Like many of you, I use Twitter. (@chriswebb) I use it for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional but have always thought of it as a very ‘personal’ tool. By that I mean it’s an ecosystem of *people* that despite the distance and in some cases, anonymity, relate to each other. It is a social tool – I mean it is called “social media” for a reason.

But I am seeing a trend among several users who are opting for an automated response to everyone who follows them. For example, today I got the following warm-hearted response from someone I followed:

“Thanks for following me! Find GREAT Real Estate deals w/my E-Book (link omitted)”

Wow, how…personal.

So, do I respond personally to everyone who follows me on Twitter? No. But I also don’t send some impersonal canned response either. Instead, I’ll choose to actually engage you in conversation at some point using the tool. That’s the point, isn’t it? Just using Twitter and other tools like it as just another channel to send the same spammy messages one might use in other media is completely missing the point.

The same goes for Authors who use social tools as part of their personal platforms to help support their books. I encourage you to use tools like Twitter – in fact it is becoming more important that you do just that. But use the tools in the way they were meant to be used.

Why not just tweet a simple welcome to new followers?  Maybe 5 or so at a time?  At least then people know you are actually doing it and not relegating it to some cold, automated script. If you can’t manage that for some reason, then just skip it.  I’d rather see nothing than an autoreply.

Do you use an automated, canned response for your Twitter followers?

Book trailers hit the scene earlier this year as a creative way for publishers to promote and market their new titles.  Many have been straight forward, and others have been rather dramatic – more like a movie trailer than a book and that’s the point after all. But I really like what Capstone have done with this tongue in cheek approach to the viral.  The style of the video is true to the Capstone brand, and creates the desired buzz while having a lot of fun with the subject.  It also engages the viewer, and converts them from a passive consumer of media into an active participant.

As we publishers figure out how media like video fit into more traditional approaches to marketing, it is good to see Wiley colleagues like the Capstone team breaking out of the old media mold.

If you want to play along, watch the video below, and visit http://dearcelebrity.co.uk for your chance to win an iPod Touch (subject, of course to contest rules and deadlines.)

How, did this happen?  In this particular case it is clearly the recommendation of Coding Horror’s Jeff Atwood.  His single post about the book sent it flying off Amazon.com’s virtual shelves, and started a conversation that included over 100 comments on Jeff’s blog and created a viral effect as several other blogs picked up on the story.

The lesson here for authors is not only do you need positive reviews of your books, but certain reviews can be  more effective than others.  You need a targeted approach to get your book not just in front of many people, but also the right people.

Think about who might have the biggest impact on your book.  The answer is not Oprah Winfrey – let’s keep it realistic.  Who is a trusted adviser, or connector within the community of your readership?  We use tools like the Author Questionnaire to help us answer these questions.  If your publisher is not using a similar tool, create your own and work with the marketing an PR departments on a targeted approach to get your work in front of the right people.

UPDATE: Looks like Charles Petzold is discussing this on his blog as well.

Do you think this approach is more effective than “traditional” marketing methods?

Authors can learn a lot from the personal branding and social media marketing advice of Chris Brogan who recently offered 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media. Of course, Chris is not speaking about books in particular, but that’s the beauty of his advice – it can be applied to many different situations where your personal brand and growing online network can make a difference.

I’ve written quite a bit on the subject here as well, but with a focus on book publishing. Check out the following and the Related Posts links for some of my thoughts on how book authors can promote their work with social media.

• Why Word of Mouth Matters
• Book Marketing for Authors: The Author Questionnaire
• Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com
• Amazon.com as a Social Network
• Looks Like We Are About to Get Bum Rushed by the Age of Conversation
• The Making of A Bestseller: A Case Study in The Meme

(Image credit: emdot)

I am a Vayniac.

Seriously, Wine TV is great, but trust me – the real gold is on Gary Vaynerchuk’s blog. If you don’t already read it, start. I have found that Gary’s approach to business and social media in particular is applicable to whatever field in which you happen to be.

