A Tale of Two Twitties
It was the best of Tweets; it was the worst of Tweets.
This is the tale of two books telling about Twitter. The authors are witty in their words, so I call them Twitty. But there are really four authors, not two. Or, the two books, each being an urban landscape of Twitdom, really are two Twitties.
Twitter Power is written by Joel Comm with Ken Burge. Recently I read Comm’s
Click Here to Order, a brief history of online information marketing. His style is engaging and easy.
Twitter Revolution, by Deborah Micek and Warren Whitlock, is strong advocate of getting involved with this revolution.
Both of these books will easily save you from making the worst of Tweets.
The two books are about the same length and have chapter titles that almost match in many cases. The advice they give is similar. The style is quite different.
Twitter Revolution, [hereafter referenced as T-Rev], is hip, right brained and passionate about the rightful place Twitter has in our culture. Twitter Power, [hereafter referenced as T-Pow], is a detailed, left brained how-to discussion that assumes you are committed to learning Twitter.
T-Rev urges corporate readers to get involved, and tells how to do that. T-Pow talks to entrepreneurs and gives advice in the practical, focused way they expect.
On the cover of T-Rev are two pictures of people using hand held devices to text with. The subtitle says, “How Social Media and Mobile Marketing Is [tsk-tsk] Changing the Way We Do Business and Market Online.” [My emphasis.] This may be a clue about the target reader being a veteran “texter.”
T-Pow is a hard cover book with an index, (unlike soft cover, index-less T-Rev). The subtitle tells you “How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.” That may signal online marketers that the book is serious.
T-Rev provides a rich assortment of Twitterers to illustrate points. T-Pow has detailed exposition on how to succeed with Twitter.
Having read both with enjoyment and appreciation, I expect to return to both for slightly different reasons.
I’ll go back to T-Rev to mine the wealth of Tweople between the covers and to support my intuition about the freedom of expression offered by Twitter.
I’ll return to T-Pow for the wealth of marketing knowledge and tools that are listed and well described.
An example of how a key subject is handled by each book can be found in “How to Get Started with Twitter,” in T-Rev, and “Getting Started with Twitter the Right Way,” in T-Pow.
T-Rev gives close attention to the nontechnical side of knowing your brand. Excellent coaching shows the influence of CoachDeb, as you are led to look at the strategic position of your brand. There is also help in case you made mistake already and have to fix it.
T-Pow is precise about the order in which you should do your starting play. You can easily see how you will benefit by following the recommended procedure. The advice facilitates starting you out already looking like you know what you are doing.
T-Rev’s getting started chapter is 14 pages long. T-Pow’s is 37 pages. The first is a little more about who you are. The second is more on how you appear. Both are good.
In T-Pow you will find the mother load in Chapter 13, “Putting it All Together: A 30-Day Plan for Dominating Twitter.” This chapter revisits ideas fully developed earlier and puts them together in a simple plan of action. I liked the clarity with which it shows exactly what you are doing and why.
In T-Rev there is a chapter that similarly spills the beans. Chapter 20, “The Seduction of Twitter,” is a very hip analysis of the big picture. Plus, it has an incredible Tip casually tossed out. This Tip, by itself, is worth the price tag of the book. I’m not going to spoil it.
Go to the book store and look at the top of page 221. I see otherwise articulate and savvy Twitterers violating this Tip and diminishing their impact.
Don’t let yours be the worst of Tweets. Get hip. Get savvy. Get the whole scoop.
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[...] is a right way to do all this. Find out by doing a little study. Twitter Power and The Twitter Revolution are good books to get high quality information. They will steer you [...]