By Joel Comm
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Published February 2009 (Hardcover) John Wiley & Sons
More Info: Joel Comm
Join the 20-million people on Twitter. It’s come on like a storm, and Joel Comm says Twitter isn’t going away. I talked to Joel today about his book Twitter Power. He was one of the early adopters in 2007, and now, he says, he’s an evangelist for the social networking tool.
“Is Twitter a fad?” I ask.
“No,” Joel answers. “We need Twitter.” He says it’s going to be huge. Joel says the other social networking sites are bloated. And, just check out Facebook, which boldly copied Twitter’s “what are you doing?” with its status reports. I resisted Facebook’s departure from its earlier format, but now I can’t even remember what that was! Plus, it’s a time-saver, because I can post the same 140-characters for Twitter and Facebook simultaneously.
The basics? Joel says to choose a user name that fits your brand. Mine is DianaInspires. Your picture — don’t use a shot of your dog or a flower, for heaven’s sake. He says you want a smiling face — your face. And go for the custom background.
You don’t sell on Twitter. You don’t hound people with your products or services. You give value. You follow conversations on topics in your field, and you contribute what you know, what you observe. Be authentic, transparent, and inspire people to trust you. That trust, Joel says, is your doorway to transactions.
What I love about this conversation I’m having with Joel, is that the conversation that buzzes between these 20-million and more people is, essentially, a new revolution. It seems to me that this is another generation of what our Founding Fathers had in mind for our country. If each of us gives voice to what we believe and what we know to be true, how powerful are we! This country, founded on liberty, gets a new gasp of air, after nearly being smothered to death by corporate greed and governmental blindness.
As a journalist, I bristle somewhat at the ability just anyone has to post un-truths, but Joel argues it’s the old “don’t believe everything you read”. He points out how Twitter was first to post the stories of Michael Jackson’s death, the Mumbai attacks, the revolution in Iran.
I get that. It is far better to serve Lady Liberty than to trudge along in the same old sorry grooves our media has made in our national landscape.
Welcome, Twitter, there’s nothing frivolous about you.
