If you’re smart and savvy but have not yet been wooed to the world of Twitter, All a Twitter is for you: All a Twitter: A Personal and Professional Guide to Social Networking with Twitter.
Author Tee Morris writes this book more to the folks who are not quite wooed by Twitter yet but who are twi-curious. The first half of the book is boring but addresses all of the questions of the what, when, where, and how of Twitter.
The second half of the book is not only interesting but has Tee written all over it and offers up the who and the why with quite a dose of subjective opinion, which I find very attractive since too many of these Twitter books don’t come from a place of the personal testimonial.
While the first half may be boring, it is super-useful, taking you by the hand and showing you through all of the steps required to wade into Twitter fully outfitted, including help with my Android G1 phone (something sorely lacking in Twitter for Dummies).
Another thing you might like about this book is that it spends as much time talking about why Twitter sucks and why you should not jump in as it does, convincingly, talking about the why and how, both from the point of view of someone who wants to become part of the Twittersphere and from the point of view of someone who wants to use Twitter as a business or public relations tool.
The chapters on the tools, gear, services, applications, and applets is exhaustive. There is actually no better review of ways to interact with Twitter that I have found in an offline book. One omission that I did find in Twitter For Dummies is a list of how to use Twitter from the “command line:” “d chrisabraham blah” allows you to send a direct message to me. “f chrisabraham” or “follow chrisabraham” follows me without having to click, click, click. There are others shortcuts if you’re using SMS to engage Twitter. This was omitted and I use these every day, especially when I am at a Tweetup and want to follow the person I am talking to — I will drop a “follow teemonster” to add Tee Morris to the folks I follow.
Aside from this arcane omission, which is probably the result of an edit from QUE (“do we really need to include this? I think it will confuse folks!”), the book is comprehensive.
In fact, Morris doesn’t pull any punches. He tells it like he feels it. He even sacrifices our beloved-but-on-our-shitlists Guy Kawasaki in a nationally — possibly internationally — published book about Twitter. I mean, I am not only amazed but, snap, he really has an opinion not only on Twitter but on how it can and should be used — and his advice is good.
You should listen to him. Everything he says you can take to the bank — at least until you have some time in the cockpit yourself. If you follow the advice that the author outlines, you’ll be golden. You will thrive in Twitterville, Twitterverse, the Twittersphere — whatever you call it. I am going to get my assistant on the line and make her bird-dog Tee down and book lunch, maybe beers if I am lucky. I feel like I know him after the book’s 280 pages, and I like him.
Because I like Tee so much after reading the book, I accept the fact that he wants this book to be successful! Yes, it is true that Tee Morris did send me a review copy of his book, but who told him he could harass me like he’s been doing via email and Twitter — talk about entitled! I mean, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get any sort of response from a blogger if you send him a copy of your book.
Tee must have known that I grew up Irish Catholic and that guilt was just the right away to get me to blog about his book. Well, it might have felt that way to him but I actually wasn’t messing with him — I like him (though we have never met, even though he is surely a local Virginia boy — why haven’t we met yet?). What happened is that I only got through half the book before I received a copy of Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods, a book by Shel Israel and a book that mentioned me on page 79, I might add — Shel is one smart cookie.
I am sort of psyched that I waited a while between the first and the last half. When I finished the first half of the book I was super-tired of all of the gear, apps, and tech talk. I was tired of the what, when, where, and how. If I had powered through, I might not have given the book the time and attention it deserved.
In fact, to be honest, Shel did it right. He wrote the who and why part of the book first and added the techie glyphs at the end; however, that’s neither here nor there because I have been tweeting since early spring 2007 and have over ten thousand followers and actually have a PR company that offers Twitter services — of course the remedial and basics stuff would lose me. Don’t let that turn you off.
The only reason I mention it is because the Twitter gurus of the world should not give this book a pass just because they’re Twitter rockstar themselves — the second half of this book is pure gold for everyone, especially we “gurus” (he hates that word) who are constantly navel-gazing. Be sure you get your dirty hands on this book and burn through that Twitter 101 stuff, spend some time with the apps, and then power on to the who and the what and the why of it all.
Really, everyone should be all a-Twitter.Chris Abraham is a partner in Socialmedia.biz. Contact Chris via email, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment below.
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