pitch to some bricks and mortar retailers to create such a shelf, with the right name, of course.  The right name will give the signal to the customer that this is where they can find these books, but be in some senses lowest common demominator so as not to confuse or worse, scare away any prospective book buyers.  I think social media is great, but does everyone book buyer know what the prospect of a shelf with that header means?  Is Digital Lifestyles too 1999?

So, feel free to comment away!  Vote early and often. 

I was going to start this post by saying that majority of us are back from our winter holidays, but a quick glance around the perimeter of my office tells me otherwise.  I however, am back at work, and for the most part, am happy about it. 

As expected, I blogged, Facebooked and tweeted only sporadically during the holidays.  Family, both nuclear and extended, was the focus of my time the past two weeks.  In the world online, I saw some people take the full time off, and others were going just as strong.  The majority of people I follow, however, seemed to throttle back but did not completely remove themselves from the social media milieu. 

I wonder what these folks are thinking having come back. 

“Damn, I missed my twitter!”

“It was a lot easier to check in on my neighbors than it is to keep up online!”

“So THATS how I spent my time before Facebook!”

“My Google reader has 259 new entries!  Let’s get to work!”

I do hope that the preponderance of folks, myself included, cherished the time with our friends and family, and learned something about how to best balance our online and offline worlds so as not to lessen our impact in either of them.  I can’t say I missed following tweets, or signing up with new applications in Facebook, but I am glad to be reading more vivid blog entries from people I care about.  It’s good to know what matters.