Twitter Up Your Business: Rockable Mini-Book Review

Twitter seems to have a very polarizing effect on people. Some love it and some hate it. Some even love to hate it when they haven’t even tried the service yet. What makes Twitter so divisive?

Recently, actor Sir Patrick Stewart came down on the usefulness of Twitter in his life calling it too simplistic to reduce life to 140 characters. But whether you agree with the Captain or not, Twitter – when used correctly – can be a extremely beneficial tool for your freelance business.

With its growing list of books, Rockable Press recently released Twitter Up Your Business: How to Market Your Business on Twitter. The mini-book promises to teach you how to use the service, and explains how Twitter can help your business. Let’s see how it delivers.

Engage!

What’s in the Book?

The book is broken down into six sections that take you from an introduction to Twitter to how to use it to market and improve your business.

Let’s take a look at each main chapter:

Introduction to Twitter

I admit that it’s sometimes fun to hate a product just to be different or to go against the grain. I did this with Myspace and Facebook without ever trying the service. I suppose we must think we’re too cool for what’s cool.

The reality of the matter is, if you’re hating on Twitter just to be different, you may be hurting your business. There are certainly plenty of good reasons to not use Twitter, but you will be far better off if you come to an informed decision after trying out the service than just avoiding it for the sake of avoiding it.

In this chapter you’ll get a quick introduction to what Twitter does, some of its uses and whether your business will benefit from using it.

Setting up Your Twitter Environment

It won’t take you long to realize that the default Twitter website is not the most efficient way to use the service. This chapter highlights how to set up your account, what Twitter applications are available and how to brand your profile page to match your company.

Finding People to Follow

I remember when I first started using Twitter it felt a little like talking to myself in an empty room. Fortunately there was a long list of freelancer Twitter users that was already starting to develop.

Since Twitter doesn’t really have a user search, it can often be difficult to find people to follow. This chapter will help you to search for people who share similar interests or network with people in your area.

The chapter also discusses how to filter your follow list by looking at the users profile and previous tweets to see if they will add any value to your Twitter experience.

Delivering Value

Whereas I’m personally interested in what type of coffee you’re currently drinking, most followers will not be. This chapter makes it very clear that the best Twitter users are those that provide value to their followers.

Personally, I’d rather get to know people than be bombarded by article links all the time, but when I was working with Creattica, those article spammers were an incredible resource that made my job so much easier. So it really comes down to knowing what your readers want to read.

How often to post and how to interact with your network is also discussed as well as one of the best ways to see who’s paying attention by asking a question and seeing who responds.

Growing Your Tribe

So now that you’ve got your feet wet with Twitter, it’s time to build and improve your network.

Specific techniques on how to get people to follow you and why following too large a number of people can dilute your Twitter experience are both discussed.

Using Your Tribe to Market Your Business

This last chapter brings the value of Twitter out by teaching you how to leverage your network to expand your business. Whether you’re directing traffic to your site, or using Twitter to help your customers and clients, there are plenty of useful marketing opportunities to the service.

The chapter concludes with several case studies of how businesses are using and benefitting from adopting Twitter.

Conclusion

While the mini-book doesn’t get into a few areas I wish it did like how to overcome Twitter-overload and ways to keep the noise down, the book delivers incredible value for those that are new to Twitter or who are uncertain of its value.

The book is available from Rockable Press for $8.00 for the PDF and $13.00 for the paperback.

Get a 25% Discount on Twitter Up Your Business

Rockable Press is offering a 25% discount coupon for FreelanceSwitch readers on the PDF version of “Twitter Up Your Business“. All you need to do is use the coupon code FreelanceSwitch in the checkout when ordering your copy of the book. This offer ends on the 31st of March, 2010.