Sketchbook

By: Joel Comm

In the name of full disclosure I must say I knew virtually nothing about Twitter before I read this book. I knew that it was similar to the Facebook status and that everyone seemed to be on Twitter. I definitely did not see what the big deal was, and honestly, I still don’t. However, that is most likely my own inability to adapt to yet another social network.  I do think it’s cool that I can follow Barack Obama and that an amazing author can follow me (did I mention I geeked out over Alyson B. Stanfield following me on Twitter?! No? Well she is and I am geeking out.)

Now for the book review:

I did receive a few very good ideas from this book. I do feel that I know much more about the purpose of Twitter now, even if I am not amazed by it yet. According to Comm, and I am sure many other people, Twitter is one giant conversation. You can have a conversation with anyone and with millions of people. It’s 24 hours and the party never stops. Twitter is a way to market yourself and to communicate with businesses that are marketing to you. Most importantly Twitter is for experts. Lots of experts twittering about what they do. People asking experts questions and experts linking to things. If you have enough experts following you then you too can be an expert. Or at least play one on Twitter.

Comm told me how to tweet, when to tweet, and what kind of tweets I should be tweeting.  One of the most helpful topics in Twitter Power is the Twitter applications.  These applications help you use Twitter to it’s fullest potential as a marketing and communications tool.

This book will tell you whether or not it’s important to have a custom background (it is), how to find out who your biggest followers are, and how to find out if you are being talked about.

I like that this book has a 30 day plan, but I wish it was at the front of the book. I could have been implementing the plan while reading the rest of the book and I think that would have kept my interest up.  I say check that out first and get to work.

I skimmed at least one full chapter of the book because some of it wasn’t as useful to a one person business, but I was still able to glean a bit from those parts and apply it to my situation.

I found Twitter Power to be a bit dry and very repetitive. Even with all the technical speak, which probably isn’t as much as I thought, it was still a pretty fast read and like I said in the beginning I learned some good tips. Plus a little repetition never hurt anyone, I hear it takes a person hearing something three times before they know it. I’m pretty sure I will be referring back to this book and the notes I took in the future.

Comm donates 10 percent of his proceeds of the “book to WaterIsLive.com, a nonprofit organization working to provide clean drinking water to a portion of the one-half billlion of the world’s population who are deprived of our most basic need.” (Comm, dedication page)

I am still confused about Twitter and all that goes with it, but I think that will only subside with practice. I do recommend this book for anyone who is interested in using Twitter to get in touch with their clients and/or discuss their field of business with other people who are interested. Twitter is the networking tool and that is pretty exciting.

If you have read the book or read the book, let me know what you think. I’d love to hear some of the ideas that this book inspired.

Note: There will now be a link to the right for all the books on the book review list. (Just one of the many ideas I learned about from Twitter Power) If you are interested in the book and use the link on the left I earn 4%. I do not get paid to review the books. I solely review books that I read for my business. My reviews are exactly what I think of the book and what I would tell any one asking my personal opinion about said books. I am just trying to pass on any useful information and get a discussion going about that information.

Note II: Originally posted 9/29/09 at blog.limitedpalette.com