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?

In a previous post, I talked about how I feel about social networking at work – that it’s a great opportunity for employees to be able to interact and converse with our customers and others in the industry. 

That said, there are some times where social networking activitiesjust aren’t cool.  What started this was when someone brought up questions about employees engaging on these sites during the working day.  I’d certainly think that participating in some social networking activities has to be a part of our job as marketers.   But when shouldn’t we be doing it?  There are some instances where it just isn’t cool.  Please know that I’m not talking about what was portrayed yesterday, because if you read it and thought someone was being called out for inappropriate behavior and I was agreeing, they weren’t and I wasn’t.  In fact, I thought it was cool that the updates were real time, and gave an idea of what the person was doing at work, which was listening to me drone on and on. 

But there are times when, like drunk dialing, we really need to stop and think about what’s going on.  For instance, on Facebook, your activities are tracked and date stamped.  So, if I were running a weekly staff meeting, I would not be thrilled to see status updates throughout the meeting that someone was sending donuts, poking, throwing sheep, and a million other things.  For that might imply the person was not participating in the meeting.  (Note, this is totally theoretical.  No one in my group has done this, but I have heard this story from, let’s just say, other places.)  Think before you socialize.

I also once talked about need for everyone on Facebook to set up their own rules for friending.  Here’s another one.  If you’re going to friend your boss, maybe you don’t want to be writing about how wasted you are planning on getting Wednesday night, followed by your calling in sick with a stomach flu the next day.  Again, not calling out anyone here, but it’s just common sense, people.  We’re all excited about these things, but when you friend work friends and outside of work friends, know that what you say to one group may not be appropriate or appreciated by the other. 

Likewise, with blogging, if you let your coworkers know about your blog, know that they will read it, whatever you say in there could be fair game.  Don’t talk about your wild and out of control night out, when the rest of them were working a project you blew off because you had a headache. (This was a cocktail party story that I just loved hearing, because the blogger in question not only denied she wrote that post, but called the person who read it a “rumor-mongering-liar” - juicy office gossip!) 

Also, and this is a fine line here, when you do put yourself out there as a social networker, and by default a representative of your company, you have to know that what you say, even if you portray a disclaimer, could be construed by customers as representing more than just you.  Your products.  Your coworkers.  Your company.  This is where I was called out, for tweets on Twitter about the inauguration.  I could certainly have offended prospective authors, customers and others who may not have agreed with my political views.  Would I do it again?  In that situation, I cannot say I would not have been overcome with the excitement of the day.  But would I continue to express my political views online if I felt it would hurt me or my work?  Probably not.  Growing up in a most liberal state it was shocking to find out that not everyone feels the way I do, and more importantly, are just as passionate about what they believe and want for their country as I am.  Engage that on a personal level, sure, but as a representative of my products, my brands and my company – stop and think.

In my next post (ooh, look, a 3 post arc!  We’re just like Grey’s Anatomy!) I talk about sharing the workload and who should be doing what in the social media workspace.

I had an interesting question from an employee yesterday.  She was commenting on someone’s Facebook status updating during a meeting, and asked what the rules were on that.  That is, did I permit employees to be doing social networking stuff, like FB, Twitter and blogging while at work, especially at the expense of other activities like filling out grids and launching promotions.

First, let’s take a step back.  The person whose Facebook status updated during the meeting was most certainly doing it through a quick tweet on his Blackberry.  I don’t believe he was sitting in his office calling into the meeting or sitting on a laptop in the meeting room.

Even so, a quick Tweet is not a bad thing – it’s part of what he tries to do on Twitter.   That’s how he uses social media – as a way to inform people what his job is so prospective authors and customers get to know him better and put a face and a personality with our company.

Which brings me to my employees and what I want them to do on sites, and when.  I have a great group of people working for me, and I know, fundamentally, that they have a grip on what has to be done for the job.  I don’t think I’d find myself in a situation where work wasn’t getting done because they were killing orcs (or whatever those things are) on World of Warcraft, or were consumed with throwing sheep on Facebook.  They know that they have responsibilities, and they get them done.