For example, with more than 200,000 400,000 books published each year, word of mouth marketing can make or break you. Below is Gary on how he cuts through all the noise of the social web, and why word of mouth is critical. Sure, he is speaking from his own experiences with Wine TV, but it absolutely applies to book authors as well.

Who should lead the social media charge in your organization?

You probably already know who this person is within your organization. It may be the technie who brags that she’s been blogging since 1999, or the corporate communications person who loves to talk with customers on external bulletin boards. This person is probably also a bit a thorn in the side of management, constantly agitating for under-represented customers who are suffering some sort of injustice at the hands of management that just “doesn’t get it”.

How should companies turn these radicals into revolutionaries?

1. Define the “box” (policies, legal clearance, etc.) within which they are allowed to act;
2. Make it safe(r) for them to try things – and to fail; and
3. Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.If you don’t feel slightly queasy embarking on a social strategy, you’re probably not moving fast or far enough.

I understand the need for item 1, but also think this is where companies get “hung up” and prevent real a revolution from occurring.

What do you think of this approach?

(Photo credit estherase)

Age of Conversation is a self-published work that the authors describe as follows:

In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page — 400 words — on the topic of “conversation”. The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

All proceeds (less costs) will go to the Variety, the Children’s Charity.

It will be really interesting to watch Wilson’s marketing plan in action, which is a literal bum rush on Amazon.com on March 29 in an effort to push the book to the top of the bestseller list. Wilson’s call to action:

With the infinite amount of social sites and connections on the web, this is a huge undertaking. That is why I came up with this plan of action list with the highest priority items at the top. The idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

1. Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the number 1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847992994?ie=UTF8&tag= drewmclellan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325& creativeASIN=1847992994
2. Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)
3. Twitter Commentary - Join Drew and I as we give a Bum Rush play-by-play on Twitter. (Follow us: @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @Servantofchaos) We also ask that everyone saying anything about the Bum Rush to use the code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com
4. Trackback or Comment on the post that I will leave here on March 29th at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.)
5. Digg the posts listed here & send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.
6. Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same.
7. Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us
8. Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)
9. Send an Old Fashioned email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.
10. Keep talking – Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.

(Hat tip Douglas Karr)

I’m launching a quant study to fuel two pieces of research: 1) The first is focused on identifying the levels of maturity among interactive marketers across industries. When finished this report will define the different interactive marketing maturity levels, the characteristics of firms at each level, and also present a roadmap for growing from lower to higher levels of maturity; and 2) The Interactive Marketing Channels To Watch in 2008. This piece is an update to our annual study examining which interactive tools marketers are using, piloting or planning to pilot in 2008. We’d love your input on this study. If you or one of your colleagues is involved with interactive channels (e.g. email marketing, search marketing, display ads, social networking, blogs, widgets, mobile) we would love your input in our research.

https://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=139WBA5JZDB56

As I have written before, I keep 2 Twitter identities, one of which is one of our brands, Wrox.  The identities are distinctly different, but both “me” – @chriswebb is Chris Webb, editor who talks about publishing, social applications and their occasional intersection.  @wrox is still Chris Webb, editor, but the conversation focuses on programming, web development, .NET and other topics of interest to Wrox readers.

Why keep them separate?  Well, followers of @wrox may not care at all about what @chriswebb has to say about social media and publishing in general, while @chriswebb followers probably are not interested in the latest ASP.NET MVC release.  It is not obvious to @wrox followers that it is Chris Webb behind the username (although I don’t really hide that fact,) and I don’t think they care.  To them it’s just Wrox – a source of programming books and online content.

I touched on this subject briefly via Twitter earlier today, and got an intersting comment from a follower of both @wrox and @chriswebb:

@wrox is fundamentally different than, say, @mcdonalds or @tylenol
@wrox has the ability to gather a community (in this case developers) into one, big conversation. it’s a great experiment.

But back to Shel’s point – is Wrox being social or is it all just Chris Webb?  Is part of what defines the Wrox brand already social?  What do you think?