At the same time, social networking gives us invaluable opportunities to learn more about our customers and connect with people in a way to inform what we do at work. My colleague who runs our UK operation, Christine Dunn, has said that she encourages her staff to literally surf the ‘Net for an hour a day.  She wants them playing around on different sites and seeing what’s out there.  She also encourages them to do “out of the box” promotions for their books.  Some work, some don’t, but she’s all about trying new things, and it’s a great way to inspire her staff.

My rules are that I try not to blog at work, unless there’s some immediate breaking news that I simply must comment on.  I blog at night or in the morning, and set up times for stuff to automatically post during times of higher traffic.  I tweet throughout the workday when something comes up, often from my blackberry, and check in on Facebook once or twice.  You could compare my Facebooking to a cigarette or snack break.  Want to clear my head, take a breather from what I am doing, I check into FB.  It’s healthier and doesn’t cause cancer.

I’m certainly OK if people in my group treat social networking the same way.  I’m also not adverse to having people troll around on the web for a set period of time every day.  While you can argue there may not be much work value in “throwing sheep”, you can also say that you never know what is going to inspire someone.  Maybe one of my marketers will see some crazy application on Facebook that inspires a new promotion for one of their books.  They might take the time to answer a question on LinkedIn that shows Wiley in a new light.  Or they could notice on search.twitter.com that customers are talking about a new product and how much they could use a book for it.  How am I to say how and where inspiration strikes?  My point is it can come from anywhere, and I’d never want to totally rule it out for anyone.   As long as people are still focused on tasks that help drive revenue, a few minutes a day pitching sheep isn’t going to hurt anyone.

I’m kind of a newbie on Twitter.  I’ve had an account there for more than a few weeks, and have been playing around with it.  I’m beginning to see more a point to it as I go along, but it’s still a work in progress for me. 

As I’ve been exploring, I’ve been “following” people more and more.  They’re not always people I know, but that’s been the fun part.  Finding people who have Twits that interest you and seeing who they follow is a great way to get acquainted with a new blogger or learn something new.  So, every day, I “follow” about 5-10 people.  No big deal, until the other day.

“MeanTwitter” – not his or her real name – responded to my follow request with a “direct message”.  I’m paraphrasing because I will not name this person, nor do I want to take up the matter with them any more than we already have.  Anyhow, the message said in effect, “Thanks for the following request.  I see you do not have ‘peas’ on your avatar.  If you follow me, you need to have a “peas” avatar, and I will not follow you unless you do the same, either all the time or on Frozen Pea Friday.  Thank you, goodbye.”

If you’re not familiar with peas thing on Twitter, it’s essentially to support a woman named Susan Reynoldswho is fighting breast cancer.  She found amusement, warmth and support when she used a package of frozen peas to relieve the swelling from a biopsy. 

I didn’t know Ms. Reynolds before she started blogging about her experiences with breast cancer.  I’ve been so impressed with her, and am now a fan.  But I don’t have a pea avatar.  I can’t really give you a good reason why, but personally it would have felt false.  Not because I don’t support her, but it’s not like me to jump on a bandwagon publicly like that. 

I don’t appreciate that someone would try to bully me into having a pea avatar.  Does this person know me, know my background?  Do they know that I have a dear friend who has been fighting this disease for more than a decade?  Do they think I don’t care simply because I have not put peas in my icon?  Do not get me wrong.  I support Susan Reynolds to the fullest in her battle with this insidious disease.  I just don’t do it with peas.  When I am asked to donate to someone’s Race for the Cure team, I do it.  If and when my friend asked me to drive her to chemo or radiation, I would do it in a heartbeat.  Get my kid’s class to write letters of support to someone going through a bone marrow transplant – been there and would do it again.  If I was requested to write a letter to Congress to demand more money for cancer research or to fund mammograms for low income women,  you’ve got me.  Heck, I’d even march on Capitol Hill if you needed me to.  And I’d be thinking of Susan Reynolds when I did it.  You might even say I would do these things because of her and the other women in my life who have cancer. 

That’s the point, isn’t it?  I bear no ill will against anyone who has peas in an avitar and I hope this post isn’t taken as being anti-pea.  But I also don’t believe in bullying someone into doing something for a misguided purpose.   I can’t imagine Ms. Reynolds would want there to be someone taking things this literally.   Deny me a following because I didn’t sign a petition or encourage women to go for mammograms.   Don’t deny me a following because I chose not to change an avatar. 

Tonight, Mr. IT and I leave on the well-deserved long weekend trip to Vegas.  I’m not going to be blogging during the trip – time with your mate is way too important to spend feeding the blog.  I may try Twittering here and there, as that’s just a quick text message for me, but we’ll see.  I can’t decide whether it’s just a geeky time suck or there might be some value to it.  All part of the experiment, I suppose. 

You’ll find me in Quark’s bar at some point this weekend, surely. 

That may sound like an incantation from “Wicked”, but no, sadly, it isn’t.  It’s yet another site to for me to practice my social network skills on.  I had signed up for Plaxo a while back when it was simply a place to keep addresses updated.  Then = simple, understandable purpose.  Now, it’s trying to be LinkedIn or Facebook or who knows what.  I tried to ignore it, but then I started getting connection requests coming in and I thought that I better check in (especially with someone named “Wiley” sent me a connection request.)  I claim somewhere to be a master of all things social networking – how can Plaxo elude me the way Twitter has? I clicked on the link to accept all of these, and it took me to a screen where the notice “that connection request has already been handled” came up.  Funny then that I cannot find these people in my connection list.  Did they try and connect and suddenly decide, nah, Ellen’s not my Plaxo type?  Did they fall into a Plaxo void?  No idea. 

I started with a whopping four connections (the usual Wiley suspects, my brother in law, and a friend from town.)  All of a sudden, I have 5 connect requests in my mailbox.  Why did Plaxo suddenly hit the radar screen for these folks?  I sent a note to the person who requested the most recent connection, who said he inadvertently requested connection with all his LinkedIn contacts.  That’s one way to build your network here, so I tried it and found a whopping 45 people on Plaxo connected to me already through LinkedIn.  So I intentionally sent connections to them.

So….now I’m connected, what should I be doing next?  This isn’t the most intuitive site.  I see a “Pulse Stream”  but so far only Jeff Pulver and Chris Webb have anything going in there.  Any suggestions from people who might have a better masterly of Plaxo than I of what to do next?  How to use this site for good, and not the evil that comes from time wasting?

Joe Wikert has a great post up today that was inspired by a Forbes article decrying Facebook and Twitter. 

That post was quite timely for me.  Yesterday, I attended an Advertising Club of NY networking breakfast. The topic was supposed to be “Technology: The Engine of Innovation”, but like many of these events, it barely skimmed the surface of what I was looking to hear. 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. Overall, I did better with the first than the second. The panel was supposed to talk about how so-called “new media” was changing the way marketers promote our brands, and how to find the best mix between offline and online promotions. The presenters were from a mix of technology companies(IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Panasonic and Xerox).  For the most part, there wasn’t a lot of “there” there.  They all talked about the corporate vision for brand promotion, but it was too top level to give the audience any “ah ha” moments.  Other than when the most-excellent woman from Yahoo (Mary Bermel) spoke, I didn’t find myself writing down too many gems or insights.  I hoped to hear more about true social networking and real world examples and best practices, but that really didn’t come out of the session. Maybe I read the description wrong, but others in the elevator after the session seemed to have the same perspective.

However, and back to the point of this post, two of the panelists, who really didn’t seem to embrace other Web 2.0 points, were Twitter embracers.  They both said that Twitter can serve as an excellent tool for marketers.  Obviously, this made my brow wrinkle, as the idea of following along with someone’s day online is about as exciting as taking 13 items in the 12 items or less line at the Food Emporium.  But Chris Webb has been converted, Wrox has started a Wrox Twitter thing, and Scoble seems hooked.  Today’s question – will I be sucked in via pure geek peer pressure, or is there something to this Twitter thing? The Twitter tag line is “What are you doing?” and as such, I ask the same question of the Twitter community, with the add on, “How are you doing it?” And so, the adventure begins…